Napoleon III sent his best ship, Charlemagne, to the Black Sea to defend France's claim.
"And yet these people built the best ships in the world.
The best ships and weapons are only available as you head in toward the heart of the galaxy.
Instead of looking for the best ship to reach a goal, it looked for a goal (like the space station) to justify the ship.
It is still, for instance, the world's biggest petrol station, with bunker sales of 40.9 billion tonnes in 2010; it has some of the best ship-repair yards too.
* The best ships for families are: Independence of the Seas (royalcaribbean.co.uk), with lots to keep teenagers occupied; Azura and Ventura (0843 374 0111; pocruises.co.uk), which have good nurseries; and MSC Opera (0844 561 1955; msccruises.co.uk), sailing from Southampton next summer.
The Spaniards were conscious that even their best ships were slower than those of the English and less well armed with heavy guns, but they counted on being able to force boarding actions if the English offered battle, after which the superiority of the Spanish infantry would prove decisive.
So, as many of their contemporaries fled west to Oregon, to a life of drizzle and fleece, Mr. Bemis and Ms. Lieberg headed in the opposite direction, to help preserve the spirit of Emerson, who wrote, "The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks".
I must also point out that it's hard to feel that any Iron Born plan will go well, given that they spent so much time half-drowning and anointing their new king that it allowed Yara and Theon to conveniently escape, taking the best ships with them.
AddiThisaletsporting by Colleen Taylor, Kim-Mai Cutler, Ryan Lawler, andevelopersstine.
