October 16th, 2015
17 Oct 2015 · page 532 of 1306
Splash landing.
Cast: Henry Barber, Isabelle Holt
Comments (27)
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That wild hair move in the last panel <3
Ummm ... why raise the centreboard and rudder?
Without claim to any knowledge, both are somewhat fragile, and important to the boat being able to work properly. So if we assume they are going to survive, a fact we can assume since they are alive some decades later, having a boat in somewhat working order is worth doing.
Good point!
Come down even slightly sideways, and the centreboard taking the weight of the whole ship would probably snap right off.
Yes hug >:D hold each other
"I think 'm entitled to panic at that!" she says as she apparently Doesn't Panic; which reminded me: in his last years, when he was in his 70s and 80s, Lord Laurence Olivier always told the cast and crew of films he worked on two things right at the start:
!) He was "Larry", not "Your Lordship" (or whatever), and
2) that he was aware that, at his age, unless he consciously kept it closed, his mouth would often hang open a bit, and he anyone who noticed to warn him if it was happening.
So, he's playing Dr van Helsing in John Badham's Dracula (1979). They were doing a "locked camera" shot, in which the camera is placed so that something in the scene visually divides the shot into two separate parts (in this case, the view was split by a wall, showing the inside of a room on one side and and the outdoors, a snowy scene with forest in the distance). In a locked camera shot, everything to one side of the divider is blacked out and action on one side is shot and then the film is rewound, the block is reversed and action on the other side is shot, or the two halves are shot and then combined hen a print is made..
The action here was Dracula, confronted by the vampire hunters, would leap out the second-story window, transforming into a wolf as he did, and escape into the forest.
More than one take was needed (as it often is), and at some point, Badham glanced across, noticed, and began "Uh, Larry ..."
And Lord Larry spun to face him and said "I just watched a man leap out a window, turn to a wolf and run away into the woods! I believe I am entitled to let my mouth hang open a bit..."
I think we shall have to ask Henry's ribs whether Isa did or did not panic.
And right about now Ira's second shot is going to become the pressing problem.
Actually, this is good for them. Previously, their problems were "How do we fly an aerial vehicle that has lost its motive force?" and "How were we planning to land this thing, anyway?" Neither answer is immediately obvious. Now, their problems are "How do we plug this leak in the boat?" and "How do we steer this boat to take us where we want to go?" These are both long-established, common problems; and both have standard solutions in The Book.
They do have a few things going for them. There's no cloud so once they strike the sails they'll be virtually invisible on water but there is enough moon for them to see the land. The tide will probably carry them a few miles to the west but they're close to land so they should get ashore in under an hour with a good chance of a hard beach landing before the muds are exposed and by then that westering moon will be well on the way to setting meaning that a land search for them will also be difficult.
The bullet hole is trivial - they've enough spare canvas to deal with losing a couple of planks.
The pressing problem is the tide. There is no wind so they might as well get rid of the sails and become harder for Ira to see. They have no oars so the spars for the 'wings' may have to become jury-paddles. They have to get ashore somewhere quickly or they'll either be stranded on impassable deep mud and become sitting ducks or they'll be swept
into the tideway and swamped by the first overfall.
Hmm. They have one undamaged circle so they might be able to strap it across the transom and use it as a sort of magical outboard motor - Hard to steer though but they might be able to get ashore and turn the sailfin around to chug off and act as a decoy.
Even better - there's a circle on the transom already.
So there is - it's only visible in one frame and I'd manages to miss it - so:
If Izzy is up to copying the working circle they can re-purpose the boom and jib and be airborne again.
Called it!
Huh, not the worst of landings. Crash landings, anyways.
"Any landing you can walk away from..."
"What about swimming?"
A non-totally-destructive landing! Victor would be so pleased!
Indeed! Although to be fair to Henry, getting shot at is a bit outside of the "things Henry could do to cause the boat's destruction" list, so that unexpected twist plus the landing ought to make Henry's actions to limit the damage even better to Victor. The port wing spar just isn't something he could do much about.
non-destructive so far, at least...
You just had to say it, didn't you? Anything that happens to the boat after this is officially your fault.
Bravely done! Kate drew the entire, intact boat again!
And this is why it's a flying boat. It's much better prepared for emergency landings than a flying carpet would be.
If and only if you're over water...
So...that's a no to the smoochy times, then.
-sigh-
I notice Henry said "hold on!" when what he actually meant was "hold me!". Doesn't sound quite as dashing though.
I'm guessing one of the limiting factors on the popularity of these flying boats is fragility.
As a brilliant lyricist once said:
'Sailfins were meant to sail'*
slightly paraphrasing