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In fact, by the early 1940’s, even though steel cables were available,
事实上，在20 世纪40 年代初期，尽管钢丝绳能买到，
most ships in the United States Navy were not moored with steel cables; they were moored with Manila hemp ropes.
但是大多数的美国海军船停泊时用的不是钢丝绳；这些船用的是马尼拉麻绳。
Now, why was that? Well, the main reason was that steel cables degrade very, very quickly in contact with salt water.
为什么会这样呢？主要的原因是钢丝绳接触咸水后很容易腐蚀。
If you’ve ever been to San Francisco, you know that the Golden Gate Bridge is red.
如果你去过旧金山的话，你会发现金门大桥是红色的。
And it’s red because of the zinc paint that goes on those stainless steel cables.
金门大桥是红色的原因是钢索上喷的锌漆。
That, if they start at one end of the bridge and they work to the other end, by the time they finish,
如果工人们从钢索的一端往另一端喷锌漆，到他们完工的时候，
it’s already time to go back and start painting the beginning of the bridge again,
就该回来重新油漆一遍了，
because the bridge was built with steel cables,
因为金门大桥是由钢丝建成的，
and steel cables can’t take the salt air unless they’re treated repeatedly with a zinc-based paint.
而钢丝在咸性的空气中容易腐蚀，除非反复给钢丝涂上锌颜料。
On the other hand, plant products like Manila hemp, you can drag through the ocean for weeks on end.
但是，像马尼拉麻这样的植物产品，你可以连续好几个礼拜拖着它们穿过海洋。
If you wanna tie your anchor to it and drop it right into the ocean, that’s no problem,
如果你想绑上锚，然后将锚扔到海里，一点问题都没有，
because plant fibers can stand up for months, even years, in direct contact with salt water.
因为植物纤维直接接触海水也能坚持好几个月，甚至好几年。
OK.So how do you take plant fibers that individually you could break with your hands
那么你是怎么将只手可以拉断的植物纤维
and turn them into a rope that’s strong enough to moor a ship that weighs thousands of tons?
做成强韧到可以泊上万吨船的绳子的？
Well, what you do is you extract these long fibers from the Manila hemp plant,
你需要做的是从马尼拉麻里抽出这些长纤维，
and then you take several of these fibers, and you group them into a bundle,
然后从中拿出几缕，揉成一根，
because by grouping the fibers you greatly increase their breaking strength—
因为通过这样揉搓，极大地加强了这些纤维的抗断强度——
that bundle of fibers is much stronger than any of the individual fibers that compose it.
这一根的强度比起其中的任何一缕纤维都要强得多。
And then you take that bundle of fibers and you twist it a little bit, because by twisting it, you increase its breaking strength even more.
之后，再拿揉搓好的那根纤维捻一下，这样能让其抗断强度得到更大的提升。
And then you take several of these little bundles, and you group and twist them into bigger bundles, which you then group and twist into even bigger bundles, and so on,
再然后，你将揉搓好的这些纤维揉搓和编织成更大的绳子，如法炮制，
until eventually, you end up with a very, very strong rope.
直至做出非常非常结实的缆绳。
