Treacle Bricks and Bad Debts

Being a creature of habit I arrive home for tea everyday from work at just about the same time.

If there is traffic congestion I can always ring or text ahead (where safe to do so).

In a bygone age those held up on their homeward journey could have opted for a telegram or messenger to give news of a delay in getting back for their evening meal.

So what would be available say, in 1840's Victorian England?

In the case of a Yorkshire businessman the solution was to spend a bit of money on an eccentric idea.

The individual was a William Bettison, brewery owner and erstwhile newspaper magnate.

Although his commercial interests were in the city of Hull he resided in some splendour in the genteel seaside town of Hornsea. It was some years before the railway line would be built to the town (opened in 1862) and so the commute although of only around 15 miles would be by coach and horse.

By all accounts Bettison was a bit of a stickler for routine and one particular trait of his character was that he would insist that his dinner be served immediately on his return home from work.

Problems on rough, unmade roads, inclement weather, unpredictable horse drawn transport and a host of other influences could make him late for his regular mealtime and so to avoid cold dinners or no dinner at all he put some of his hard earned wealth towards the construction of a 55 foot high tower in his garden.

The idea was that from this lofty height, amongst a generally lower and gently local undulating topography a servant could spot his carriage as it descended Southorpe Hill which formed a main approach to Hornsea from the south west from Hull. A relayed message down the tower to the house would undoubtedly put other domestic staff on alert for his reasonably imminent arrival. The sanction of a dissatisfied master would be enough to galvanise swift action to have the victuals fully prepared and ready to eat.

The tower, designated  Grade Two by Historic Britain survives today ( although Bettisons mansion was demolished in the 1960's) and is a great example of "Folly"  architecture being of extravagant appearance that far overshadowed its purpose and with little other practical or feasible use.

One remarkable feature, thought to be the only one of its type in the whole country, is a full length retractable flagpole which when deployed would nearly double the height of the structure.

It is an unusual sort of tower; constructed in 'treacle' bricks which have been faultily fired in the local brick kilns. This gives a rather strange burnt black, almost slag-like hue and although there has been very little weathering in the ensuing nearly century and a half because of the hard, almost petrified qualities the bricks are by their nature very mishapen and distorted.

The bricks, from locally excavated clays (Hornsea is amongst other things famous for its glazed pottery) may have been rejects available at a cheap price, no doubt of attraction to a frugal businessman.

The interior, largely open plan does have a series of ladders and platforms which give access to a castellated roof.  The Bettison brewery operation provided some embellishments to the design with glass beer bottles embedded as windows.

Bettisons Folly still stands quite strikingly but it is now in the middle of a 1970's housing estate.

It did play a part in the wartime years of the town by accommodating the air raid siren although public access as a consequence of successive private owners was otherwise denied .

That was until only recently when for the sum of £1 plus legal costs the tower was purchased for the benefit of the residents of Hornsea by generous benefactors . On Civic Day in the town the population can ascend to the heady heights and enjoy the elevated views out over the rooftops.

The history of the tower is quite unique, as is the construction and to acknowledge this Bettisons Folly was named in a top ten listing of fascinating structures by The Huffington Post in 2012.

We may applaud eccentric characters for leaving to the nation such flamboyant folly heritage but you may have mixed feelings about William Bettison based on the footnote that it was reported that the builder, a local man, was never paid for the job.

Case of Gas

On some days they blotted out the horizon and yet on others they had vanished and all that could be seen was the uninterrupted sky.

They were the mysterious Gasometers, once a familiar feature in our urban landscape.It was the clever adaptability of the round storage tanks that allowed them to rise and fall with a concertina action. When in full gas storage use they had the appearance of a massive layered wedding cake and yet in periods of low demand for the fuel there was often nothing to see apart from something that resembled a small baking tin.

Gasometers, a British invention, first appeared 180 years ago and quickly caught on as an effective means of storing large amounts of gas at low pressure.

In the pre-War and pre-nationalisation era, gasometers were everywhere with over 1,000 gas companies in operation. Just about every town had its own gas works and the gasometer was the central focus. They were cast iron at the start but steel sections came later, in the 1880s.

The technology was basic but effective with the rim of each chamber sealed by water and with no room for air inside, the holder prevents the otherwise volatile early town gas from igniting.

