Good memory, Kim. That was a General Products #2 hull, IIRC. The company was owned by Pierson's Puppeteers. It may have been a Beowulf Shaeffer story, memory is dim now, but the hull survived the encounter as did Shaeffer. He moved to the center of gravity of the hull just in time to avoid being flattened into a thin film at the extreme tip of the hull from tidal forces. When Niven came to town about 30 years or so, he met with planetarium staff because I think they were presenting a show based on one of his stories; there was also a sci-fi con going on at the time. I was asked to do a painting of the Ringworld in glow-in-the-dark paint, for the occassion, and it was placed on display in the Black Light Gallery for a while. 2009/1/30 Kim <kimharch@cut.net>
I'm reminded of a short story by SF author Larry Niven where the hero encounters tidal forces near a massive object (I believe it was an anti-matter star) that nearly destroyed him and his spacecraft. The manufacturers of the craft's hull had to make good on an unconditional warranty to replace the hull, but did not readily comprehend the tidal phenomenon because in their world there was no Earth-Moon analogue to relate to. At least that's how I remember the story from about 35 years ago.