Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Frightening effect of heavy weather on a large container vessel

9 comments:

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    1. Lots of twists and turns, especially in this case.

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    2. And sometime even warships break apart due to the stress. If you look at an old ship, you'll note that the steel plates in the hull are slightly out of shape, bent and tweaked because of these shearing forces.

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  2. Engraved on a large brass plate on the bridge of the USS Southerland, DD743:
    This new ship here is fitted according to the reported increase of knowledge among mankind. Namely, she is cumbered end to end, with bells and trumpets and clock and wires, it has been told to me, can call voices out of the air of the waters to con the ship while her crew sleep. But sleep Thou lightly. It has not yet been told to me that the Sea has ceased to be the Sea.
    —Rudyard Kipling

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  3. I remember a November storm in the north Atlantic that kept most of the crew strapped in their racks for an entire day.
    Spent one shift at the helm. The waves that hit the bridge never broke.
    Most of us hoped the ship would go down, ending the pounding we took.

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  4. One of my worst cruises was in the USS New Orleans LPH-11 (amphibious operations/command and control ship). Most aircraft carriers have flat bottoms. The small cold war vintage Iwo Jima Class anphib-carriers like New Orleans had ROUND bottoms and were very top heavy.

    It was a typhoon on the equator, 105 degrees in crew's quarters (air conditioned in officer's country where I was) and rolled dangerously even with full ballast and nearly topped fuel tanks. I've heard that the ship nearly foundered off Australia in Cyclone Justin. Again, rocking, rolling and twisting.

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    1. I was on board for that. Ships X-ray machine went through two bulkheads.

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    2. I was on the New Orleans during Justin and it was not fun.

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  5. Then there were LSTs, designed to run aground on the assault beach in order to offload its landing party directly onto the beach. Imagine how that flat- and shallow-bottomed ship fared in stormy seas. As a Marine, I can attest to being knocked around a great deal - it's the only ship (I'm speaking of the Newport class) that had tie-down rings imbedded everywhere throughout the ship. I viewed one from another ship in company during a transit of the North Atlantic, taking blue water over the bridge.

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