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Shoppolis Islands Information

When I think back, I can't remember a time that I was not allowed to drink.  My name is Gordon, and I am here to talk about the drinking aspect of Shoppolis Islands.  For a nation not identified by its collective level of inebriation, SI has quite a few bars, taverns and saloons.  As far as statistics go, SI citizens are more prone to have a few cocktails and fall into a late evening beach moonlight slumber, or go home early and get a good night's sleep than fight or get involved in illegal acts.  The volume of intoxicating beverages consumed is quite high but it seems to be distributed out quite well over the entire population.  Some say, that our rather casual attitude about everyday matters could be attributed to at least one stop somewhere; we prefer to think that our propensity to stop to "smell the flowers," or "pinch a grape," is part of the tropical way of life.  Tourism provides a substantial increase in our statistics, particularly in South Beach where the ships dock.  Our hotels send more product over the bar than any independent establishment except for the SI Bar & Grill (depicted above) because of our famous "Andy the Bartender," and SI's Charter Bar. 

There is no drinking age in SI, because it is believed that younger drinkers should be under the rules and regulations of their respective families rather that of the state.  On the other hand, the types of drinks served are regulated to a degree.  High alcohol drinks (15% or higher) are not served to anyone under 18, but beers and wines can be.  These decisions are left to the discretion of the property owner rather than the state.  The population of SI is well aware that if we don't moderate our own collective drinking habits, our own society may step in, and that is considered insulting, therefore, we drink only to moderation or within our own homes and clubs under our own rules of conduct, as long as our habits don't interfere with the common good.  Cigarette, pipe and cigar smoking is more controlled than other substances (besides illegal drugs) and is permitted only in institutions where the patrons have agreed to smoke.  Those who do not want to have smoke are encouraged to patronize establishments forbidding smoking.  Marijuana is frowned upon but not illegal unless purchased.

In order to home-grow, a license must be purchased, so SI knows all sources.  It is illegal to import or export.  If it is proven that marijuana smoking led to a punishable offense, the perpetrator is subject to the consequences of his/her act with smoking considered to be a contributing factor.  SI practices a certain degree of tolerance and understanding of personal preferences and prefers to "accommodate and regulate" rather than "forbid and punish."  As with alcohol, smoking is addressed within the family sphere rather than the state's.

Bar and Shanty Talk

Belle Ela Pequod Asnivor is a direct descendant of Desmond Pequod, Sailing Master of the Prize Mary, the ship that brought our ancestors to Shoppolis Islands.  She is an acknowledged historian of SI, as well as a person of "words."  She teaches part-time in the various school districts and enjoys collecting trivia.  Her favorite pasttimes include Ripley's and the worlds' records in Guiness.  As a proud descendant of a remarkable navigator and seaman, she enjoys interlacing the contemporary with the vintage and enjoys combining various subjects.  In her words, "too much of too much is too much."  We have no argument with that logic.  We thank her and her loyal staff, Pretty Bond and Alex Boringan, for their compilation of fun bar and shanty talk.

• "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language, unless you assume the sentence is a response to another, i.e., "Who should I give this to?" and the response is "Me." (implied, "Give it to me.")
• Actress Faye Wray is the most famous actress no one knows (starred in the first King Kong).
• "Kemo Sabe" the name Tonto used to refer to the Lone Ranger means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.
• "Long in the tooth," meaning "old," was originally used to describe horses. As horses age, their gums recede, giving the impression that their teeth are growing. The longer the teeth look, the older the horse.
• "Second string," meaning "replacement or backup," comes from the middle ages. An archer always carried a second string in case the one on his bow broke.
• 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the only Disney cartoon featuring both parents who are present and don't die throughout the movie.
• A "Blue Moon" is the second full moon in a calendar month.
• A black cook named William Chapman not only knew how to cook meals on the early 1800s American yacht, Cleopatra’s Barge, he could also work lunar observations by three separate methods. He impressed the noted astronomer, Baron Franz Xavier von Zach considerably.