Natural gas, locked deep into subterranean pockets of continental land masses and the oceans was still very much a thing of the future, and instead households and industry relied on town gas, which resulted from carbonising coal. It was a dirty and polluting process but nevertheless played an important role in keeping active the many belching factories of the old style mass manufacturing industry. Production of town gas was a major contributing factor to the stifling and lethal pea souper fogs and smogs that were a common problem in UK cities and towns well into the 20th Century.

While gasholders were never conventionally beautiful they exhibited a fair degree of decoration.In St Pancras and Bromley-by-Bow in London the design was in a Grecian-type finish as an example of architectural influences on purely functional installations but the style was not adopted and carried through in other locations  because it required a lot of maintenance.

More recent attempts have been made to soften their presence.Gasometers in Harrow, Middlesex, and Bromley, Kent, were painted in an effort to blend in with the local surroundings. A holder in Harrogate was painted with fuchsias for a Britain in Bloom contest and wishes have been granted on the odd occasion to hang "happy birthday" banners on the steel lattice framework or the fully expanded cylinders.

Most gasometers were to be found in industrial settings or on the edge of the built up extent of our towns and cities but could still dominate a landscape or rooftop view.

A few in very prominent locations did attain a popular and cult status, the most famous being the giant storage tank that was adjacent to the Oval cricket pitch in south London and could be seen on TV coverage of club and test matches to become an international sporting landmark.

Transco, the pipeline arm of the former British Gas monolith intends to dismantle virtually all its 550 gasometers across the country. Only a handful will remain and then only because they are Listed Buildings.

Advances in pipeline technology and the ability to predict levels of  demand mean there is no longer any need for the stockpiling of supplies of gas in these massive storage cylinders.

Some of the sites which stood under and around the gasometers have cost millions to remediate from contamination so that the land can come back into some form of economic use. The ground on sites where town gas was previously manufactured can be heavily contaminated with a substance commonly known as 'Blue Billy' consisting of spent lime that becomes fouled with sulphur and sometimes cyanogens giving its distinctive blue colour.

Some of the more architecturally pleasing gasometers have been converted into residential and commercial use, perhaps one of the best examples being in Vienna, Austria.

The removal of the Gasometers from our urban environments has generally been carried out with little or no public protest or even interest. One gas utility company did commission a community artist to provide a lasting record of a few of the holders, including St Mark Street in my home town of Hull.

Most of us who grew up to the backdrop of these drab canister structures will have associated them with an old world image and equally drab and dreary economic times.

Life with Fireman Sam

Neighbours.

18 years of living next to the same people does stand for something nowadays even though we may feel that community spirit and consideration for others has declined under the pressure of modern lifestyles.

That was the case with my place of work and Kingston Upon Hull Central Fire Station.

The Fire Brigade were interesting as neighbours. There was never a dull moment, be it the frequent disturbance to our quiet office activities by the raising of the alarm to mobilise the fire fighters or the reassuring sound of an energetic game of football in the Station Yard as a bit of rest and recreation between "shouts"- yes we soon got to know the terminology.

My office staff would often be found  gazing out of the window for the chance to catch a glimpse of the heroic firemen. I would qualify that statement as applying equally to female and male employees although their motivations would be a little bit different to stand and stare. Reflecting basic human nature, the former wanted one, the latter to be one.

There was much excitement and swooning when one of the Officers actually called at the office to ask about some experience in my sphere of work as he was obviously not fully engaged in his current employment. I thought him mad.

There were also some amusing incidents, one in particular.

On a hazy and hot summers afternoon there was quite a commotion in the street in front of my office.

The windscreen of a car parked in a metered bay had been smashed.

The driver could be seen standing in a bemused state holding in his hand a large piece of cement encased masonry. I ventured out into the heat to see if I could be of assistance. I was thinking that this had been a bit of random car crime as over the 18 years in occupation in that part of the City Centre there had certainly been a few incidents of theft from vehicles as well as the more violent and dramatic crime of taking without consent  and driving away.

In fact the car owner had been in his vehicle as the glass had been smashed.

There had been no-one else in the street as far as he could make out to perpetrate such a thing. The offending lump of masonry, on closer inspection was the large part of a brick with a familiar colour wash render coating on what will have been its outer face.

I tried to recall where I had seen that particular greyish shade. I do get to see hundreds of properties a year and so the processing of the image could take some time. I gazed upwards into the bright blue, cloudless sky seeking inspiration to assist the innocent victim of the inflicted damage. The source of the flying rubble revealed itself to me, not in a Eureka moment or third party intervention but from an observation in plain sight up on the wall of the Fire Station.

