NKP:
I was in the Navy during the Viet Nam fiasco. What I learned was that the Navy is completely addicted to tradition. Subs are called boats, as are anything small enough to be carried on a ship. Most of the rest are ships. Glass devices for looking outside are called port holes, even on cinder block buildings. The same goes for decks, overheads, bulkheads, and the flap on the back of the uniform is an imitation of the thing that sailors on the wooden ships wore to keep the pine tar they used on their long hair off their uniform. Even the pants have 13 buttons in honor of the original states.
Incidentally, I never went to sea. I worked on 3 different shore installations, the longest time at NSA.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
CSSHEGEWISCH: Since you brought up ore boats I feel qualified to make a comment, as I was a deckhand on one (Str. Reiss Brothers) during the summer of 1967:
You are exactly right. Bulk ore carriers on the Great Lakes have always been termed ore boats. But I think this is because over the years so many crewmen came from midwestern farms; nautical terms were not a part of our traditions here. For example, the wire railings that kept us from falling into the water are termed, "fences." No one really uses the term stern; instead it's "the ass end." Ore boats had (the old ones, anyway) screen doors on the entrances to the various deck compartments (no jokes about screen doors on subs, please). The list goes on.
Curiously, salt water vessels on the Great Lakes are termed ships, not boats, by everyone in the know. Hence, "zebra mussels were introduced to the Great Lakes via foreign ships carrying...." Rarely, they are called "salties" by crews on the ore boats.
Phoebe: I see your Navy years were well spent imbibing US Navy traditions; your answer about subs being boats, and why, is dead-on.
Sadly, I think your term, "Vietnam fiasco," is also correct and well-said.
As a deckhand that summer I marveled at the relationship of railroads to the ore boats. Wherever one sees ore boats or ships tied up on the Lakes, there one will find fascinating railroad operations at work. No one who has seen a Hulett unloader at work will ever forget it, nor those amazing ore-loading docks at Marquette, Michigan, for example.
The reason subs are callled "boats" goes back to the beginning of the sub service, well over 100 years ago now.
The first subs flew boat flags and commissioning pennants, as they were too small to have a "ship" classification. Boat flags had 13 stars on them as opposed to the national flag of the time which had 46. Boat pennants had seven stars, not 13 like ship's pennants of the time.
So, if you're rummaging through the attic of an old house and come across a flag with 13 stars don't get excited, Betsy Ross probably didn't make that one. Some old Navy vet lived there once!
Seems more likely they continue to be called boats because the early ones, beginning with the Turtle in 1775, were small, submersible boats. When Germany started constructing them, naturally enough they officially called the first an Unterseeboot (submarine boat) U-boot for short.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Speaking of U-boots, if that old U-boot ace Reinhard Hardegan was faced with a down bridge blocking his path HE'D know what to do!
Ever see him on one of the History Channel's U-boot shows? Man, the guy's amazing, 100 years old and he STILL looks like he's ready to take a boat out and kick butt!
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