Iceberg: Delftware saucer

pg 150

"Your face is as blue as a windmill on a Delftware saucer."

Delftware, or Delft pottery, denotes blue and white pottery made in and around Delft in the Netherlands and the tin-glazed pottery made in the Netherlands from the 16th century.
Delftware in the latter sense is a type of pottery in which a white glaze is applied, usually decorated with metal oxides. Delftware includes pottery objects of all descriptions such as plates, ornaments and tiles.

 His heart began pounding like a bass drum

Bass drums are percussion instruments and vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished.

• The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum. It is the largest drum of the orchestra.
• The kick drum, struck with a beater attached to a pedal, usually seen on drum kits.
• The pitched bass drum, generally used in marching bands and drum corps. This is tuned to a specific pitch and is usually played in a set of three to six drums.

He was greeted by a small rosefish

The rose fish (Sebastes norvegicus), also known as the ocean perch, Norway haddock, red perch, golden redfish, or hemdurgan, is a species of rockfish from the North Atlantic. Misleadingly, it is sometimes called bergylt, bream, or snapper, though it is unrelated to all of these. In the past the scientific name Sebastes marinus was frequently used, but this is actually a synonym of Serranus scriba.^[1]

This food fish lives off the North Atlantic coasts of Europe and North America.

Iceberg: dives of one hubdred forty feet and more

pg 147

Enough for fifteen minutes diving, and even that was stretching precious time for dives to one hundred and forty feet.

Cussler has got something screwed up here. Pitt is wearing two tanks - which is more than 15 minutes of air.

But, in no way could he dive down to one hundred and forty feet in just fifteen minutes. The maximum depth for sports divers is 60 feet, after that there is nitrogen narcosis (the bends) especially if you dive down to 140 feet, so he'd have to do decompression stops on the way up.

New posting schedule

Now that I've got this new full-time job, I'll be posting in this blog twice a week - on Monday's and Wednesdays.

So the next post for this blog will be on Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

Posts resume this Wednesday

I got a new job (I'm a freelance writer) and am way far behind, so I've got to do some serious work today and tomorrow. 

Posts therefore resume Wednesday.

Thanks for your patience!

Iceberg: Gold Cup hydroplane and more

pg 141

It was a strange sight indeed to see the ungainly hull skipping over the waves like a Gold Cup hydroplane.

The APBA Gold Cup is a hydroplane boat race and is the second official race of the 2012 H1 Unlimited season.

History
The Gold Cup is the oldest active trophy in all of motorsports. The trophy was first awarded in 1904. Hydroplane racing became a tradition in Detroit when designer Christopher Columbus Smith (of the Chris-Craft boat company) built a Detroit-based boat that would crack the 60 miles-per-hour speed barrier, capturing the Gold Cup in 1915.

Sandecker's mind clicked like a Burroughs adding machine.

The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company and after the 1986 merger with Sperry Univac was renamed as Unisys. The company's history paralleled many of the major developments in computing. At its start it produced mechanical adding machines, and later moved into programmable ledgers and then computers. And while it was one of the largest producers of mainframe computers in the world, Burroughs also produced related equipment as well, including typewriters and printers.

In September 1986, Burroughs Corporation merged with Sperry Corporation to form Unisys.

pg 142
The "comedy" scene with Sandecker's suddenly accelerating to cause her to fall with 3 cups of coffee. Sandecker thinks its menopause, Pitt says, "Women rarely offer an explanation."

Slap 'em both!

he checked the old single-hose US Diver's Deepstar regulator.

U.S. Divers is the sporting goods division of Aqua Lung America, makers of scuba diving equipment.
They were the first firm in the United States to make Cousteau-type aqualungs, in 1951 or earlier. They were one of the five original American diving gear makers — U.S. Divers, Healthways, Voit, Dacor, Swimaster.

(This message forum discusses vintage scuba equipment, makes for interesting reading.
http://vintagescuba.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=2596&page=1#19480)

Iceberg: Chris Craft and more

pg 138

"You mean we ignored that beautiful Chris Craft simply because it doesn't have a fathometerr?"

Chris-Craft Boats, formerly Smith and Sons Boat Company, is a defunct manufacturer of wooden boats. It was sold in 1960 to NAFI which would take the Chris-Craft name.