There was a matching, gaping hole in the render finish of the building of my longtime neighbour.
It was broadly mid way along the south west wall of the premises which stretched from the street corner along to the Municipal Theatre.

As the two of us squinted against the hot, reflective glare of the painted finish the reason for the brick mortar bomb became all too evident.

The expanse of wall had absorbed considerable solar energy on what could actually have been the hottest day of the year, to date. In the absence of any slack in the fabric of the structure to cater for the expanding elements of bricks and mortar the pressure had built up to an intolerable level. Nothing like it had happened before in the 80 or so years since the Fire Station was erected but it was pretty inevitable that something would give way under what were after all the combined influence of a few of the principles of physics.

Consistent with an evolving urban environment that part of the Central Hull Fire Station ejecting the brick missile was demolished just in the last few months to allow for expansion of the adjoining New Theatre. The distinctive eastern elevation with its Engine Bays was vacated by the Brigade in readiness for a brand new premises across the city and now stands forlornly awaiting its fate. It is in comparison to its Georgian and Victorian surroundings a modern, functional building and so may not be able to be saved on the basis of any architectural or historic merits.

Presently it is in the process of being overwhelmed by construction of a  tower structure at the New Theatre and on part of the former Yard and periodic football ground the immense rectangular mass of an inner city college building.

Even I moved away to an out of town office park recently and by doing so forfeited my duty to defend and support a good neighbour.

Hull Central, 1939 to 1945

Haleys Comet

Just a little piece of my family history.

It was Easter, in fact Good Friday, the 8th April 1977.

I was 13 years old at the time living with my parents and four siblings in a quiet Lincolnshire town. Not a lot happened there at all if you discounted in previous years 1) A cataclysmic explosion in a nearby chemical plant 2) the odd murder 3) occasional drownings in one or more of the two watercourses that ran through it.

On the day in question I cannot remember what I got up to, probably attending church, playing out and anticipating a shed-load of chocolate eggs from family and relatives in a couple of days time.

As a new member of that strange stage in everyone's life- a teenager I was probably blushing when being spoken to by girls, squeezing pimples or just coming to terms with a changing body and metabolism.

All of that normal growing up stuff did not however get in the way of my favourite pastimes of just watching television .

The Radio Times listings for that particular Religious holiday promised great things leading up to the usual friday night viewing.

From 1.30pm there was a showing of the Easter Epic directed by George Stevens of "The Greatest Story Ever Told" although at over 3 hours duration I will have lost concentration and wandered off a few times to get an orange squash and a handful of biscuits (but not enough to spoil my tea).

That was followed by more like the usual scheduling on the BBC of "Young Magician of the Year", hosted by Peter Purves and an animated feature entitled The Golden Antelope which was a telling of an Indian fairy tale.

These programmes took up the time until the early evening National and Regional News at 5.30pm which was of no interest whatsover and gave an opportunity for eating with a good helping of beans or spaghetti hoops on toast (even on a moveable feast day).

In a happy, fully fed stupor it was time to be clever and answer at least one or more of the questions on the "Ask the Family"quiz show which, on 8th April 1977 was the Grand Final between The Dawsons and whoever out of The Harvey family or Barker families had won the second semi final a few days before.

I think I only ever watched the show to see its host, Robert Robinson treat the contestants with contempt for their collective stupidity when failing to answer correctly something that even I knew like a) who was manager of Liverpool and b)what sort of animals were the Roobarb and the Custard.

The evening viewing continued with a special "Disney Time" which featured tantalising clips of the classics such as Cinderella, Wind in the Willows and Bambi and newer releases of the previous 12 months including Shaggy DA, Freaky Friday and the little aired Treasure of Matecumbe.

A condition of staying up late imposed by our parents was that we had to be washed and in pyjamas so by 7pm I was clean and snug and ready to see another holiday special of the long running "Superstars" series where sporting personalities ( that word means so much more than the modern phenomena of celebrities) competed against each other to prove that, yes, footballers were pampered wimps compared to the likes of boxer John Conteh, Judoist Brian Jacks and rugby man Gareth Edwards.

This particular broadcast was of "World Superstars" although looking at the participants now I only recognise Rudi Krol , Peter Snell and Bob Seagren.

At 8.15pm it was time for one of the regular thirty minute BBC sit-coms  in the form of "Are you Being Served?" although much of the camp, risque and double entendre laden dialogue was lost on me in my tender years.