• A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
• A ghost writer pens an anonymous book.
• A group of packets that looked very much like clippers were made in Maine and became the backbone of the sailing merchant marine in the latter days of sailing. These were called Down-Easters in around 1873. These ships were designed to trade with Europe and ply the coasts. There were no outstanding names in design or building, just about fifty builders who built the same types of ships for the same reason. Alaska packers from the north wanted ships to do what the Down-Easters did. Therefore a number of Northwest Down-Easters were built to serve the Alaska Packers Association. The first built was the George Skolfield. Later, when they ordered steel ships, all were called "stars".
• A poem written to celebrate a wedding is called an epithalamium.
• A real-life American pirate named Charles Gibbs, who served on the Hornet and Chesapeake, took to piracy in 1831. He was subsequently caught and hanged with his partner, Wansley.
• A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.
• A ship at its best was agreed to have, "yards braced well up with all plain sail drawing, full and by."
• A speleologist studies caves.
• Actor Tommy Lee Jones and Vice-President Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
• All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
• An example of a large-sized schooner is the Thomas, W. Lawson. She was over 5000 tons, had seven masts with fore-and-aft sails and was 385 feet long by 50 feet wide. She sailed with a crew of sixteen. The masts were, fore, main, mizzen, jigger, kicker, spanker and pusher.
• An interesting coincidence in ship names comes from one of the early American brigs called the Andrew Doria and the superliner Andrea Doria that was hit by the Stockholm in the 1960 and sank.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.
• Average number of people airborne over the United States any given hour is 61,000.
• Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
• Cannibalism, eating human flesh, is also called anthropophagy.
• Captain Godfrey Wicksteed died in 1997 at the age of 98. He was a master mariner and ship-rigging advisor to the Cutty Sark Foundation. He began sailing before the mast on the barque Bellands in 1914, was Captain Alan Villiers first mate on the replica Mayflower, commanded the Joseph Conrad and worked aloft on the Cutty Sark until he was 87.
• Captain Isaac Hull of the USS Constitution gave a model of the Constitution to the Salem, Massachusetts Peabody Museum (founded by the East India Marine Society in 1799) in 1813. It is still there for all to see.
• Captain Joshua Slocum was given a command as a joke. It was a small sloop in a cow pasture. He took the joke, rebuilt the boat as the Spray, and became the first person to sail, single-handedly, around the world. In 1909, he purposely sailed, at age 65, into wild southeast gale and vanished forever.
• China has more English-speaking people than the United States.
• Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down. As a result, the expression "to get fired" came about.
• Commander Gustavus Conyngham (an Irishman) was the most continuously effective naval officer in the war for independence. He was a privateer with a commission in the navy but was called a pirate by the British because he captured and held ransom, the King’s mail ship Prince of Orange. His ship was the Revenge.
• Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400.
• Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
• Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?
• DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleicacid.
• Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he didn’t wear pants.
• During Prohibition, a man named Bill McCoy, took his schooner from Bermuda to the island of St. Pierre, off the coast of Newfoundland, on business which was filling his boat with excellent rum, sailing the cargo north, and selling it to buyers who smuggled the bottles into the United States. His rum was so good, they used to call it "the real McCoy", and that’s where the expression came from. He was caught, spent nine months in jail and resumed business with another boat. His new name, in Al Capone’s books, was Black Dog.
• Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David; Clubs – Alexander the Great; Hearts – Charlemagne; Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
• Early yacht racing evolved from friendly but intense competitions among yacht designers and designers of fast pilot boats in the mid 1800s.
• Every day more money is printed for the game Monopoly than the U.S. Treasury.
• First novel ever written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer.
• Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
• If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
• If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the
  rate of reproduction would continue to develop the line faster than they could pass.
• If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white.
• If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the
  bottom.
• In Indiana, it is illegal to ride public transportation for at least thirty minutes after eating garlic.
• In Minnesota, it is illegal to cross state lines with a duck on your head.
