The winner of the March puzzle is Alison Ramage of Saltcoats, Scotland.
Carpathian and Patch provided us with the second maritime themed puzzle of the year — from disastrous storms at sea in January to lifeboats in March. It was simple to track down the theme using Google (other search engines are available), which maybe begs the question: does “founded two hundred years ago this month” provide too much information?
Of course, no one is obliged to seek to identify the theme before solving the clues, but one of the pleasures of these 3D puzzles is delving into areas where one’s knowledge is limited and this was no exception. Who knew that the RNLI was originally called “The National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck”, founded in March 1824? Perhaps NIPLS was an acronym too far?
On this occasion, knowing the theme in advance made one appreciate more the wealth of maritime allusions and terminology scattered through the clues. There were many pleasingly elegant features, such as appropriate anagram indicators in “love shipwrecked by male” for (OPHISM) and “I’m at sea with bosun” (OMNIBUS). The reminder of the Titanic disaster in “a steamship’s first to help” (ASSIST) was even more brilliant since the first ship to attend the stricken liner and rescue some of its passengers was, indeed, the RMS Carpathia. Our setter exploited these opportunities expertly, with, I suspect, a well-placed tongue in their cheek and a twinkle in their eye. Clueing throughout was varied, neat, inventive and fair — personal favourite clues were for NOOKIE (“Corner that is for hanky-panky”) and STEWARD (“Crew member wasted, drunk across middle of berth”).
Even though I have been solving 3D puzzles for many years, I had not realised, before volunteering for the reviewer role, that the grid designer is also responsible for coming up with all the entries, so special mention goes to Patch (and belatedly to all our other grid designers). Here the six-tiered 7x5 grid served the theme extremely well: all entries were of five, six, seven or eight letters, with no unduly obscure words, only two (sea-)serpents and a good sprinkling of theme-related entries, such as STORMS, CAPSIZE, MAYDAY, LAUNCH, RESCUE; the latter five entries would qualify handsomely for what the New York Times crossword editor states is “sometimes described among cruciverbalists as a progression theme”.
The thematic integrity of the puzzle was concluded with a novel touch in omitting the letters SOS “sent out of necessity” from three entries, leaving RNLI and LIFEBOATS in the highlighted cells.
Moreover, a sigh of relief that, following my abject failure in January, I was able to solve Frank Paul’s visual clue: H (for hospital) replacing TIM (Curry, I think) in OPTIMISM = OPHISM.
In conclusion, a perfectly judged March puzzle — both interesting and accessible. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this solver’s pleasure.
