MERCHANT MARINE
During Jack Miles’ call to John McPhee to amplify the review of “Looking for a Ship,” both men ran aground. Miles reports McPhee said that the Scandinavians have quit shipbuilding altogether. Both men need refloating.
McPhee’s accuracy, so beautifully applied to birchbark canoes and to the Swiss Army, is reliable when he paddles the canoe, marches in the Alps and sails the freighter. But, obviously, McPhee has not visited the Baltic lately.
On a Baltic tour last month I was shown a gigantic liner under construction at the Masa Yards in Helsinki harbor, Finland. It is the Ecstasy, said to be the largest cruise hull ever, to be delivered to the Carnival line in 1991. Carnival recently received their Fantasy cruise ship from the Finns.
BUD LESSER
LOS ANGELES
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