• In old English shipbuilding, "rebuilding" a ship meant that a new ship was built with as many materials and elements of an older ship as possible.
• In the 1600s, a typical ball fired from the largest guns mounted on ships of the line weighed 48 pounds.
• In the late 1600s, the French captains of French Ships of the Line used to cut away the fancy sculpture on the sterns of their ships to lighten them for sea and battle. It would appear that the captains had interesting explanations of to how their adversaries could shoot so well as to hit figures on both sides of the stern in such a perfect way.
• In the late 1600s, the French naval hero, Abraham Du Quesne, created a special ship called a bomb ketch which had its foremast removed and its construction built more heavily. It was designed to deliver 200 pound mortar bombs on the pirate town of Algiers. It worked.
• In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
• In the time of President Jefferson, a unique gunboat innovation called a Hawkins Wheel was used. It was a wheel on which two guns facing in opposite directions. While one was fired, the other was loaded, and so on.
• Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
• It appears that a Florentine (someone from Florence, Italy) named Amerigo Vespucci sent his patrons, the Family de Medici, an account of four voyages to a new continent in 1504. It appears that America was named in his honor, but he did not name it. The naming seems to have been by a humanist poet named Matthias Ringmann. He referred, in some of his verse, to a place called Amerige or America. A mapmaker named Martin Waldseemuller put the name on some of his maps in around 1507. When Ringmann died in 1511, Waldseemuller dropped the name from his maps, but the name stuck.
• It appears that in the battle for Tripoli on August 3, 1804, James Decatur, Stephen’ brother stepped aboard a prize ship he had taken and was killed. It is reputed that Stephen was after his brother’s killer when Daniel Frazer saved his life.
• It is interesting to note that warships tended to set all ship’s boats adrift or tow them in battle and were used by both sides if either ship sank. This was done for survival reasons and to keep down the probability of splintered debris rendering the deck unmannable. It is also interesting, that livestock was also floated free during battle and picked up later (assuming the vessel won the battle, otherwise, to the victor go the spoils).
• It is reputed that the Chesapeake Bay area was the first to produce distinctively American types of vessels because of the requirements of the plantation-crowded Bay and its supply and shipping lines.
• It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
• It was Charles the Second who, by racing up and down the Thames for fun, began the races at Cowes (the one won by the America later in the time of Queen Victoria). She was rigged as a gaff-head cutter with bilge boards for keels.
• It was Joshua Humphreys of the USA who suggested the oversized frigates with many guns that could outrun ships of the line and survive heavy weather that resulted in ships like the USS Constitution.
• It's possible to lead a cow up stairs, but not down stairs.
• John C. Stephens, Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, sent the America, a pilot schooner built by William H. Brown, owned by George Steers, to Cowes in England for a race. The captain was a pilot captain named Dick Brown. She won the race in 1851. When the then Queen, Victoria, viewing the race from her royal yacht, asked an aide, "and who is second?", she was told, "Your Majesty, there is no second."
• John Paul Jones and the Ranger were called pirates by the British because of capturing the Drake in British waters and, with the Bon Homme Richard, the capture of the Serapis within sight of shore. The Serapis was a fifth-rate ship, the highest lost by the British by 1779.
• Many of the great bone models of ships came from prisoners on prison ships and in on-land prisons. They were allowed to keep all money they earned for anything they produced that was sold on the outside. Two examples are in the museum at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
• Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
• Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
• More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
• Nathaniel Bowditch, 1773 to 1838, is considered the father of American navigation.
• No term existed for "homosexuality" in ancient Greece. There were only a variety of expressions referring to specific homosexual roles. The old Greek culture regarded male/male love in the highest regard.
• No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
• Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
• Of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions.
• Older packet designs had length to width ratios of 3 to 1. The clipper ships had ratios of a low of 4.5 to 1 to a high of 6 to 1. The schooner Thomas W. Lawson (seven masts) had an incredible ratio of 8 to 1.
