I must admit that I admire people who can think on their feet, like improv comedians, politicians and those people who get caught by the law and on the fly come up with an excuse for the act they were caught in.

While working on ships, one of the most common questions we received from a passenger is "what is the thing sticking out in front of the ship at the water". Now obviously that bit of nautical architecture has something to do with the way the ships goes through the water, but that is not an answer a passenger likes to hear. They like to hear something they can repeat to impress their friends and love ones.

Here goes the story..........One day on a cruise ship pier on a Caribbean island, myself and two other "divers" (we worked for the line taking people snorkeling in the islands) we walking into town, when a couple of passengers walked up to us and asked what that thingy was sticking out in front of the ship.

Having answered the question many times, I was just about to say something about its function when one of my fellow divers started to talk.

He said "THAT IS A DPR", a differential pressure reducer and starts to go on about how the DPR is a miracle of modern design. He was so good at telling this made up description, that myself and the other diver with me were listening with rapt attention to hear about this DPR.

After a few minutes, we realized that my buddy was just making all this up. The passengers listened with bated breath for this "insight" of information on cruise ship design.

Soon, the passengers walked off thanking my friend for all the information. He just smiled and said it was his pleasure.

For the next 10 years and still to this day, I called the thing sticking out from the front of the ship the DPR. Once I even told a ship's Captain the story, and he loved it so much, he said he would start calling it a DPR as it sounds better than its real name, a Bulbous bow.

Click here for real information on the Bulbous bow.

Story by: Sean B. Halliday