Big boy's toys

This weekend the P1 Powerboat championships take place on the Humber in what I've read is called the Grand Prix of the Sea. This year there's a bit of local interest after a group local businesses had a whip round and bought One Hull of a Boat [ 1 ]. Personally I take the Miss Brodie approach to fast boats :“For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.”

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

Postscript: Oh dear! The crew of One Hull of a Boat were taken to hospital after it flipped over and crashed. [1] Still thrills and spills are what this game is all about isn't it?

Polar Bear

One of the most popular exhibits in the Maritime Museum is the Polar Bear. This specimen is an adult male and is nine foot long, good job he's stuffed really. These are pretty old pictures and he wasn't looking in too good a condition, fortunately they had a collection and took him away for some TLC and conservation work.

Figureheads

Here's a couple of naval figureheads in the Maritime Museum. The busty lady, sadly, I know nothing about. The colourful chap is the Earl of Beaconsfield, better known to the rest of the world as Benjamin Disraeli a victorian prime minister no less. This figurehead was rescued from the wreck of The Earl of Beaconsfield which had come to grief on the east Yorkshire coast, then it stood in someone's garden for a few decades then it was rescued and renovated. You can read more here.

Maritime Museum

Ok, I've shown this building before but I think this is a particularly fine shot. Go ahead click to enlarge.

On Reflection ...

Perhaps I'll post some more now and again ...

A diddling thing

Imagine spending months onboard a whaling ship with no internet, TV or newspapers. It might seem like bliss but eventually the desire to do something will take over and as it's a whaling ship there's plenty of bits of whale to play with. So it was that scrimshaw came about, the art of making stuff with whalebits. The label in the museum says its a winder for wool but I doubt it has ever been used for such a mundane task; no, it's function is simply to be made.

Maritime Museum

Another shot of this museum; this time I've passed it through the adaptive contrast filter on Gimp. Seems to bring out the stonework nicely.

Sudden elegancies

 

This is the view across Queen Victoria Square from Princes Quay's multi-storey car park. I knew there had to be a good use for those motor car crèches.