…I just have a lot of questions.
Every once in a while though, a response just appears out of the blue from AnswerMan.
AnswerMan often provides perspective that hadn’t occurred to the rest of us. Remember that post about the tanker ship cruising past Charlies Pasture with water blowing out its face? Well, it turns out the real explanation for what is going on there never occurred to any of us. Here it is, in AnswerMan’s own words:
Sorry to interrupt here, gentlemen, but AnswerMan received a copy of this email and felt obliged to intervene. The Euronav Cap Jean is, in fact, one of the largest of a new breed of tanker called the turfship. Turfships look exactly like regular ships when they’re at sea, so most good sightings occur on land near coastal waters. As you can plainly see, there is no water under this ship, so there can be no question that it is, in fact, a turfship.
The blowup of the bow shows one of the few visible distinguishing characteristics of the turfship: the large deck-mounted nozzles that spray water in front of the ship as it moves, preventing the hull from sticking to the turf. Also visible in this image is the plow nose, which turns the turf and shapes it to match the curvature of the hull. If it were not for these unique features, the turfship would be indistinguishable from a beached ocean-only ship.
As you might well imagine, the use of turfships in or near large cities is frowned upon because they have a tendency to destroy any human artifacts they encounter. Where there is nothing whatever of value, as is obviously the case here, using a turfship to navigate directly to a refinery is a practical and cost-effective method for loading and off-loading petroleum products.
Yours for truth and knowledge.. or failing that, mild amusement.
AnswerMan
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