[C38] Salon Shelving Options, sprits, sails and nautical trivia of the endless armchair thread

[Les]

Honestly guys,
	You all sail boats that pretty much operate the way a sailing vessel
would in the 1600's.  Can you imagine a tray like that holding anything?
I mean even our tables have rails, and the discussion here was about
rails higher than the original versions ;-)

	Think about a 24 pound ball rolling across a 50' deck at an angle of 15
degrees (that is about a 12' drop).  Would you want to be hit by a ball
like that that had dropped 12'?

	And as pointed out in the wikipedia article, gunners used to have the
boys scrub the balls to keep them clean and true.  
	
	The only time I have ever seen cannon balls stacked was near old land
cannon, and only on displays.  Typically the balls for land cannon were
carried in boxes, and on ships by special racks.  The old nautical
phrase, "A place for everything and everything in its place" as well as
the term "Shipshape" applied.  

	I used to give young Electronics Technicians a soldering job on their
first trip out.  Invariably they had the habit of laying the soldering
iron on the work bench when they were doing a job requiring both hands.
Invariably the ship would roll, the iron would roll off the edge and
they would catch it.  ONCE!!  I never again had to tell  them to keep
things in place and tied down.

Regards,
Les H
On Thu, 2010-12-02 at 12:49 -0500, tdtron at earthlink.net wrote:
> Supposed etymology
> It is often stated that the phrase originated from the use of a brass tray, 
> called a "monkey", to hold cannonballs on warships in the 16th to 18th 
> centuries. Supposedly, in very cold temperatures the "monkey" would 
> contract, causing the balls to fall off.[4] However, nearly all historians 
> and etymologists consider this story to be an urban legend. This story has 
> been discredited by the U.S. Department of the Navy,[5] etymologist Michael 
> Quinion, and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).[6]
> 
> They give five main reasons:
> 
>   1.. The OED does not record the term "monkey" or "brass monkey" being used 
> in this way.
>   2.. The purported method of storage of cannonballs ("round shot") is 
> simply false. Shot was not stored on deck continuously on the off-chance 
> that the ship might go into battle. Indeed, decks were kept as clear as 
> possible.
>   3.. Furthermore, such a method of storage would result in shot rolling 
> around on deck and causing a hazard in high seas. Shot was stored on the gun 
> or spar decks, in shot racks-longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored 
> into them, known as shot garlands in the Royal Navy, into which round shot 
> were inserted for ready use by the gun crew.
>   4.. Shot was not left exposed to the elements where it could rust. Such 
> rust could lead to the ball not flying true or jamming in the barrel and 
> exploding the gun. Indeed, gunners would attempt to remove as many 
> imperfections as possible from the surfaces of balls.
>   5.. The physics does not stand up to scrutiny. The contraction of both 
> balls and plate over the range of temperatures involved would not be 
> particularly large. The effect claimed possibly could be reproduced under 
> laboratory conditions with objects engineered to a high precision for this 
> purpose, but it is unlikely it would ever have occurred in real life aboard 
> a warship.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_%28colloquial_expression%29
> 
>