The evening was building up to something special and sure enough at a quarter to nine the first episode of a new mini series was broadcast.

It was called Roots, a big budget dramatisation (in 1977 moneys at £3 million) of the family history of Alex Haley covering black slavery in the 1760's through successive generations until the liberation from indentured servitude with the outcome of the American Civil War.

The cruelty and inhumanity of the slave trade as depicted by the forced abduction of the main character, Kunta Kinte from Gambia and the perilous sea-journey to the Southern States was harrowing enough but the story was relentless in its telling of the injustices and deprivation suffered at the hands of the white plantation owners and New World middle class.

The series continued over that Easter period and became compelling viewing in our house awakening a sense of moral outrage at the behaviour of man to his fellows. We were not alone in our fascination for the subject as on its launch in America it had attracted a TV audience equivalent to three fifths of the population.

The authenticity of the drama shocked many on both sides of the Atlantic who had not believed or had simply chosen to ignore the human cost behind the commercial wealth and affluence on which respective Empires had been built.

Roots did have an impact and in the United States in 1977 was seen as a major step in the right direction in race relations which at the best of times were difficult and tense.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the TV series.

I am sorry to say that the optimism and hope expressed at that time has not been carried through but over the last four decades considerable progress has been made in the denunciation of the historic slave trade industry and with a renewed determination to tackle modern forms of forced labour in a supposedly enlightened world. There is still a lot of work to do.

Legover

In 2015 there was speculation amongst academic circles of a generous grant to establish a Professorship in the sphere of education, development and learning. This is now a reality.

No less than Cambridge University is to be the beneficiary of such an endowment.

The successful appointee will have to have an outstanding research record of international stature allied to vision, leadership, experience and enthusiasm in order to strategise policy which would ensure that children, globally, are equipped with the necessary 21st century skills.

I was brought up under the mantra, the all encompassing three discipline mantra of Reading, writing and 'Rithmatic but it appears that the emphasis now for the future of education is more on problem solving, team work and self-control.

The pool of candidates is likely to cover a broad range of specialisms in educational and developmental psychology, early years experience and from those working in the areas of play and playfulness. These latter two skill sets may sound a bit out of place in what seems, at first glance, to be a rather starchy academic appointment but then again, if the funding institution is the LEGO Foundation the appointee will have a great deal of fun and entertainment over and above the £84,000 per annum remuneration that goes with it.

The Professor of Lego, which will undoubtedly be the title used by the media, will have at their disposal a four million pound fund from the Foundation to meet the costs of the post and to support a play research centre in the Cambridge University Education Faculty.

The job description does understate the attractions of the position listing professorial duties as teaching, research, examining, supervision and administration but even faced with the prospect of such tedium I feel compelled to put myself forward as a candidate.

Here is an extract from my application submission ahead of the closing date on 18th January 2017.

To whom it may concern at Cambridge Uni Board of Electors, 

Reference JR10956- 

I would like to apply for the LEGO job as I have always enjoyed playing with the stuff whilst benefiting from becoming a thoroughly grounded and rounded human being through lessons learned about sharing and playing nicely.

At the moment I am a Chartered Surveyor but my interest in buildings and structures as a child did come from using LEGO bricks.

I have a detailed knowledge of the history of LEGO and have kept up to date with all of the latest trends and themed sets.

I am a champion of the LEGO ideal and have never knowingly vacuumed up or destroyed a brick in my life.

I feel that I would add a very personal approach to being Professor of Lego with the emphasis on "hands on play" and not too much of the academia that to my mind is a problem with education today anyway. I hope you do not think me too cheeky but I assume that the position includes a lot of freebies.

I do have some very good ideas on the future of Lego and how it can solve a lot of the problems in the world but I am not prepared to divulge these just yet.

In terms of my current research plans I have recently developed a large plastic sheet, in fact an old shower curtain, onto which loose lego bricks and pieces can be poured so that after becoming exhausted with play I can simply pour the whole lot back into the storage box with minimum spillage.

I have toyed with the idea of colour coding my Lego brick collection and would be pleased to discuss on a Departmental basis the merits of this. I would also like to research the revolutionary idea of producing lego bricks with an odd number of dimples as I have strong convictions that wholly even numbered dimples are elitist and, frankly, a bit prejudiced in what is, after all, an imperfect world.

I am pleased to see that recent Lego figures have attempted to be more inclusive and representative of social and gender roles but more work can certainly be done in this regard. 

