Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Nautical views in Belfast

It often strikes me that the top of the Hilton Hotel in Belfast looks very like a ship.

Slightly further across the city, an enormous cruise ship backed into its berth on Monday morning. Unfortunately low level clouds arrived soon after, giving the passengers a traditional wet welcome to Northern Ireland as they boarded their buses to go off and tour the sights.

It's an enormous vessel, with level after level extending above water level. Which makes me wonder what kind of hull and/or keel it was in order to keep its centre of gravity/centre of buoyancy in a sensible position?

4 comments:

Timothy Belmont said...

Seen the new Belfast pound coin?

http://www.royalmint.com/store/BritishBase/UK10NIBP.aspx

Niall said...

At a quick browse, http://science.howstuffworks.com/question254.htm looks to explain it reasonably well.

I've been on NCL's Gem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Gem) and Celebrity's Century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Century)

Emmett said...

The administration building at Queens looks quite like a boat too. The white one at the top right.
http://www.psych.qub.ac.uk/i/info/ariellanyon.jpg

Coke_Shy_Hero said...

"ariellanyon"?!! Would that be an "aerial" photo, by any chance? Fine seat of learning I went to, then. ;-) I'm struggling to connect the picture to, for instance, Uranus, The Tempest or even mermaids (shame). Hmm, I wonder what department...