Word: ballast
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Author Dexter, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, piles on more complications and coincidences than his novel ought to carry. What saves God's Pocket from flighty sensationalism is its impressive ballast of local color. The fictional neighborhood named in the title is a white, working-class enclave in South Philadelphia that seems all too real: narrow houses, streets, lives; a place where the Hollywood Bar, the social hub of the area, does "half its business before noon." Some of the novel's best times are spent at the Hollywood. Mickey hears a drunken woman praise...
...giant CH-46 helicopter lifted off slowly from its landing pad inside the U.S. Marine compound, its pilot careful to avoid jerking the huge netted crate that hung like ballast beneath it. With machine gunners at the ready, it whirred low over the beachside terrain and headed for U.S. Navy ships on the horizon, there to set down its cargo just as gingerly. Meanwhile, 400 yds. to the west, a steady stream of landing craft nosed into a heavily fortified jetty and began collecting a seemingly endless line of forklift pallets lashed to more wooden crates. "The beach has been...
...rest. Saturday's race was canceled because of shifting winds, after which the Americans called another day off, and both crews rested on Sunday. Meanwhile, in anticipation of light air, which has generally favored his opponent, Conner sent Liberty to a Narragansett Bay dockyard for adjustments of the ballast in its bottom. The Australians would just as soon have heavy weather. Skipper Bertrand, who took a master's degree in ocean engineering at M.I.T., recalls that he once took his boat out in a "cyclone just to see what she'd do." Says he: "It was blowing...
...winner in 1974 and 1977, the little Illusion has the feel of a big boat. Most one-man competitive craft like the Force Five (price: $1,925) are faster than the mini-12s, but they are lightweight and prone to tipping. The mini-12s have keels weighted with lead ballast to make them self-righting. So instead of hanging out over the side to keep the boat upright in a stiff breeze, the skipper stays tucked inside the cockpit in roughly the position of someone sitting on a chaise longue. He steers the boat with a foot bar. In addition...
...Yacht Club, custodian of the Cup and grand panjandrum of its defense, has howled that the radical keel is an infraction of the 12-meter rule, even though it passed muster earlier this year before keen-eyed measurers, including the club's own tape man. With its lowered ballast and jetlike wings, the innovative yacht can slice through the water with less turbulence, turn virtually on a dime, and stand much more erect than its rivals when they beat into the wind, thereby drawing more power from its sails. Remarkably, all this seems perfectly within the rules. Even more...