Hoolie
Well-Known Member
But Bounty didn't have a steam engine, so Camelia's dad is safely out of the loop on this 
How much compressed air would have saved the Bounty?
- Thread starter Greenheart
- Start date
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
The steam-engine line was a little joke. Wasn't meant to be taken seriously. 
Hoolie
Well-Known Member
The steam-engine line was a little joke. Wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
Of course - see my post #17
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Ah. I was afraid you believed you had detected a sense-of-humour-failure. But the basis of this whole thread is absurd, I admit it! So I hope humour does work here...
Hoolie
Well-Known Member
Ah. I was afraid you believed you had detected a sense-of-humour-failure. But the basis of this whole thread is absurd, I admit it! So I hope humour does work here...
I hope so too ... ... ... but I despair sometimes
blackbeard
Well-Known Member
well, let's think of another problem ... you need a large space for the air bags/tanks to deploy into, and there is very little spare space in a ship, mostly it's full of stores, machinery and so forth, plus the crew spaces are still needed for crew ... doubtless you could find some space somewhere, but perhaps not enough to ensure flotation.
As to why and how she filled - I understand the US Coast Guard will investigate but this could take months. Meanwhile, one can speculate ... One possibility is muck in the fuel tanks, presumably accumulated over the ship's 50-year life, stirred up by the ship's motion, so that filters and fuel lines blocked. If the pumps were electrical rather than mechanical, this would need both main engines and generator(s) to fail. Original Bounty would have had muscle-powered pumps, as in all hands to the pumps, maybe this might have been better ...
Blackbeard's theory, based on the ship being built originally for a film with (at the time) no perceived need for it to last beyond the end of filming, and the ship now being about 50 years old, is that the planking and timbers were no longer strong enough for the job; if the seams started to open up, or fastenings to give way, or a plank to fail, the water ingress could have been too great for any pump to cope with. The engines, being low down in the ship, could have been immersed and of course would then have stopped. But in general, if the water level in the ship is rising and evidently coming in faster than it can be removed, the ship is going to sink.
The rather surprising lesson might be that a ship of this type, more strongly built and in better condition, so that it remained more or less water tight, would have survived the worst efforts of a major hurricane, with no need for air bags.
Seajet
...
Blackbeard,
you are thinking on the same lines as me, muck in the fuel tanks stirred up by the unusual amount of motion could knobble engines fitted just a few years ago, though there's a big question mark over those on this Bounty.
Airbags
There was a system mooted for yachts in the 1970's called 'Unsink', where folded airbags would be fitted under bunk mattresses etc then inflated by bottle; the big snag is the vulnerability of the bags in everyday use, and like a lot of emergency systems one can't give it a test-inflate.
However having dealt with a sunken 22' sailing boat I am now gravely doubtful about such systems, and in no doubt at all they would leave the people with a barely awash wreck to hang onto, nothing more.
I used to think I'd try inflating my 3-4 man inflatable dinghy inside the cabin as a last resort; now I am sure I would just be saying goodbye to a dinghy which might have been handy !
In the case of this Bounty I doubt she was structually strong enough to take the immense load of such airbags, and then there's the matter of the masts and top hamper; she'd be a barely floating wreck, inverted !
I agee with Dancrane wondering how such vessels get to take inexperienced - presumably paying - people to sea even in normal conditions; experience has shown that liferafts alone are no guarantee of survival.
As soon as I heard of this incident one name sprang to mind; Marques.
you are thinking on the same lines as me, muck in the fuel tanks stirred up by the unusual amount of motion could knobble engines fitted just a few years ago, though there's a big question mark over those on this Bounty.
Airbags
There was a system mooted for yachts in the 1970's called 'Unsink', where folded airbags would be fitted under bunk mattresses etc then inflated by bottle; the big snag is the vulnerability of the bags in everyday use, and like a lot of emergency systems one can't give it a test-inflate.
However having dealt with a sunken 22' sailing boat I am now gravely doubtful about such systems, and in no doubt at all they would leave the people with a barely awash wreck to hang onto, nothing more.
I used to think I'd try inflating my 3-4 man inflatable dinghy inside the cabin as a last resort; now I am sure I would just be saying goodbye to a dinghy which might have been handy !
In the case of this Bounty I doubt she was structually strong enough to take the immense load of such airbags, and then there's the matter of the masts and top hamper; she'd be a barely floating wreck, inverted !
I agee with Dancrane wondering how such vessels get to take inexperienced - presumably paying - people to sea even in normal conditions; experience has shown that liferafts alone are no guarantee of survival.
As soon as I heard of this incident one name sprang to mind; Marques.
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rudolph_hart
Well-Known Member
An even worse "old classic killed by hurricane" event (in terms of lives lost) here: http://www.caribbeancompass.com/fantome.htm
I was aboard her a few times in Nassau in the late 70's, and thought her definitely undercanvassed, so the thought of being aboard in conditions severe enough to overwhelm her are frightening.
Although originally built as a 'ship' (rather than a film prop), she was still a fair bit older than the Bounty replica, and no one knows if her engines (2) or pumps packed up or suffered structural failure, but her skipper radiod that she was rolling alarmingly, rather than taking on water.
Seajet
...