Chris Smith built his first wooden boat in 1874 at the age of 13. Years later, he built a duck hunting boat. His friends liked the way he built them, and they asked him to build them one. This was technically the start of the Chris Craft Boat Co. He soon began to build more boats and joined his brother Hank in 1881 to begin producing boats full time. In 1922, the brothers joined with other partners to form the Smith and Sons Boat Company. The company name was changed to Chris-Craft in 1930.
The Detroit area company became well known for their sleek racing boats in the 1910s and 1920s. Chris-Craft sold high end powerboats to wealthy patrons such as Henry Ford and William Randolph Hearst. In the late 1920s, Chris-Craft extended its market into the middle class when it became one of the first mass producers of civilian pleasure boats. The company began assembly line production at their Algonac, Michigan plant, dramatically lowering production costs. Formerly, most powerboats had been hand-built.
In 1927 the company introduced the Cadet, an affordable 22' runabout. At the time, the domain of speedboats was largely confined to the wealthy. Its innovative advertising campaign promised a piece of "the good life" to the growing American middle class. The company sold its boats on the installment plan, making them among the first powerboats available to the general population.
The Great Depression robbed many Americans of discretionary income, and Chris-Craft sales suffered. The company introduced a line of low-priced powerboats to stay solvent. By 1935, a 15.5' Utility boat sold for as little as US$406. During World War II, the company produced small patrol boats and launches for the U.S. Navy.
After the war, Chris Craft introduced a new lineup of civilian pleasure boats in time for the massive American consumer expansion of the 1950s. That decade marked the height of company prestige and the brand name Chris-Craft became virtually synonymous with pleasure boating. The company offered 159 different models and was the sales leader in many categories of small civilian powerboats.
The company sold high-end boats to famous customers such as Dean Martin, Katharine Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley. Their boats were often made from the finest mahogany and were considered to be among the best available. They were easy to operate, a must for their "weekend sailor" owners. In some circles, owning a Chris-Craft was considered de rigueur. Even their lower-priced boats were considered to be of high quality, often featuring such luxury items as a liberal use of mahogany, teak, and brass.
In 1957, Chris-Craft Corporation added a metal boat division, designated the Roamer Steel Boats Division (RSBD)—founded upon its purchase of the Roamer Boat Company, now known as Chris Craft Roamers.
The company continued to be independent until it was acquired by Shields & Company's NAFI Corporation in 1960 and merged with NAFI. They renamed the company Chris-Craft Industries, Incorporated in 1962

 A pair of Sterling 420 hp gas-fed engines gleamed in the dim twilight.

So okay - I'm sharing info about a Stirling engine - *not* a brand named Sterling which I think Cussler made up, but this info is pretty interesting so I thought I'd share.
A Stirling engine is a heat engine operating by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas, the working fluid, at different temperature levels such that there is a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work.Or more specifically, a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine with a permanently gaseous working fluid, where closed-cycle is defined as a thermodynamic system in which the working fluid is permanently contained within the system, and regenerative describes the use of a specific type of internal heat exchanger and thermal store, known as the regenerator. It is the inclusion of a regenerator that differentiates the Stirling engine from other closed cycle hot air engines.
Originally conceived in 1816 as an industrial prime mover to rival the steam engine, its practical use was largely confined to low-power domestic applications for over a century.
The Stirling engine is noted for its high efficiency compared to steam engines, quiet operation, and the ease with which it can use almost any heat source. This compatibility with alternative and renewable energy sources has become increasingly significant as the price of conventional fuels rises, and also in light of concerns such as peak oil and climate change. This engine is currently exciting interest as the core component of micro combined heat and power (CHP) units, in which it is more efficient and safer than a comparable steam engine.

The boat was named The Grimsi.
Unable to find any Icelandic mythological creature called Grimsi.... Grimsi is a man's first name.

Iceberg: bon vivant and more

pg 128 "I have an uncle who is San Francisco's leading bon vivant."

 A bon viveur is a person who enjoys the good things of life. The phrase is derived from the French bon vivant, meaning good living, a bon viveur being a "good liver", or one who lives well.^[1] The phrase is not derogatory but conveys a sense of overindulgence. In his book, Mind the Gaffe, professor Larry Trask advised that the phrase is pretentious

Two hours later, during a strawberry and ice cream flambe...

