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Sunday, May 08, 2005

The British destroyer Swift

I have a very small photo of the Swift, apparently tied up to a pier, with a very small, dark torpedo boat alongside. I had assumed it was an old destroyer, but as the length is only about 120ft, it has to be a torpedo boat. The Swift is painted light grey in the photo, with black tops to the funnels. One thing that was particularly striking was how low the freeboard was. The freeboard aft the forecastle is perhaps 1/43 of the waterline length. That would mean only an 8ft freeboard with a 345ft length on the waterline. The height to top of the funnels was then about 38ft. The length of the forecastle was about 87ft. There is a drawing in March's book British Destroyers, which should be correct, although you would think that scaling off from a broadside photo should be quite good.

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