Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8478265" data-attributes="member: 42582">HPL wrote the story in the mid-1920s. The story &quot;quotes&quot; from the Sydney Bulletin for April 18, 1925. When &quot;great Cthulhu slid greasily into the water and began to pursue with vast wave-raising strokes of cosmic potency&quot; it was in pursuit of the Alert, a &quot;heavily armed steam yacht Alert of Dunedin, N. Z.&quot;Here is a web page about an Australasian steam yacht of the same general era: <a href="https://www.sea.museum/whats-on/our-fleet/sy-ena/ship-specifications" target="_blank">Ship specifications - Australian National Maritime Museum</a>. Here is its Wikipedia page: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SY_Ena" target="_blank">SY Ena - Wikipedia</a>. Given that the 11-man crew of &quot;the two-masted schooner Emma&quot; were able to take the Alert in a boarding action, I'm guessing the latter was comparable to the vessel on that web page.The Ena displaces 76 tons; it's maximum speed is 12 knots. HMS Dreadnought, the famous battleship built in 1906, displaced 18,000 tons with a maximum speed of 21 knots. HMS Orion, built in 1910, displaced around 22,000 tons and also had a maximum speed of 21 knots. Another 5 years later the HMS Revenge displaced close to 30,000 tons with a maximum speed of 23 knots. And for purposes of comparison, the USS Nimitz displaces about 100,000 tons and has a speed of about 31 knots.So no, to HPL and readers of his day Cthulhu being rammed by the Alert was nothing liked being rammed by a giant warship. If we think of it in terms of contemporary fiction, it's in the same general ballpark as being hit by a semi-trailer or a tank travelling at full speed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8478265, member: 42582"] HPL wrote the story in the mid-1920s. The story "quotes" from the Sydney Bulletin for April 18, 1925. When "great Cthulhu slid greasily into the water and began to pursue with vast wave-raising strokes of cosmic potency" it was in pursuit of the [i]Alert[/i], a "heavily armed steam yacht Alert of Dunedin, N. Z." Here is a web page about an Australasian steam yacht of the same general era: [URL="https://www.sea.museum/whats-on/our-fleet/sy-ena/ship-specifications"]Ship specifications - Australian National Maritime Museum[/URL]. Here is its Wikipedia page: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SY_Ena"]SY Ena - Wikipedia[/URL]. Given that the 11-man crew of "the two-masted schooner [i]Emma[/i]" were able to take the Alert in a boarding action, I'm guessing the latter was comparable to the vessel on that web page. The Ena displaces 76 tons; it's maximum speed is 12 knots. HMS Dreadnought, the famous battleship built in 1906, displaced 18,000 tons with a maximum speed of 21 knots. HMS Orion, built in 1910, displaced around 22,000 tons and also had a maximum speed of 21 knots. Another 5 years later the HMS Revenge displaced close to 30,000 tons with a maximum speed of 23 knots. And for purposes of comparison, the USS Nimitz displaces about 100,000 tons and has a speed of about 31 knots. So no, to HPL and readers of his day Cthulhu being rammed by the [i]Alert[/i] was nothing liked being rammed by a giant warship. If we think of it in terms of contemporary fiction, it's in the same general ballpark as being hit by a semi-trailer or a tank travelling at full speed. [/QUOTE]

Verification