Word: shipful
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...Silence probably wasn't Zheng He's overriding memory of his voyages. Cuthbert had a crew of four. Zhang He commanded 1,000 men, and there was constant traffic between his ship and the rest of the fleet. "Zheng He had a different philosophy," says Cuthbert. "The Europeans viewed the sea as an obstacle, as something that stood in their way of riches and conquest." The Chinese took the Middle Kingdom out to sea with them. They had boats like floating farms, where they grew vegetables and raised pigs and chickens. Smaller sampans shuttled between the flotilla and the coastline...
...Even aboard his floating palace, Zheng He was often lashed by the elements. He lost many ships in raging tempests - some were reefed against the African shoreline and the survivors may have set up colonies there - and hundreds of men succumbed to disease. Zheng He, too, died on his final, seventh voyage and was buried at sea. Ma Huan, a translator on several of Zheng He's expeditions, recalls how Saint Elmo's fire once blazed atop the mast of the treasure ship, prompting a shaken Zheng He to offer more lavish sacrifices to Tianfei...
...After Cuthbert's success sailing the Precious Dragon to Britain, he received a phone call from a fellow Englishman, a maritime adventurer named Rex Warner, who wanted to borrow the ship to recreate one of Zheng He's trips. Cuthbert happily agreed. The Precious Dragon was loaded onto a freighter, shipped back to Hong Kong and prepared for its new journey. Warner was anxious to set off in the autumn, catching the strong west winds, as Zheng He had done...
...which he declined to name, to bid on the contract but received no response. Gdynia's bid offered the "best value" in terms of cost and willingness to collaborate on the new design. "There are not a lot of shipyards," he added, "with expertise to build this type of ship...
...year-old Zero pilot on his first mission when he attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. He continued flying bombing raids until June 1944, when he was shot down and stranded on the Mariana Islands. On Sept. 2, 1945, he paddled a rubber raft to a U.S. ship offshore and signed his recognition of Japan's surrender...