Last month was one of the coolest and wettest since I moved to Maine 10 years ago. Temps were consistently 10-15 degrees below normal. But, it beats shoveling snow! Rainy days attract more vacationers to our shop as well, so there's a good side to the weather.

Model Ship World is an on-line forum of over 40,000 ship modelers. Topics range from kits to scratch builds, in-process continuing stories, tips, manufacturer information, technical topics. Too many to list here. Go take a look!

Arrive - Hardly a sea term, but it once was. It came from French, in turn from the Latin word arripare, of which the meaning, and the early English one too, was to land, or to come ashore.

Capsize - hardly needs definition. An earlier spelling was capasize, and it probably came from the Spanish word capuzan, to sink. (The Nova Scotia word, present and past tense, is "upsot")

Mess - (1) A group within a ship's company who live and eat together, such as the junior officer's mess. (2) A shipboard meal, or food in general. The word came from Middle English, mes, and goes back to Late Latin, missum, that which is put on the table. It is a military as well as a seafarer's term.

Sponson - (1) structural projections on the sides of various craft, also of flying boats, for extra bouyancy or stability. (2) Another name for a paddle box of a sidewheel steamer. The term is probably a corruption of the word expansion. (see Bustle)

Bustle - (1) A special kind of fairwater aft, on larger (and faster) merchant ships and some steam yachts, in the early XX century. (2) Another name for "blisters" built onto the sides of some merchant steamers to improve stability. (3) A faired bulge on the bottom near the stern on some racing sailboats. The origin for all these, on good authority, is the lady's bustle of the late XIX.

Information is from the book "Origins of Sea Terms" by John G. Rogers

These two models are from Sandy L. of RI.

This is from Tom M. of MA

"Hi Nic,

Nic's bench - Still rigging the Newsboy. The foremast lower and upper top yards are installed.

Al's bench - Al is enjoying his development of the 82' Point class WPB.

When do jokes become dad jokes? When they are fully groan.

Before the invention of the crowbar, crows had to drink at home.

I told the doctor that I sometimes have spontaneous bouts of joke telling. He said I had an overactive gag reflex.

If a 1-L lama is a priest, and a 2-L llama is an animal, what is a 3-L lllama? A big fire in Boston.

What do you call a Christmas wreath made of $100 bills? Aretha Franklins.

Why does the Norwegian navy put bar codes on the side of their ships? So they can Scan da navy in.

 A wife is turning 32 yrs old. The husband says they can only celebrate her birthday for a half a minute, because it is her 32nd birthday. She didn't see the humor in that.

Also from Tom M. of MA (see "...your workbench" above)

Short and sweet, but a really good idea!

We just gave the 82' point class boat kit a part number. It is K1117. That makes 17 kits we have produced since I took the helm almost 10 years ago. In addition, we have improved and/or modified another 8 of our existing kits.

All this work makes our product line broad, diverse, and exciting for you to see when you visit our website or come into our store.

BlueJacket Shipcrafters