 Flambé  is a cooking procedure in which alcohol is added to a hot pan to create a burst of flames. The word means flamed in French (thus, in French, flambé is a past participle; the verb is flamber).
Flambéing is often associated with tableside presentation of certain liqueur-drenched dishes, such as bananas flambées or cherries jubilee, when the alcohol is ignited and results in a flare of blue-tinged flame. However, flambéing is also a step in making coq au vin, and other dishes and sauces, using spirits, before they are brought to the table. By rapidly burning off the volatile alcohol, flambéing can infuse a dish with additional aroma and flavor, and moderates the harshness of raw, high-proof spirits. The flames result from the partial combustion of the flammable alcohol, which is quickly consumed, while some residual flavor remains.

"Does it have a fathometer?"
"A Fleming six-ten, top of the line."

 Was unable to find any mention of Fleming as a maker of fathometers.

Echo sounding is the technique of using sound pulses to find the depth of water. The interval from the emission of a pulse to reception of its echo is recorded, and the depth calculated from the known speed of propagation of sound through water. This information is then typically used for navigation purposes or in order to obtain depths for charting purposes. Echo sounding can also refer to hydroacoustic "echo sounders" defined as active sound in water (sonar) used to study fish. Hydroacoustic assessments have traditionally employed mobile surveys from boats to evaluate fish biomass and spatial distributions. Conversely, fixed-location techniques use stationary transducers to monitor passing fish.
The word sounding is used for all types of depth measurements, including those that don't use sound, and is unrelated in origin to the word sound in the sense of noise or tones. Echo sounding is a more rapid method of measuring depth than the previous technique of lowering a sounding line until it touched bottom.

 A fishfinder or sounder (Australia) is an instrument used to locate fish underwater by detecting reflected pulses of sound energy, as in SONAR. A modern fishfinder displays measurements of reflected sound on a graphical display, allowing an operator to interpret information to locate schools of fish, underwater debris, and the bottom of body of water. Fishfinder instruments are used both by sport and commercial fishermen. Modern electronics allow a high degree of integration between the fishfinder system, marine radar, compass and GPS navigation systems.

Iceberg: flashes in the eyes and more

pg 126

"Miss Fyrie's eyes, like mine, have rays that spread out from the pupil of the iris.. They're sometimes called flashes."

Everyone has rays spreading out from their pupils. They are just easier to see depending on the color of the eye.

"Are you clairvoyant?"

The term clairvoyance (from French clair meaning "clear" and voyance meaning "vision") is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception. A person said to have the ability of clairvoyance is referred to as a clairvoyant ("one who sees clearly").

Claims for the existence of paranormal and psychic abilities such as clairvoyance have not been supported by scientific evidence published in high impact factor peer reviewed journals. Parapsychology explores this possibility, but the existence of the paranormal is not accepted by the scientific community.

"The species of shark found in colder waters can't be eaten fresh." Hákarl or kæstur hákarl (Icelandic for "shark") is a food from Iceland consisting of a Greenland- or basking shark which has been cured with a particular fermentation process and hung to dry for four to five months. Hákarl is often referred to as an acquired taste and has a very particular ammonia-rich smell and fishy taste, similar to very strong cheese slathered in ammonia.

Hákarl is served as part of a þorramatur, a selection of traditional Icelandic food served at þorrablót in midwinter. It is readily available in Icelandic stores and is eaten year round.

Consumption
The Greenland shark itself is poisonous when fresh due to a high content of urea and trimethylamine oxide, but may be consumed after being processed (see below). It has a particular ammonia smell, similar to many cleaning products. It is often served in cubes on toothpicks. Those new to it will usually gag involuntarily on the first attempt to eat it due to the high ammonia content.[1] First-timers are sometimes advised to pinch their nose while taking the first bite as the smell is much stronger than the taste. It is often eaten with a shot of the local spirit, a type of akvavit, called brennivín. Eating hákarl is often associated with hardiness and strength.

It comes in two varieties; chewy and reddish glerhákarl (lit. "glassy shark") from the belly, and white and soft skyrhákarl (lit. "skyr shark") from the body.

