Catastrophe 2: Return of the Cat

I am a very, very bad cat

After Admiral Mini's last nautical escapade both cats have been banned from the Shell Splash Ops Centre, unless I'm present to keep an eye on them. It's been two months without an incident. Mini is asleep on the table and I have to pop downstairs and get dinner on. Next to her is a box containing 20 Dutch warships, 6 fluyts and an English galley frigate, securely lidded. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? It'll be fine, won't it?

No. Not fine. I come back an hour later to find the box on the floor. Upside down. No sign of cat.

I assume she must have been chasing a fly. With the onset of Spring it's officially fly hunting season, and if she hears the tantalising buzz of a delicious Crunchy Sky Snack, nothing stands in her way. Or maybe she just did it deliberately, because she thought it would be funny.

I stare at the box dumbfounded for a while. As long as I don't look inside then perhaps, like Schrödinger's cat, the ships exist in a superposition, simultaneously both undamaged and utterly mangled. Schrödinger's ships. For a moment I consider tracking the cat down and wagging my finger at her, but I know the response will just be the look that says: "Yeah whatever, puny human slave. Feed me."

Eventually I summon up the courage and gingerly open the box. At first glance it looks bad, a tangled mass of masts, like a bunch of Stickle Bricks having a drunken orgy. But thankfully it's not as grim as it first appears. A few bent bowsprits again (seems to be a weak point), and several ships have their mizzen masts bent forward slightly from the impact. Everything bends back in place ok, and the only damage requiring a visit to the dockyard is a fourth rate that's lost its mizzen topsail. Amazingly, there are no detached flags.

So all's well that ends well. It's a testament to the durability of the Tumbling Dice models that they fell 30" in a loosely packed box, spun around in mid air, and still survived. But don't try this at home.