TALKING SHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1929, Page 25 (Supplement)

TALKING SHIPS.

Ships at sea have many sorts of tongues with which they can and do hold converse with each other or with the shore. Some have wireless, and all have flags, semaphore and Morse lamps. But in addition to the chats which ships hold by these means,- they have another sort of language in which, under the most rigid laws, they must talk at certain times and under certain conditions.

Every steamer must be provided with an efficient steam whistle or siren, a mechanically operated foghorn, and a bell—a drum being permitted as rather a quaint substitute for a bell on Turkish vessels. A sailing ship must carry a mechanical foghorn and a bell. A ship may be groping carefully along in foggy weather, and, seeing nothing, will suddenly hear a prolonged siren blast followed two minutes later by another, and thus immediately knows that there is another steamer near and that she is moving forward. If the one blast changes to two, with a second’s interval between, it means that the steamer has stopped her engines and is not moving, although she is not at anchor. If this ceased to be repeated and, instead, a bell sounded a five seconds’ jangle every one minute, it would be understood that the ship was at anchor. If one, two or three blasts, sounding every one minute instead of every two, is heard, a sailing ship would be talking and telling whether she was sailing with the wind on her port or starboard side, or “abaft her beam” (more astern than sideways). The reason for the sailing ship being obliged to tell on which side of her the ■wind is blowing is that other vessels may steer clear of her. If a sailing vessel, for instance, has the wind on her right side she can only turn a very limited distance, to the right before she would be running in the face of the wind and brought to a stop, whereas she could turn away to the left and continue sailing, the wind then merely being more over her stern. Trawling and fishing vessels with lines or nets down have other ways of making this clear. By one, two or three short blasts a steamer says she is turning to starboard, to port, or has her engine going full speed astern.

“•What is your worst sin, my child?” “My vanity—l spend hours before the mirror admiring my beauty.” “That is not. vanity—that is imagination.”

“Dad, we learned at school to-day that the animals have a new fur coat every winter.” “Be quiet, your mother is in the next