Finch Hatton

Sensitive young man.

Side-wheel tugs escort the Mauretania down the Tyne as her boilers are worked up to full pressure for her speed trials. Her stokers are shoveling nearly 1,900 pounds of coal each minute, 30 pounds per man per minute, delivered by hand.

Later that day, an onboard photographer captures her proceeding at 26 knots (30 miles per hour). She is conducting a high-speed turn to demonstrate emergency evasive maneuvers, and heels noticeably.

In Vineyard Vines just now and they are having kids take their picture with their choice of Santa or a guy in the VV Whale suit wearing a Santa hat. The whale waved at me. This is the WASP equivalent of being blessed by the Pope.

This photo is a great rebuttal to the Tartarian conspiracy theorists, if you think about it, because the ballroom in the foreground could pass for a “tartarian megastructure” until you see the actual, definitively Edwardian megastructure steaming by.

“The bane of your life lies there snug in the slips She’s proud at the bow and she’s wide at the hips But she’s round at the stern And the pout on her lips says: ‘This country’s an island, and an island needs ships!’”

“If you can keep it…”

The second photo is of the SS Manhattan, the ice-breaking steam tanker, which forced the Northwest Passage in August of ‘69, becoming the first oil tanker do do so.

“Every eight days, Manhattan Island detaches a slice of herself, about the size of the Empire State Building, and flings it, cocktails and jazz men and neckties and all, in the general direction of Europe at 44 miles to the hour.”

“An age of glory passed like a lightning flash. The mandate of heaven passed from you but you didn't see. Times change and power passes. It is the pity of the world."

Rex Whistler Once a muralist, stage designer, portraitist, and illustrator Then a tank commander KIA, Normandy, 18 July 1944 #RemembranceDay2026