Posted by David Bamford on March 22, 2002 at 05:12:31 from 203.10.110.133:
In Reply to: Ships as "she" posted by Robert Hill on March 20, 2002 at 18:52:13:
Well, I hate to say it, but I agree with Lloyds! I sit on "Swallow", my 1917 gaff ketch, varnishing or doing other maintenance chores, of which there is no end, and I watch the ships coming and going from Port Melbourne, the busiest port in the Southern Hemisphere. I have to say that somewhere along the way, the business of naval architecture lost the Aesthetic Factor, and modern ships, such as Lloyd's insures, are downright bog-ugly! There is a particular one named Hume Highway, after the main commercial road between Sydney and Melbourne, which is purely a car transporter. It is a rectangular box, painted grey, and slightly pointed at one end, which seems to be usually at the front. Apart from the fact that it is afloat, in no other way does it resemble a ship, as I recognise one. I would certainly not assign anything other than a neutral gender to such a construction. To give such a thing a feminine gender is a travesty, and I could not do it.