Sublime
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the whole body of a people, in the same boat—they signed a document in which they pledged to “covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.”25 They named their agreement after their ship. They called it the Mayflower Compact.
Jill Lepore • These Truths
The Ocean Liner
The Dover Boat was discovered in September 1992 as part of the building of the A20 Dover bypass.5 It’s probably no exaggeration to say that she’s one of the best, earliest and most completely preserved of prehistoric seagoing vessels. Radiocarbon dates carried out on the outer growth rings of the timbers suggest that she was built sometime between
... See moreFrancis Pryor • Scenes From Prehistoric Life
There are good ships and wood ships, and ships that sail the sea,
but the best ships are friendships,
and may they always be.
~ Irish Proverb Lubec, Maine
the largest longship ever found—thirty-two metres long, with a single-watch crew of eighty that could have been doubled for war. Dating to the early eleventh century, it is of the dimensions the sagas give for the highest rank of royal warships.
Neil Price • The Children of Ash and Elm
Almost exactly a year after the petition had been drafted, on 23 September 1600, the subscribers were finally given the go-ahead: ‘It was her Majesty’s pleasure’, they were told, ‘that they shuld proceade in ther purpose … and goe forward in the said viage.’
William Dalrymple • The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
In 1620 a group of English settlers, known today as the Pilgrims, arrived on the shores of North America. They’d been at sea for more than two months—an arduous voyage that killed two of their number.