[BITList] Situations Vacant

[HUGH]

The PS Curlip (1890) looks in her pictures to be a bit smaller in bulk than
PS Comet (1812), a full size replica of which was built in 1962 for the
150th anniversary of the original. While the original was numerically Comet
I, she was never called that, and the replica wasn't Comet II.  There was a
Comet II, built a few years after the Comet was wrecked.  Lithgows built the
hull of the replica and Kincaid built the engine, boiler and paddles.  As
with Curlip II, her boiler was made to modern specs.  The replica sailed
once or twice on the Clyde, staffed by the great and good in period costume.
There were no problems getting certificated engineers and navigators.

The replica has never sailed since.  She sits on a plinth in Port Glasgow
town centre near the site of the John Wood yard where she was built, giving
the crowds walking to Tesco something to wonder at.  The degree of ignorance
in this town of even recent history is appalling. Which reminds me that she
is described in an expensive Encyclopaedia of Scotland I bought as a scale
model.

Clearly Sod's Law wasn't in operation when the intrepid mariners of the
River Murray built their boiler.  The papers of the early to mid 1800s are
full of accounts of Fearsome Explosions of boilers.  They learned the hard
way.

Hugh.