Preparation
Hákarl is traditionally prepared by gutting and beheading a Greenland or basking shark and placing it in a shallow hole dug in gravelly sand, with the now-cleaned cavity resting on a slight hill. The shark is then covered with sand and gravel, and stones are then placed on top of the sand in order to press the shark. The fluids from the shark are in this way pressed out of the body. The shark ferments in this fashion for 6–12 weeks depending on the season.

Following this curing period, the shark is then cut into strips and hung to dry for several months. During this drying period a brown crust will develop, which is removed prior to cutting the shark into small pieces and serving. The modern method is just to press the shark's meat in a large drained plastic container.

Iceberg: New Guinea and more

pg 121

"Just before we were attacked, Hunnewell said that Fyri's sister was a missionary in New Guinea."

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin missionem (nom. missio), meaning "act of sending" or mittere, meaning "to send". The word was used in light of its biblical usage; in the Latin translation of the Bible, Christ uses the word when sending the disciples to preach in his name. The term is most commonly used for Christian missions, but can be used for any creed or ideology.

New Guinea (also, Dutch: Nieuw Guinea or Indonesian: Irian; and historically: Papua ) is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km². Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago. Geologically it is a part of the same tectonic plate as Australia. When world sea levels were low, the two shared shorelines (which now lie 100 to 140 metres below sea level), combining with lands now inundated into the tectonic continent of Sahul, also known as Greater Australia. The two landmasses became separated when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the end of the last glacial period. Anthropologically, New Guinea is considered part of Melanesia. Politically, the western half of the island comprises two Indonesian provinces: Papua and West Papua. The eastern half forms the mainland of the country of Papua New Guinea. The island has a population of about 7.5 million, with a very low population density of only 8 inh/km².
New Guinea is differentiated from its drier, flatter, and less fertile southern counterpart, Australia, by its much higher rainfall and its active volcanic geology, with its highest point, Puncak Jaya, reaching an elevation of 4,884 m (16,023 ft). Yet the two land masses share a similar animal fauna, with marsupials, including wallabies and possums, and the egg-laying monotreme, the spiny anteater, or echidna. Other than bats and some two dozen indigenous rodent genera,^] there are no pre-human indigenous placental mammals. Pigs, several additional species of rats, and the ancestor of the New Guinea Singing Dog were introduced with human colonization.
The human presence on the island dates back at least 40,000 years to the oldest human migrations out of Africa. Research indicates that the highlands were an early and independent center of agriculture, with evidence of irrigation going back at least 10,000 years.
Because of the time depth of its inhabitation and its highly fractured landscape, an unusually high number of languages are spoken on the island, with some 1,000 languages (a figure higher than that of most continents) having been catalogued out of an estimated world-wide pre-Columbian total of 6,000 human dialects. Most are classified as Papuan languages, a generally accepted geographical term which a minority of authors hold to be a genetic one. A number of Austronesian languages are spoken on the coast and on offshore islands.
In the 16th century Spanish explorers discovered the island and called it Nueva Guinea. In recent history western New Guinea was included in the Dutch East Indies colony. The Germans annexed the northern coast of the eastern half of the island as German New Guinea in their pre–World War I effort to establish themselves as a colonial power, whilst the south eastern portion was reluctantly claimed by Britain. Following the Treaty of Versailles, the German portion was awarded to Australia (which was already governing the British claim, named the Territory of Papua) as a League of Nations mandate. The eastern half of the island was granted independence from Australia as Papua New Guinea in 1975. The western half gained independence from the Dutch in 1961, but became part of Indonesia soon afterwards in controversial circumstances

"You say hands off, yet I get the distinct impression I'm supposed to play Prince Charming."

Prince Charming is a stock character who appears in a number of fairy tales. He is the prince who comes to the rescue of the damsel in distress, and stereotypically, must engage in a quest to liberate her from an evil spell. This classification suits most heroes of a number of traditional folk tales, including Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, even if in the original story they were given another name, or no name at all.
These characters are often handsome and romantic, a foil to the heroine, and are seldom deeply characterized, or even distinguishable from other such men who marry the heroine.
In many variants, they can be viewed more as rewards for the heroine rather than characters^.

