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(wrong string)  The shrinking St Michel III

From: James Keeline <keeline~at~yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 07:51:51 -0700 (PDT)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

> >When Verne bought the St Michel III in 1877 he insured it with
> >Lloyd of London. In the 1880 Yacht Register of Lloyd's Register of
> >British and Foreign Shipping, she is recorded as having a length of
> >107.3 feet. The 1884 Register gives a length of 101.3 feet and in
> >1887, by which time ownership had passed to the Prince of
> >Montenegro with a home port of Cattaro, the registered length was
> >only 98.5 feet. It is known that in 1881 the bowsprit was dismantled
> >to pass through the Kiel Canal (presumably a temporary measure)
> >but one wonders how the vessel managed to shrink by nearly 8%
> >in 7 years.
> >Ian Thompson.

I don't have an explanation for the 98.5 feet size but the lengths of
107.3 and 101.3 could simply be the way the numbers were written. In
some early handwriting, especially in ledger books like these, a "1"
can look like a "7". However, if the person reading the ledger book
was looking at the whole number, it is hard to understand how this
could have happened. More likely, the application was misread before
it was transcribed into the ledger book.

If the difference is between 101.3 and 98.5, we are only talking about
3%.

James D. Keeline
Received on Tue 08 Jul 2003 - 17:53:50 IDT

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