I haven't spent much time around ships, but this captures something I've sensed even in my limited exposure to the differences between ships active and retired:
...when so much effort and care and design and work goes into building them, seeing them discarded like this is sad. The ports they’ve hit, the places they’ve been, the experiences they’ve seen, the waters they’ve sailed…a ship is an adventure in waiting. When they are alive and the pumps are pumping and the fans are turning and the hydraulics and the engines and the bells and the whistles and the waves and the wind and the sunsets and sunrises and everything - a ship is alive. Seeing them liks this is indeed sad.
Click through to see what he means.