History of term  
 Charles Perrault's version of Sleeping Beauty, published in 1697, includes the following text at the point where the princess wakes up: "'Est-ce vous, mon prince?' lui dit-elle, 'vous vous êtes bien fait attendre'. Le Prince charmé de ces paroles... ne savait comment lui témoigner sa joie". ("'Are you my prince?' she said. 'You've kept me waiting a long time'. The prince charmed by her words... did not know how to express his joy.") It has sometimes been suggested that this passage later inspired the term, "Prince Charming", even though it is the prince who is charmed (charmé) here, not who is being charming (charmant).

"She's beginning to sound like a cross between Catherine the Great and Aimee Semple McPherson."

Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia (May 2 [O.S. April 21] 1729 – November 17 [O.S. November 6] 1796), was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from July 9 [O.S. June 28] 1762 until her death at the age of sixty-seven. She was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, and came to power following a coup d'état and the assassination of her husband, Peter III, at the end of the Seven Years' War. Russia was revitalised under her reign, growing larger and stronger than ever and becoming recognised as one of the great powers of Europe.
In both her accession to power and in rule of her empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. Assisted by highly successful generals such as Pyotr Rumyantsev and Alexander Suvorov, and admirals such as Fyodor Ushakov, she governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish wars, and Russia colonised the vast territories of Novorossiya along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. In the west, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherine's former lover, king Stanisław August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, with the Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, Russia started to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America.
Catherine reformed the administration of Russian guberniyas, and many new cities and towns were founded on her orders. An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and private landowners led to increased levels of reliance on serfs. This was one of the chief reasons behind several rebellions, including the large-scale Pugachev's Rebellion of cossacks and peasants.
The period of Catherine the Great's rule, the Catherinian Era, is often considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire and the Russian nobility. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the Empress, changed the face of the country. A notable example of enlightened despot, a correspondent of Voltaire and an amateur opera librettist, Catherine presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, when the Smolny Institute, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe, was established.

 Aimee Semple McPherson (October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-American Los Angeles, California evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. She founded the Foursquare Church. McPherson has been noted as a pioneer in the use of modern media, especially radio, and was the second woman to be granted a broadcast license. She used radio to draw on the growing appeal of popular entertainment in North America and incorporated other forms into her weekly sermons at Angelus Temple.

Iceberg: Snorri's Restaurant

pg 120

If Snorri's Restaurant in Reykjavik could be picked up and placed down in any of the epicurean cities of the world...

There's a Snorri's Guesthouse in Reykhavik, but not a restauraunt. (Though of course there might have been one 30 years ago!)

The restaurant was perhaps named after a famous Icelandic person:
Snorri Þorgrímsson or Snorri Goði (; 963-1031) was a prominent chieftain in Western Iceland, who featured in a number of Icelandic sagas. The main source of his life is the Eyrbyggja saga, in which he is the main character, although he also figures prominently in Njál's saga and the Laxdæla saga. Snorri was the nephew of Gísli Súrsson, the hero of Gísla saga, while his son Halldórr was the subject of two tales detailing Halldórr's service in the retinue of the Norwegian king Haraldr Sigurðarson.
Eyrbyggja Saga says of him "He was a very shrewd man with unusual foresight, a long memory and a taste for vengeance. To his friends he gave good counsel, but his enemies learned to fear the advice he gave."
Njál's saga says of him "Snorri was reckoned the wisest man in Iceland, not counting those who were prescient"

Its one great hall, with open kitchen and earthen ovens only a few feet from the dining area, was designed in the Viking condition.

The Vikings (from Old Norse víkingr) were the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.
These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, and as far south as Nekor. This period of Viking expansion – known as the Viking Age – forms a major part of the medieval history of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland and the rest of Medieval Europe.
Popular conceptions of the Vikings often differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and written sources. A romanticised picture of Vikings as Germanic noble savages began to take root in the 18th century, and this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival. The received views of the Vikings as violent brutes or intrepid adventurers owe much to the modern Viking myth which had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations are typically highly clichéd, presenting the Vikings as familiar caricatures

"I took a walk in the Tjarnargardar Gardens and lost track of time."

 This sounds like it should be an actual place, but there is no mention of Tjarnargardar Gardens on the internet at all!