Ships from around the world have gathered in Sydney Harbour this week for the Fleet Review to mark the centenary of the formation of the Royal Australian Navy. Naval vessels of various kinds, sailing ships, you name it.

Those who have followed my PAD galleries for a while will know that I am not a nautical person. I still have a moderate and sadly diminishing understanding of naval vessels from a previous vocation, though most of the ones that I once knew intimately are now museum pieces, diving wrecks, iron oxide or razor blades and my memory of their specifications and capabilities has long since begun to atrophy though lack of use.

Sailing ships are another matter; my knowledge was always distinctly rudimentary and derived only from a combination of a desire to be a polymath and from watching re-runs of Hornblower. I can talk like a pirate quite fluently (much to the annoyance of another person when we went to The Drunken Admiral seafood restaurant in Hobart last year, which is laid out in the form of an old sailing ship complete with a skeleton manning the helm, arrrrr me hearties), but it would take me some time to identify where the mainbrace is much less how to keelhaul it. Or splice it. Or whatever, ye scurvy dogs, arrrr.

Which is why I look on in awe at the intricate design of masts and rigging on sailing vessels. Every part has to work with every other part. And there are actually people who know how all of these parts work together. And how to make them capture the wind, even when the wind isn't blowing from behind. (Yes, I know the theory of tacking, but it's still pretty amazing that there are people who can do it with this kind of hardware.)

This is the Europa, a three mast rigged ship (barque) which was originally built in 1911 for the city of Hamburg and used as a lightship. She was bought by the Netherlands in 1986 and rebuilt as a barque. At present she's on a round the world voyage including a stop in at Sydney for the fleet review. She carries some professional crew but also a crew of people who buy berths to work on the ship for part or all of the voyage. Sailing from Sydney to NZ for instance will cost you just shy of 3000 Euros, which I have no intention of paying and it's not an issue of money. Granted, Europa is likely to be a lot more comfortable than the ships of yesteryear. (On the original Endeavour, for instance the toilet facilities consisted of sticking your backside through a hole cut in a plank over the bow (hence the term "head") which provided a thorough cleaning when the ship was underway and getting some sea spray, if you know what I mean), and below decks even I (hardly a giant) had to crouch.) No, my issue is with being on the ocean AT ALL. Pass, thank you.

Still, the rigging has a certain beauty to it...