T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 292

LH 9/13/42 Mons. White, R.M. 13. iv. 35 From coby Your story of the Useless-Ulysses pub, of the natives, is almost a quotation - - the pun which I failed to reproduce. "Well, bin Odysseus, for the eddousness" was my final rendering. Your pun "folded translatable. The Hornby Ecclesiasticus is a lovely book. Now if our Odyssey had been of that class .... Epstein is a great portrait artist, but a tiresome personality, I fancy. You mention my R.A.F. boats. The Navy Controller, an Admiral called Henderson, is ordering them by the dozen for all ships: Everybits is to have her gunwhale equipment hard-chined: and every destroyer is to have a 16-foot life-buoy dinghy. The War Office are equipping themselves with them too. I had great development plans, which I have left to my successors - and there is no successor yet. Our latest boat does 48 m.p.h. "Our" I say: poor fool. It's all over. This is permanent (and only) address. Yours ever T E SHAW. Why is a destroyer a bad design ? - because it has too much length for its beam. Beyond 7 or 8 beams to the length one loses speed - in planing boats: and destroyers to be clean and fast should plane. By fast I mean 70 knots with the present machinery - or h.p.