• On a sailing ship, any jib-shaped sail bent (attached) to a stay (supporting cable or rope) is called a staysail. Most of these can be seen flying between the masts.
• On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
• One of the first great yacht races involved the race of three schooners, the Henrietta, owned by James Gordon Bennett, the Fleetwing, owned by G. and F. Osgood, and the Vesta, owned by Pierre Lorillard, from Sandy Hook Lightship to the Isle of Wight on December 11, 1866. The Henrietta won by about nine hours.
• One of the foremost master shipbuilders known to history was the renowned Phineas Pett, a man from an old shipbuilding family, who built the English Prince Royal in 1610.
• One of the last large schooners, one of the Palmer schooners, was sunk in the First World War by a U-boat.
• One of the most famous pilot schooners (small sailing vessels that placed pilot captains aboard ships entering American inland waters, i.e., New York Harbor and the Hudson River) was the Edward F. Williams.
• Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
• Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
• Out of Columbus’ three ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, he liked the Nina best, but he didn’t like the lateen sails and had them changed to square sails bent to yardarms.
• Pearls melt in vinegar.
• Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%.
• Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%.
• Phineas Pett, the great English shipwright, was tasked by Lord Howard, the Lord Admiral, to make a miniature ship model of the Ark Royal for the prince. In March of 1604, the prince went on board the real ship, and Pett presented the model. The next day, Pett was sworn in as the Prince’s servant and appointed captain of the model. He also impressed the king’s other son, Charles who ordered Pett, after growing up and taking command, to build the Sovereign of the Seas. The gilded parts of the Sovereign of the Seas were created by Gerard Christmas and his sons.
• Polar bears are left-handed.
• Rhythms is the longest English word without vowels (assuming y is not included).
• Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
• Sailing ships (that looked very much like the Chesapeake Bugeyes) plied Delaware Bay in the 1930s to save oyster beds from "other types of power". These were called oyster dredges.
• Seven years before Commodore Perry visited Japan, Commodore James Biddle visited Japan in 1846 with the Vincennes and the Columbus. After trading cordialities, over one hundred Japanese boats towed the American ships out of the harbor and watched them leave peacefully assured that no more would return.
• Snails can sleep for three years without eating.
• State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work is Alaska.
• Stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand using a qwerty keyboard.
• Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
• The "O" when used as a prefix in Irish surnames means "descendant of."
• The airplane Buddy Holly died in was called the "American Pie," the title of the popular Don McLean song of the same name.
• The average human eats eight spiders in a lifetime during the night.
• The basic Dutch East Indiamen were built of various sizes and shapes but were eventually kept to 499 tons because, at the time, any ship of 500 tons or more had to carry a chaplain. The owners of the company did not want that added expense.
• The bulk of the "seaman" aboard Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s ships, Lawrence and Niagara, on Lake Erie in 1813 were actually Kentucky riflemen.
• The century in which there were the least developments for the ship was the 17th.
• The city with the most Rolls Royce's per capita is Hong Kong.
• The clipper ship genius is unquestionably Donald McKay of East Boston, Massachusetts. Second is William H. Webb who produced fewer ships but made them just as well and just as fast. McKay’s ships took three of the twelve documented incidents of ships going faster than 18 or more knots. Of the twelve, nine were McKay’s. One of the fastest, the Sovereign of the Seas, with his brother Lauchlan McKay as master, logged 22 knots (410 miles per day) on two occasions. The fastest is McKay’s Champion of the Seas with a record of 465 miles per day. Both clipper developers, Donald McKay and William Webb learned their trade from Isaac Webb, William’s father. McKay worked for $2.50 per week and, in his indenture agreement, agreed to have nothing to do with taverns, playhouses or matrimony.
