gemlike above the bay

AIRBUS BELUGA XL

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

Dreams

The Freezing of the Sea, Antarctica, Herbert G. Ponting , 1911

Getty Search Gateway

Provenance: Samuel Wagstaff, Jr., American, 1921 - 1987, sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984.

75.3 × 59.8 cm (29 5/8 × 23 9/16 in.)

Herbert George Ponting ( 1870 – 1935) was a professional photographer. He is best known as the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pole (1910–1913). As a member of the shore party in he helped set up the winter camp at Cape Evans which included a tiny darkroom where Ponting preferred to take high-quality images on glass plates.

Narrator: "... frozen in pack ice."

Me: "ha, it's always the fucking pack ice."

...

-took place in the relief efforts for the incredibly doomed greely expedition

-leaving douglas mawson behind in antarctica for another year after he just got back from the far eastern party debacle

-getting stuck in the ice for the better part of a year and stranding the ross sea party on the shore