The show was pretty well in the can by the time the producer had the
radical idea of talking to someone who knows something about ship loading
and stability.

It's too bad I came in so late. There is fairly complete documentation on
the vessel and I could have produced nearly court testimony quality
conclusions based on computer modeling of the hull and detailed flooding and
stability analysis.

Left on the cutting room floor was my discussion of things like:

* The roll period of this very poorly damped hull at the minimum stability
that would let it survive a few trips would have been a very close match to
a long ground swell. The boat capsized right at the point where it turned
broadside to the swell. It was flat calm so there would have been no
concern or caution about weather. The lack of aerodynamic damping from wind
and counter inputs from surface chop would have made it even easier for
resonant rolling to quickly escalate to angles beyond the range of positive
stability.

* When a ship is loaded to a specific maximum cargo weight on the basis of
the Load Line mark, the less dense the cargo, the worse the stability
because its center of gravity within a fixed volume will be higher.

* The loud banging reported coming from the engine room all night just
before the accident is consistent with opening pipes and breaching a
bulkhead to set up for intentional flooding. However, everyone's
expectation clearly was that the ship would be quickly raised and be on it's
way. The crew hung around for three weeks and only left after the salvage
efforts were abandoned. It seems pretty unlikely that they would have
stayed around for open seacocks and holes in bulkheads to be discovered.
They had an unusual amount of money for tramp seaman and could have
disappeared easily. The fact that they demonstrated every intention of
getting back on the vessel also shoots the U boat fear theory in the foot.

* The previous near capsizing was so similar in vessel behavior that it
could have shown the crew that they could accept the full lumber load, give
the helm a quick hard over at full speed and lay the ship down in waters
where the superstructure would remain above the surface. They then would
only have had to open some deck hatches to let it go down. The ship was
probably being held up by the buoyancy of its lumber load and they might
have been casting it off to complete the capsize.

* Discussion about the quality of stability information provided to crews
and probable sophistication of the master's knowledge typical of the period.

You could make a whole show out of the stuff they taped me saying but, if
you tuned in an hour earlier for "UFO Report - Cattle Mutilations" you'll
understand that this is history to the same extent that TV news is
information and a rational basis for voting decisions.

--

Roger Long



"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...
A good half of the show is about Admiral Byrd's flight over the South
Pole

Seemed a lot less than that to me.

I saw a tape of the show. They cut my time down considerably from what the
head honcho originally told me it would be. My conclusions are presented
but
none of my reasoning which makes me look even more pompous than in real
life.

No, I thought you came off very well. You made sense.

But I thought the show, as a whole, was not very good. There was
enough stuff for a half-hour show but they had to stretch it to an
hour (less commercials, of course), by dragging out that U-Boat
nonsense far longer than it was worth.

vince norris