• The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
• The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
• The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight
  sections can be used as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
• The event that caused many a great clipper ship to be designed, built and sailed was to compete in the "tea races" that brought tea back from the Orient. One particularly wealthy man, John Willis, commissioned Hercules Linton to make him a ship. The result was the Cutty Sark. Before she could compete, the Suez Canal was opened, and the route changed. Cutty Sark was moved to the wool trade in Australia. She still is listed as one of the fastest sailing vessels in history.
• The famous New York Yacht Club was founded in 1844 at a meeting aboard the schooner Gimcrack. As a result, a race involving three yachts led to a victory by Captain Samuel Samuels, former skipper of the clipper Dreadnought.
• The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so,
  that they could be confused at a crime scene.
• The first American drydocks were used in 1833; the first ship into the maintenance facilities at Gosport Navy Yard (later called Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia) was the Delaware, a 74-gun, triple-decker.
• The first American frigate to actually go to sea was the Randolph (32 guns) commanded by Captain Nicholas Biddle. He and all but four of his crew were lost to the British Yarmouth (64 guns) when his ship’s magazine blew up in 1777.
• The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
• The first large American yacht owned by a private citizen was Cleopatra’s Barge, a 191-ton ship built by Captain George Crowningshield, Jr. in 1816, who took her to Europe as evidence of the new American wealth. The yacht eventually ended up the royal yacht of Hawaii for King Kamehameha II.
• The first man to sail a yacht around the world was Lord Brassey aboard his schooner Sunbeam in 1877.
• The first naval vessel of the independent United States to visit Europe was the brig Reprisal (16 guns) in 1778. She carried Benjamin Franklin to Europe and foundered on a ledge on the return voyage.
• The first royal yacht of England was built in Amsterdam for the Dutch East India Company and was brought by the Dutch Admiralty to England for presentation to Charles the Second on his restoration to the throne in 1660. She was named the Mary.
• The first tall ship gathering, OpSail, was in 1964 and drew a number of the world’s greatest surviving sailing ships. It was the beginning of the growing interest that we see today.
• The gilding on English ships in the 1600s was mostly yellow paint. The only true gilding (gold) was on the royal arms.
• The Hawaiian alphabet has twelve letters.
• The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
• The largest first-rate ship ever to enter the American Navy was the 130-gun, triple-decker, Pennsylvania, in 1837. In 1861 she was burned along with the frigate, United States, and nine other vessels at the Norfolk, Virginia, Navy Yard to prevent the ships falling into the hands of rebels.
• The largest of all vessels built of wood was a clipper called the Great Republic launched in 1853. She was 325 feet long, 53 feet wide and had three masts. Her speed was never achieved because of a pre-maiden-voyage fire that caused her rig to be reduced.
• The last naval battle in which galleys were actively employed was fought at Matapan in 1717.
• The last thing to happen is the ultimate. The next-to-last is the penultimate, and the second-to-last is the antepenultimate.
• The little Ann McKim, built in Baltimore in 1832 may be the first true clipper ship. Others say it was the Scottish Maid, built in 1839 to sail between Aberdeen, Scotland and London, England. Even so, the first recognized clipper was the Rainbow, built by John W. Griffiths, and launched in New York in 1845. These were called Baltimore Clippers.
• The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
• The magnetic north pole is located several hundred miles from "true north," and the same is true for the south magnetic pole with respect to "true south." For navigation purposes, the difference between the magnetic and geographic poles is termed variation. Errors caused by magnetic influences that are close to the compass are called deviation.
• The man attributed to saving Captain Stephen Decatur’s life in Tripoli was Reuben James, after whom a US Navy destroyer was named, was not really the man who sacrificed his life for the captain. It was Daniel Frazer, after whom no ship was named. Interestingly, Reuben James did volunteer to accompany Decatur in the ketch Intrepid to burn the captured frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli.
• The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
• The masts of the Thomas W. Lawson were constructed with a 135-foot long metal lower mast on which a 58-foot pine topmast was stepped to total an overall mast height of 193 feet give or take a few.