I already have a few ideas of a Faculty Premises made completely out of Lego which should be affordable, practical and a lot of fun although I do not know if a 50 metre by 40 metre building plate is yet widely available.

As you can see I have a lot to offer the position. My current employer would require a months notice - no, only joking- I am self employed and so could start straight away.

As Professor of Lego and you can be assured of commitment and loyalty. Unlike others entering High Office with a reluctance to give up interests and numerous potential conflicts of interest I would be more than happy to put my Meccano( both plastic and metal) sets, Sticklebricks, Pennybrix, K'nex and even Jenga Blocks on E-Bay within a reasonable time scale.

Thank you for your consideration. I am sure that with me in charge of the toy cupboard everything, as they say, will be awesome.

 What my First Day as Professor of Lego would look like

How to; Survive Skynet

According to a study by researchers at the auspicious Oxford University in league with the Consultants Deloitte there will be a potentially significant shift in employment over the next twenty years.

Based on my experience of the last twenty years what else could we expect, what with the decimation of traditional heavy industries, redundancies in previously thought of jobs for life and even a thinning out of the Professions.

The latest research predicts that more than a third of current jobs in the United Kingdom are at risk of being taken over by a robot.......or some sort or manifestation.

I am not surprised by this.

My generation were brought up with vivid Science Fiction visions of a robot race.

The Laws of Robotics gave some comfort although these were of course only in writing and any robot dead set on mischief would surely overlook these . Scary and  sobering a thought it was although balanced out by the exciting prospect that if this worse case scenario did not occur then our lives would be so much easier thanks to a subservient robot population doing all of the boring chores and daily tedium.

Artificial Intelligence has developed at lighting speed in my lifetime and seemingly with an even more rapid pace in just recent years. The robots of my childhood were clunky and chunky, a bit like dustbins with fairy lights but gradually these came to be more humanoid in shape, dimensions and behaviour even back to the Cybermen on Doctor Who . Latest versions now have a very lifelike demeanour and attitude.

The Oxford University academics Michael Osborne and Carl Frey calculated how susceptible to automation each UK job is based on nine key skills required to perform it; social perceptiveness, negotiation, persuasion, assisting and caring for others, originality, fine arts, finger dexterity, manual dexterity and the need to work in a cramped work space.

The research was originally carried out using detailed job data from the United States O*NET employment database.

The analysis for UK jobs was made by adapting the findings to corresponding occupations in the UK based on Office for National Statistics job classifications. For the purpose of the UK study, some US occupations were merged. In these cases, the probabilities were calculated as weighted averages of the probabilities of automation for each US occupation within the group.

Some job names have been edited for clarity. Where average salary has been mentioned, the median has been used.

Figures are not available for occupations in the military, or for politicians. This may excite the conspiracy theorists. If robots did take over not only our jobs but our lives then an army would be needed to destroy them and politicians to well,.....I'm not really sure about their role in such a scenario.

Where two jobs have the same figure for their risk of automation but are ranked differently this is because the data goes to more than one decimal place.

So who are the potential losers, the fairly safe and those whose jobs remain firmly in human hands?

Social workers, nurses, therapists and psychologists are among the least likely occupations to be taken over as assisting and caring for others, which involves empathy, is a crucial part of the job.

Roles requiring employees to think on their feet and come up with creative and original ideas, for example artists, designers or engineers, hold a significant advantage in the face of automation.

Additionally, occupations involving tasks that require a high degree of social intelligence and negotiating skills, like managerial positions, are considerably less at risk from machines according to the study.

Your job is safer if you negotiate, help others or come up with original ideas.

In contrast, while certain sales jobs like telemarketers and bank clerks may involve interactive tasks they do not necessarily need a high degree of social intelligence, leaving them exposed to automation.

As more advanced industrial robots gain improved senses and the ability to make more coordinated finger and hand movements to manipulate and assemble objects, they will be able to perform a wider range of increasingly complex manual tasks.

However, manipulation in unstructured environments — like the tasks that must be performed by a house cleaner — are still beyond the scope of automation for the foreseeable future.

Sophisticated algorithms are challenging a number of office and administrative support roles, particularly in legal and financial services.

Machines are already beginning to take on a number of tasks carried out by legal professionals by scanning thousands of documents to assist in pre-trial research

It is said that the factory of the future will just employ one man and one dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to bite the man if he touches the robotised machines.

As for my own job.

