It's not often you see a battleship about to be rammed by a giant swan.

March 12, 2009 5:16 AM

The Smallest Manned Navy in the World

In the seaside town of Scarborough (home of officially the best donkeys in the UK) in Northeast England, spectacular naval battles are recreated thrice-weekly in the summer months. Council employees steer the replica battleships with their feet leaving their hands free to operate the guns. That is, if a new enemy doesn't scupper the show.

posted by bokeh (17 comments total)

They should just eat the new enemy.
posted by Pants! at 5:30 AM on March 12

Ta. This is brilliant.
posted by tawny at 5:32 AM on March 12

I wish I had a lake where I have these mock battles.... :>( My life sucks now.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 5:40 AM on March 12

Wonderful.
posted by stargell at 5:45 AM on March 12

You sank my battleship!
posted by Elmore at 6:05 AM on March 12

Gotta love it. Rabid enthusiasts of any arcane subject help to make life more interesting for those of us not-so-rabid livers of ordinary lives. Hats off!
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:07 AM on March 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

From the "naval battles" link: It's not often you see a battleship about to be rammed by a giant swan.

Speak for yourself.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:13 AM on March 12

Awesome. I'd love to see them build additional ship types and do Greek, Roman, Norse, etc too.
posted by DU at 6:22 AM on March 12

good stuff, thanks! Also well done for linking to the ever-wonderful House of the
Orange Monkey (previously, wearing hats)
posted by patricio at 7:08 AM on March 12

For shame, I've not seen one of these battles, despite many happy days spent in Scarborough. However, my mother once saw one and enthused so wildly about '...the little ships! ...and they really fire at each other!' that it must be ten times better than you can possibly imagine.

(Oh, and Scarborough beats every other seaside in England hands down, just so you know.)
posted by Sova at 7:35 AM on March 12

Scarborough Evening News definitely needs to hire a guy with a camera.
posted by crapmatic at 9:31 AM on March 12

I would so love to have one of those to put in the river by my house. Some punk on a jet-ski would buzz be and I could swing the turrets his way and open fire!
posted by TedW at 9:39 AM on March 12

In Salem, we do this full size.

I would love to combine this with replicas of modern ships and little model airplanes launching off model carriers and model rockets launched from model missile cruisers. Dangerous, I imagine.
posted by mkb at 10:04 AM on March 12

I'd love to see them build additional ship types and do Greek, Roman...

Only if there are tiny slaves and a drummer.

RAMMING SPEED!
posted by GuyZero at 10:30 AM on March 12

I'm sure I saw this as a little kid, I know we had a least one holiday up there... or perhaps it's just wish fulfillment. Still, makes me proud to be British.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:30 AM on March 12

Nice post. I could probably do something cool like this too if I didn't spend so much time reading about and looking at the websites of folks that do it and making pithy comments about it. Maybe I should -- Ooh! Diamond theft story. Hold that thought.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:09 AM on March 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

See also.
posted by Johnny Assay at 3:46 PM on March 12