• The model from which the yacht America was designed was, most probably, the Mary Taylor built in 1949. The story of the America, after her victory: She was sold in England in 1851, renamed the Camilla in 1853 and rebuilt at Northfleet in 1859. In 1861, she was resold in American and was used by the Confederate fleet under the name of Memphis. After being scuttled, captured and refloated, she was used by the Federal Navy under her original name, America. Sold in 1873 and again rebuilt, this time in Boston in 1880, she was used for cruising and racing until the outbreak of WWI. She was scrapped in 1940 following a fire.
• The most famous clipper ship of all times still exists in Greenwich, England. She is the Cutty Sark built in 1869 by Hercule Linton.
• The most senior yacht club in the USA is the Southern Yacht Club of New Orleans founded in 1849. It is the most senior, because the New York Yacht Club and Eastern Yacht Club of Boston, both founded before the SYC, were not in their originals places. The SYC is still in the same place.
• The name "schooner" supposedly came from Massachusetts shipbuilder Andrew Robinson who, in 1713, heard a woman admire his new ship and exclaim, "how she schoons." He picked up on the name, and called his ships schooners. The name stuck.
• The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
• The New York Yacht Club was formed in 1844.
• The objective in sail warfare was to remain windward of it to either avoid conflict, control it and, eventually, win it.
• The oldest pictures of boats are from Egypt in about 3400 BC.
• The oldest reputed yacht club in the world is credited to the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork founded in 1720. Its direct descendant is the Royal Cork Yacht Club.
• The oldest yacht club retaining its original name and location is the Starcross Yacht Club founded in 1772 on the River Exe in Devon, England.
• The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope.
• The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
• The pop you get when you crack your knuckles is actually a bubble of gas bursting.
• The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
• The ridges on the sides of coins are called reeding or milling.
• The Rule of Thumb for navigation seems to have come from a Mexican navigator named Garcia de Palacio who used his thumb for calculations. He eventually evolved four Rules of Thumb that included calculations up to AD 2500.
• The San Francisco cable cars are the only mobile U.S. National Monuments.
• The schooner was the first topsail ship in America to have all sail handling from the deck as opposed to aloft. The Sea Flower, a pink-stern schooner (pointed) with a nock staysail bent to a topmast jumper stay, was one of the first in 1836. This type of boat was eventually called an Eastport Pinkie.
• The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," uses every letter in the English alphabet.
• The ships we know now as "clippers" came to us in 1845, the first of which was constructed by John W. Griffiths and went by the name of Rainbow.
• The shortest poem that contains all the essential properties of a poem is "Fleas" by Ogden Nash. It goes, "Adam had ‘em."
• The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after thirty-eight minutes.
• The side of a hammer is a cheek.
• The sloop Fancy is supposed to be the earliest named vessel depicted in a picture (piece of art).
• The steering wheel began to replace the whipstaff in the beginning of the eighteenth century and was used exclusively on American frigates.
• The story of American sail actually begins in Maine (then called northwesterly Virginia) in around 1607 with the landing of the Mary and John and the Gift of God which brought a master shipwright named Digby who later built the Virginia (of Sagadahoc) that sailed for twenty years and made many crossings. The rest is history.
• The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
• The studding sail came into use as early as 1549 on Scottish galeasses and into prominence around 1660.
• The sugar bonds for DNA include guanine, cytocine and atrophine.
• The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."
• The term "honeymoon" is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride's parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding.
• The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the 50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it expended "the whole 9 yards."
• The term "throw one's hat in the ring" comes from boxing, where throwing a hat into the ring once signified a challenge. Today it nearly always signifies political candidacy.
• The three most-valuable brand names on earth include Marlboro, Coca-Cola and Budweiser, in that order.
• The triple-decker Sovereign of the Seas was remarkable in many ways. The ship, built for Charles I of England by Phineas Pett in 1637, was the first ship reputed to carry royals (the sail above the topgallants), was the most richly decorated ship of the time (believed to have been gilded by master carver Gerard Christmas), had the first round stern and was the biggest ship at the time (not to be outdone for another 150 years). It was called "The Golden Devil" by the Dutch. The foe that defeated the Sovereign of the Seas in 1696 was an overturned galley candle that sealed her fate. She went up in flames, not down in battle.
