Portland granite! - who writes this stuff in YM

Malish

Malish

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The other month it was it was jet fighters in 1940 and the Deben at Pin Mill, now we are told that if you take the inshore route around Portland Bill you will have 'huge chunks of Portland granite looming over you' (P31 Sept 09). The piece is accompanied by some nice piccies of Portland Bill showing clearly the well bedded Portland LIMESTONE which has been quarried for centuries and faces many of the bulidings in central London, likely as not visible from the offices of YM. The nearest natural granite on the coast is either in Cornwall or Brittany. Come on Mr Gelder, sort out the gaffs

<geolgical rant over!> :)
 
I thought there were a few batholiths in Dorset - or is my 48 year old geological memory having a holiday ?
 
AMEN!!! From another geologist!

Anecdote!

Many years ago, I worked for the long defunct Coal Tar Research Association. The section I worked in was working on physical properties of various tars with relation to their use in road making and so on. One experiment was to determine the adhesion of tar to different kinds of stone. The experimental design involved getting flat surfaces of various types of stone cut, sticking slabs together with tar and then determining the effort required to separate them.

Anyway, arrangements were made to get the stone cut by a local stonemason, who gave a price and a delivery for cutting stone as required.

The slabs eventually arrived, late, and with a higher than expected bill.

On this being questioned, the stonemason came back with "Some of those weren't stone, they were b..... granite!"

This was in Yorkshire, where apparently to a stonemason, unqualified "stone" means Yorkshire Stone, a rather soft but durable sandstone!
 
does it matter?

Yes it does matter: if you pay for printed media you pay for professional sub-editing among other things. There are enough amateurs at large on the web; from an outfit like IPC we expect there to be a sub between the writer and the reader. And if they can't tell granite from limestone (or can't be bothered to check), what else will they get wrong?
C
 
FinesseChris said:
And if they can't tell granite from limestone (or can't be bothered to check), what else will they get wrong?
C
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For goodness sake, they are journalists. Didn't you ever do the exercise in English at school where you find a newspaper article on a subject you are familiar with and list the factual errors? Then extrapolate that to all the other articles?
YM, PBO et. al will probably get their boaty facts right, but don't expect the incidentals to be above Daily Mail standards.
 
Evadne said:
Didn't you ever do the exercise in English at school where you find a newspaper article on a subject you are familiar with and list the factual errors?
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Everything you read in a newspaper is true :p , apart from that one story of which you have first hand knowledge ;)

Or as my grandad used to say: the only thing you can trust a newspaper to get right is the date and the price :D

Apparently this does not apply to yottie mags, as the September issue is for sale in August :eek:
 
That does seem an unnecessary error I must admit but for the yachtie granite or limestone are equally hard when you hit!

A few years back I was helming a friend's boat racing to Dartmouth in darkness trying to sneak around Portland with tide against when we hit - pretty sure we got into a positive tidal eddy that took us in very quickly and we seemed to get a lifting windshift at the same time tacking away from the rocks with a couple of metres under the keel. A horrible grounding which made us lift the floorboards pretty quickly. Quite spooky with the light above us.

I had only said 5 mins earlier as the skipper came on deck after some shuteye 'want the wheel now?' 'No you carry on' he said.

So watch out for a 'friendly' eddy if trying to round against the tide or go really well offshore - suspect some Fastneters fell foul this year in the light stuff.
 
FinesseChris said:
Yes it does matter: if you pay for printed media you pay for professional sub-editing among other things. There are enough amateurs at large on the web; from an outfit like IPC we expect there to be a sub between the writer and the reader. And if they can't tell granite from limestone (or can't be bothered to check), what else will they get wrong?
C
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..but if you want to read about granite and limestone, buy Quarrying Today, not YM. The only relevance to sailors is 'will I sink if I hit it?'.
 
but the journo is indicating that he knows something about the subject when clearly he does not. They could'nt even be r'sed to type Portland Bill into a search engine to find out what it is made of, they would been better off just calling them rocks. But, to try and sound more knowledgeable the journo decides to name the rock type, probably using the only rock name he has ever heard of or because of a recent sailing trip to Brittany he now assumes all rocks along the Channel are granite. It may not be central to the article but it is still c*** writing.
 
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Does it matter? In the wider scheme of things no.

But why do you read these magazines? To gain news and information about our sport?

A correpondent writing about 'Portland Granite' clearly does not know what he is saying. That makes the rest of his article suspect. How much does he really know? How much of it is 'inventive journalism'?

And you pay for his 'expertise'. Both ways.
 
oldharry said:
But why do you read these magazines? To gain news and information about our sport?

A correpondent writing about 'Portland Granite' clearly does not know what he is saying. That makes the rest of his article suspect. How much does he really know? How much of it is 'inventive journalism'?

And you pay for his 'expertise'. Both ways.
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Did you buy the magazine to gain news and information about the geological features of the coastline? Strange choice of magazine to buy for that. Or did you perhaps read the piece because you wanted to learn about the inshore ROUTE?

By the way, may I suggest the following?

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/magazine/home.html
 
Thats not the point. I dont give a monkeys whether the thing is granite, limestone or pink blancmange. The writer needs to get all his facts right before going into print, if only for the sake of those who will be relying on his advice for their safety.

As it happens I have done that inshore passage many times and in many conditions, and if you have 'huge chunks of Portland granite looming over you' then that says to me you are too close in for safety. I've been round in everything from flat calm to ' I really dont want to be here' conditions, and never had anything 'looming over me' - except the odd wave :)
 
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puddock said:
Did you buy the magazine to gain news and information about the geological features of the coastline? Strange choice of magazine to buy for that. Or did you perhaps read the piece because you wanted to learn about the inshore ROUTE?

By the way, may I suggest the following?

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/magazine/home.html
Click to expand...

Surely most natural harbours and rivers are "geological features of the coastline" so yes.
 
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