Ships by the "female" term

sniper1shot · Post by **sniper1shot** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:39 am

Hey all;
On another forum I stated that ships go by the term "she".
It was brought to my attention that this could only be "western term"

"She is a fine ship".

So my question is.......where there any countries in any conflict that gave their ships a "male" term?

"He's a powerful vessel" type of thing?

Richard Hargreaves · Post by **Richard Hargreaves** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 8:48 am

Ish... Bismarck's captain insisted that the ship be named "he" not "she" because it was so powerful.

Lloyds List a few years ago made a rule that all ships be "it", although in the Royal Navy we still stick to "she".

lwd · Post by **lwd** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 9:13 am

Although some wanted to refer to Bismark as a "he" she was probably referred to as "she" by most of her crew inline with German tradition. There have been a number of long threads on this topic in several forums (although not always labled such and not particularly easy to find with search engines). My understanding is that in Spanish the ship takes on the gender of the name not certain what the generic reference is if there is one.