• The United States produced three triple-decker 74-gun ships after the War of 1812, the Independence, sold out of service in 1914, the Vermont, launched in 1845 and retired in 1902, and the Ohio, in commission for sixty-three years and sold for commercial use in 1883.
• The venom in a Daddy Long-Legs spider is more poisonous than a Black Widow's or a Brown Recluse’s, but they cannot bite humans because their jaws won't open wide enough.
• The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
• The winter of 1932 was so cold Niagara Falls froze solid.
• The word "assassination" was invented by Shakespeare.
• The word "coach" is derived from the village of Kocs, Hungary, where coaches were invented and first used.
• The word "homosexual" was not coined until 1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert.
• The word "honcho" comes from a Japanese word meaning "squad leader" and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.
• The word "karate" means "empty hand."
• The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
• The word 'news' did not come about because it was the plural of 'new.' It came from the first letters of the words North, East, West and South. This was because information was being gathered from all different directions.
• The word yacht most likely came from the Dutch word jacht which meant small, swift-sailing vessel. A jacht was presented by Amsterdam, Holland, to Charles II in 1660. He liked it so much, he had a flotilla built and raced them. Hence, the name yachting came into play.
• The world's largest alphabet is Cambodian, with 74 letters.
• The world's most widely spoken language is the Mandarin dialect of Chinese, with 500 million speakers.
• The world's youngest parents were eight and nine and lived in China in 1910.
• The youngest pope was eleven years old.
• The ZIP in Zip-code stands for "Zoning Improvement Plan."
• There are no drawings or records defining the Mayflower. No one knows exactly what she looked like even though a replica was built and sailed by Captain Alan Villiers.
• Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
• Two women, Mrs. M’Dowell and Miss Mary Harley passed ammunition and powder aboard the American ship Planter when she was attacked by an unnamed French privateer in 1800; two gentlemen passengers fired their own pistols in the fight. Lloyd’s of London gave the two women elegant watches and the two men elegant swords for their troubles.
• When John Paul Jones and the Bon Homme Richard were in battle with the Serapis, it appears that the crazy French Captain Landais of the American frigate Alliance actually, according to Captain Pearson of the Serapis, sent a calculated, controlled broadside into the Bon Homme Richard, perhaps because of his derangement and his hatred of Jones. Shortly after, Landais sent another broadside into the stern of the Serapis. At that time, Pearson struck the colors.
• When ocean tides are at their highest, they are called "spring tides." When they are at their lowest, they are call "neap tides."
• Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
• Yachting became part of the Olympics in 1900.
• You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
• Standing rigging on a sailing vessel includes all spars, masts, ropes and cables holding up the rig plus the related hardware. The running rigging includes all the ropes, blocks and tackles, sheets, guys and other lines that control the sails.
• Captain William Bligh and Fletcher Christian of the Bounty were both Virgos.
• Ever wonder what sails are which on a "square rigger?" If you start at the bottom, the last name of the sail is the level on the mast. Starting at the lowest, state the name of the mast itself plus the word "sail", for instance, mainsail, for the lowest sail on the mainmast. The lowest is just called a sail, the next is a topsail, then topgallant, then royal and then sky to total five levels. In the case of the sails on an actual mast, you have to apply upper and lower to topsail and topgallant. In the case of the main, the order, from bottom (lowest) to top (highest) is:
  • Mainsail
  • lower main topsail
  • upper main topsail
  • lower main topgallant
  • upper main topgallant
  • main royal
  • main skysail
• Ever wonder which jib is which on a sailing ship? Firstly, a jib is the foremost sail and is normally triangular. In the case of jibs, the names, going from the ship itself, forward, are:
  • fore staysail
  • jib
  • outer jib
  • flying jib

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