Poor blokes
Rudolph,
a sad story but thankyou for posting it.
The big contrast I see is that the skipper of the Fantome did everything he could to avoid the hurricane, in a nasty situation with land, rocks and reefs around and vastly inferior forecasts compared to those available long in advance to the 'hurricane chaser' Bounty.
Rudolph,
a sad story but thankyou for posting it.
The big contrast I see is that the skipper of the Fantome did everything he could to avoid the hurricane, in a nasty situation with land, rocks and reefs around and vastly inferior forecasts compared to those available long in advance to the 'hurricane chaser' Bounty.
zzyyxx
Well-Known Member
I was a bit surprised that these replicas aren't built like a modern ship, with watertight compartments and so forth.
Maybe they were a little too faithful to the original....
Maybe they were a little too faithful to the original....
Seajet
...
I'd imagine things were very different with a film replica built ( where ? ) n the early 1960's, I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did.
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
The original Bounty was a bit small for compartmentalization; she was only 90' long.
I'd guess that the film company would have wanted to have period features like an open gun-deck, as well.
Does anyone know if she was a genuine replica built to be reasonably historically accurate, or was she just a three masted ship of about the right size and shape? The term "replica" is often sadly misused!
zzyyxx
Well-Known Member
There's something here:-
http://www.tallshipbounty.org/the-ship/index.php
The stats page shows them to be different sizes the replica being substantially larger at 120' vs 90' on deck.
http://www.tallshipbounty.org/the-ship/statistics.php
prv
Well-Known Member
Do they insist on them being retro-fitted to existing vessels, though? That would be difficult or impossible in many cases.
Obviously the applicable regulations won't be the British ones anyway. What flag was the ship?
Pete
blackbeard
Well-Known Member
I shouldn't really say this, but I will
er
um
so to speak
as it were
(gulp)
Costa Concordia
alant
Well-Known Member
Car airbags, have an open end to allow almost instant deflation after the initial inflation, so not much use to prevent sinking.
boguing
Well-Known Member
Unsink didn't catch on. I couldn't understand why, and costed it all out as a business idea in the late 70s/ early 80's.
It was all looking good until I had a (rare) sensible moment and compared the cost to a liferaft. Despite the fact that by far the most common reason for abandoning a boat is sinking, and that it is arguably better to stay on a flooded boat than get into a raft, the price was too high, because anybody racing still had to have a liferaft. That coupled with the fact that we could all make our boats unsinkable, at trivial cost, unsinkable (filling lots of space with bottles etc) made me realise that it was not a good idea.
Secondly, I wonder how these boats get under the radar of authorities. I walked around the Maria Assumpta just a month or so before her tragic accident. When I heard that it had happened I couldn't believe my ears. I thought that she was just a poorly-maintained static exhibition piece in Bristol docks.Too along ago for specifics, but a complete air of decay and bodged maintenance.
It was all looking good until I had a (rare) sensible moment and compared the cost to a liferaft. Despite the fact that by far the most common reason for abandoning a boat is sinking, and that it is arguably better to stay on a flooded boat than get into a raft, the price was too high, because anybody racing still had to have a liferaft. That coupled with the fact that we could all make our boats unsinkable, at trivial cost, unsinkable (filling lots of space with bottles etc) made me realise that it was not a good idea.
Secondly, I wonder how these boats get under the radar of authorities. I walked around the Maria Assumpta just a month or so before her tragic accident. When I heard that it had happened I couldn't believe my ears. I thought that she was just a poorly-maintained static exhibition piece in Bristol docks.Too along ago for specifics, but a complete air of decay and bodged maintenance.
Seajet
...
Yup,
another was the Marques.
I was in Oustreham soon after her loss, and by coincidence the locals who came for a meal were all very serious sailors indeed, as the French tend to be, and they knew the ship.
They regarded it as little short of murder taking inexperienced people along; if I understood them correctly the doghouses were basically secured over their corresponding big holes in the deck with stretched canvas.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Very tragic events. I wonder if the man who survived the loss of both the Marques and the Maria Assumpta contributes here, under some adopted sobriquet...
prv
Well-Known Member
if I understood them correctly the doghouses were basically secured over their corresponding big holes in the deck with stretched canvas.
This accident along with several others is investigated in great detail in the book "Tall Ship Down". It's a while since I read it, but I believe the main cause of the Marques capsizing was the way her rig had been successively increased over the years from pole-masted schooner to a barque with royals, plus new deckhouses, plus some heavy boats on top of them, plus the boats were then filled with gear. In each case the modifications were done for film work etc, without any proper consideration by a naval architect, and I don't believe any extra ballast was ever shipped to compensate for it.
Once she went over, the inadequacy of the hatch came into play. The design of it was perfectly standard, and fine for cargo. But the thing about cargo hatches is that you batten them down firmly in port, with boards and tarpaulins and wedges and lashings, and you don't open them at sea. Sailors in square-rigged cargo ships always knew that the hatch covers coming loose in rough weather was a mortal threat to the ship. But on the Marquez, they were using the hold for accommodation, and the hatch was left partly open for ventilation. They'd pull the tarpaulin across to keep the rain out when required, but that's nothing like the way it should have been secured to make the deck whole and keep the sea out.
I'd recommend the book.
Pete