The stated aim of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London's Crystal Palace was to "seize the living scroll of human progress, inscribed with every successive conquest of man's intellect".
Probably the nearest we get to such a seizure here in Ireland is the Boat Show, which this year has been accommodated in the RDS in Dublin. Met Eireann, as always keen to do its duty for men's or women's intellects when the living scroll of human progress is at stake, have travelled southside with their paraphernalia.
The exhibits at the weather stand include much of the electronic gadgetry you read about in Weather Eye. Weather radar, for example, is in operation to give warning of approaching showers; terminals interacting directly with computers in Glasnevin provide colourful examples of any weather charts you might wish to see; there are videos to show how the weather can affect your boating life; and kindly, concerned and helpful meteorologists are on hand to explain the tricks of their mysterious trade. But of course, if you must, you can also look at boats. But Habbakuk you will not see.
HMS Habbakuk was the drawing-board name given to an aircraft carrier destined to be built of ice. The idea emerged in 1944, and was based on the notion that it was possible to make heat-resilient ice by freezing water mixed with wood-pulp. The technique was borrowed, it seems, from the North American Eskimos, who used to mix lichens into snow to make their igloo-ice more durable. Tests showed this material was remarkably strong and unexpectedly resistant to moderate heat and stress.
The vessel, had it been built, was to have weighed three million tonnes, a truly remarkable size at a time when the Queen Mary, at a mere 86,000 tonnes, was the largest ship afloat. Habbakuk would have been 2,000 feet in length with walls of ice some 30 feet thick, and its proposed function was to lie in situ as a mid-Atlantic "iceodrome" on which transatlantic aeroplanes would stop for fuel. Self-propulsion would be minimal, consisting of only a dozen outboard motors, powered by the same diesel engines that would provide the required onboard refrigeration.
Sadly, the Habbakuk project was abandoned unfulfilled with the ending of the war in Europe. It was reckoned, however, that had the vessel actually been built, it could have withstood with ease the worst torpedo onslaught. And in any case, in the event of any cracks, it would have been an easy matter to fill a gap with sea-water, turn up the refrigeration, and thus invisibly repair the damage.