Well, I had better start digging that bunker and stockpiling supplies for my new role as Chartered Surveyor to the Human Struggle against the robot masters.

After all, it is predicted that I may have a lot more time on my hands.

Go on then, tell me

Question 1. How do ships float?

In order to establish why ships float it is necessary to look at the principle of density. Everybody has an idea of what density is. Density describes how much something weighs relating to its size, or mass per unit volume. In technical terms, the density of a body is defined as the weight (mass) of the body in kilograms (kg) divided by its external volume in cubic metres (m3). The formula for density is:  density = weight/volume (kg/m3).

Some examples of density for different fluids and materials are:

- Fresh water: 1,000 kg/m3
- Salt water: around 1,025 kg/m3
- Certain oils: around 850 kg/m3
- Steel: 8,000 kg/m3
- Wood: around 700 kg/m3

From the above, only oil and wood naturally float in water.  This is because fluids and materials that float in water have densities that are less than the density of water. In other words, an object's buoyancy is determined by its density in relation to the density of the surrounding liquid.

When applying this principle to ships, it is natural to question how a ship that has a hull made of steel, which has a density eight times greater than that of water, can float.  A steel bar would sink, so why don't ships?

In the third century BC, the Greek mathematician and philosopher Archimedes discovered the principle of buoyancy while relaxing in his bath. When he entered the tub he noticed that water spilled over the sides and that he felt lighter. Archimedes realised that the amount of water that spilled was equal in volume to the space that his body occupied, and concluded that an object in a fluid experiences an upward force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.

Because the upward force equals the weight of the fluid displaced, an object must displace a greater weight of fluid than its own weight in order to float.

Although ships are made of materials that are much denser than water, the density of a ship itself is its total weight (including, cargo, bunkers, stores, crew, etc.) divided by the external volume of the hull.

This means that the hull must have an external volume that is big enough to give the whole ship a density that is just less than that of the water in which it floats.

Ships are therefore designed to achieve that.

Much of the interior of a ship is air (compared with a bar of steel, which is solid), so the average density, taking into account the combination of the steel, other materials and the air, can become less than the average density of water.

In the past, ships built and loaded in Europe would sometimes sink when they reached the tropics for the first time. Cargo would have been loaded in cold, salty waters, but then when the ship reached warmer, less salty seas, it would sink. This was because Archimedes' principle, described above, would not have been taken into account. When the ship was first loaded it would float because cold, salty water has a higher density than fresh water, which meant that less water had to be displaced to equal the mass of the ship. Once the ship entered warmer, less salty waters, more water had to be displaced to maintain equilibrium. The ship would drop lower in the water - and if it dropped to below the water line (the line where the hull of a ship meets the water surface) it would sink.

This problem was overcome in the 1870s by Samuel Plimsoll, who marked ships with what became known as the Plimsoll Line, a marking positioned amidships, which indicates the draft of a ship and the limit to which a ship may be loaded for specific water types and temperatures.

A safety margin between the deck and the water line was made mandatory by the 1930 Loadline Convention (now replaced by the 1966 Loadline Convention, as amended). This safety margin is created by increasing the external volume of the hull so the deck line rises well above the water line.  This safety margin is known as freeboard.

Where a freeboard is incorporated, the density of a ship becomes the total weight of the ship divided by the external under water volume of the hull (including the shell plating, propeller and rudder).

A ship's displacement is the volume of water it displaces when it is floating, and is measured in cubic metres (m3), while its displacement tonnage is the weight of the water that it displaces when it is floating with its fuel tanks full and all stores on board, and is measured in metric tons (MT, equivalent to 1,000 Kg). The displacement tonnage is the actual weight of the ship, since a floating object displaces its own weight in water.

The principles of physics are well known and understood but it is in the actual design, structure  and use  of materials that bring it all together to enable not just floating but stability in all weathers and sea conditions. This is achieved through such design features as;

The part of the hull below the surface is made of much thicker, stronger, heavier material than the superstructure to keep a low centre of gravity. The engines, heavy equipment and plant installations are all in the lowest levels for the same reason.

There is an active ballast system that allows pumping fuel and sea water from side to side to help maintain balance. There is a bigger draft (more underwater decks), higher and more watertight compartments, horizontal watertight isolation, double hull and stabilisers.

It all comes together beautifully ......................................................................................

              Built 2010, 225,282 gross tonnage, 362m long, 65m wide, maximum 6296 passengers
                                           (Footnote- Now the second biggest - so far anyway)