Avre Friday Briefing #52
USS Intrepid - The Fighting I
In the early hours of 17 February 1944, a Japanese torpedo struck USS Intrepid 15 feet below the waterline. The blast killed 11 men and jammed her starboard rudder hard-to-port, locking the 27,100-ton Essex-class carrier into a continuous turn.
Captain Thomas L. Sprague's solution was to run the starboard shafts at high speed while idling the port screws — using differential engine thrust to counteract a rudder he couldn't fix. It worked, up to a point. When heavy winds began overpowering the engines and pushing the bow toward enemy-held waters, the crew rigged a jury sail from hatch covers, spare canvas, and anchor chains on the forecastle. Not to propel the ship — just to provide enough wind resistance at the bow to help the engines hold a heading.
It was enough. Intrepid made Pearl Harbour under her own power on 24 February, 3,000 miles later. Assess what's broken, use what you have, keep moving.
She survived the war, four kamikaze hits, and two kaiten attacks. She's now a museum ship on the Hudson in New York — the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Well worth a visit if you're passing through.
Batch No. 3
The men who sailed Intrepid — the engineers, the deck crew who rigged the jury sail — wore the U.S. Navy Shawl Collar Shirt. It was standard working dress aboard carriers of that era. Built for hard use in hot engine rooms and on exposed flight decks. Our version keeps that spec.
What we're reading
We're deep into this at the moment: Blue Blooded: Denim Hunters and Jeans Culture by Thomas Stege Bojer and Josh Sims.
It covers denim in its entirety — the history, the culture, and the obsessives who keep it alive. It traces the origins of jeans from immigrant inventors in the Wild West through to the Osaka Five, profiles the independent makers — 3sixteen, Iron Heart and others — who are producing the best denim being made today, and gets into the technical details: selvedge construction, how fades form, why washing (or not washing) matters. It's a book for anyone who thinks seriously about the fabric.
What we're watching
Hood 2 Farm on YouTube — Like Clarkson's Farm but more raw. Urban rapper becomes Cambridgeshire farmer.