what will it take to sink a medium sized cruise ship

[chengkp75]

Someone been watching The Poseidon Adventure on a continuous loop??????

 

Just for the record, then entire premise of the movie is BS. The strongest portion of the ship is where the propeller shaft goes out. :eek:

[ren0312]

Well, actually, the Stockholm only breached one of Andrea Doria's 11 watertight compartments. It did breach 5 fuel tanks, which were mostly empty because the ship was near the end of the voyage. These empty tanks that were breached, filled with water and caused the Doria to list. This listing eventually brought the starboard side down to where there was down flooding into other compartments. But, the Doria stayed afloat for 11 hours.

 

The Concordia's breaching of 5 adjacent compartments is considered to be unprecedented.

 

And nearly every cargo ship out there is a single compartment vessel.

 

What other ships do you have in mind?

 

What if the windows/portholes for the passenger cabins are made by the lowest possible Chinese bidder, and those windows and portholes shatter from the force of water as a result, and water starts flowing into the ship? A more serious question, what is the lowest point in the Anthem, or a smaller ship like Superstar Leo that water can enter from above, and at what list will it be needed for this to occur? Or what if one of RC's smaller cruise ships gets hit on the broadside by a 30 meter high rogue wave in force 11 seas, or a perfect storm scenario, or whatever the worst possible scenarios in terms of sea conditions that you can think possible, at the very tail end of the bell curve?

Edited February 15, 2016 by ren0312

[chengkp75]

What if the windows/portholes for the passenger cabins are made by the lowest possible Chinese bidder, and those windows and portholes shatter from the force of water as a result, and water starts flowing into the ship? A more serious question, what is the lowest point in the Anthem, or a smaller ship like Superstar Leo that water can enter from above, and at what list will it be needed for this to occur? Or what if one of RC's smaller cruise ships gets hit on the broadside by a 30 meter high rogue wave in force 11 seas, or a perfect storm scenario, or whatever the worst possible scenarios in terms of sea conditions that you can think possible, at the very tail end of the bell curve?

 

Glass can shatter at any time. The ships I've been on, the passenger "porthole" cabins all have "deadlights" or brass covers to screw down tight over the porthole if this happens.

 

I can't say for sure how far each ship needs to roll to immerse the promenade deck, but it is generally in the 45* range, and that really doesn't depend on the ship's size.

 

Of course, there are no statistical certainties. That's why its called probability, because you can only say what is probable. What is the probability of you getting in your car and driving out of your driveway safely? Pretty near perfect. But there could be a "perfect storm" of situations that would cause the car to catch fire, wouldn't there. You can't plan or design for everything, nothing in life is perfectly safe.

[bruadhin]

Glass can shatter at any time. The ships I've been on, the passenger "porthole" cabins all have "deadlights" or brass covers to screw down tight over the porthole if this happens.

 

I can't say for sure how far each ship needs to roll to immerse the promenade deck, but it is generally in the 45* range, and that really doesn't depend on the ship's size.

 

Of course, there are no statistical certainties. That's why its called probability, because you can only say what is probable. What is the probability of you getting in your car and driving out of your driveway safely? Pretty near perfect. But there could be a "perfect storm" of situations that would cause the car to catch fire, wouldn't there. You can't plan or design for everything, nothing in life is perfectly safe.

 

Thank you for all the clarification, and no you didn't confuse me earlier. I appreciate your explanation of the difference in watertight doors. I am use to seeing the naval version, doors that are manually dogged. Not that I served, but on documentary styles shows, visiting museum ships, etc.

 

I seem to recall having seen the style door you described, but for some reason I thought they were fire doors and not watertight doors. Ultimately they would serve as fire doors as well.

 

I recall thinking after first seeing the story, the Captain of the Anthem was being reckless. Not because he endangered the ship, but because he endangered the passengers and RCCL's reputation. All that damage in passenger areas easily meant that passengers could have been hurt. Sure, he requested everyone stay in their cabins, but no one (or at least most did not) paid that kind of money to be confined to their cabin while riding the spin cycle in the washing machine.

 

Someone earlier mentioned "home-itis", which I generally have heard as "go-itis". Lots and lots of tragedies can be laid at the feet of go-itis and senior management's refusal to squash it and often even encouraging go-itis.

[AmazedByCruising]

Water in a space like an engine room, however, is "uncontained", so it will flow to the lowest point, which is the "down" side of the roll.

 

Hi Chengkp75,

Did you miss my question about "airbags"? I would really like to know your opinion (or grounds for dismissal).

Removing water from ships by adding contained air to make them bouyant isn't that new. Donald Duck himself even invented a way (pumping ping pong balls into the shipwreck) to salvage ships which prevented a patent from happening. http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/priorart/donaldduck/ Mythbusters proved it does work.

 

The only difference is that this time the ping pong balls are balloons that are in place long before the ship sinks. The technology currently available for airbags or auto-inflating lifeboats using canisters with nitrogen or CO2 seems very useful to be used to simply fill for instance the engine room.

 

PS: Ofcourse I don't want to imply any obligation on your part to answer my question, I love all insights you give anyway!

Edited February 15, 2016 by AmazedByCruising
added PS, don't mean to make demands

[chengkp75]

Hi Chengkp75,

Did you miss my question about "airbags"? I would really like to know your opinion (or grounds for dismissal).

Removing water from ships by adding contained air to make them bouyant isn't that new. Donald Duck himself even invented a way (pumping ping pong balls into the shipwreck) to salvage ships which prevented a patent from happening. http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/priorart/donaldduck/ Mythbusters proved it does work.

 

The only difference is that this time the ping pong balls are balloons that are in place long before the ship sinks. The technology currently available for airbags or auto-inflating lifeboats using canisters with nitrogen or CO2 seems very useful to be used to simply fill for instance the engine room.

 

PS: Ofcourse I don't want to imply any obligation on your part to answer my question, I love all insights you give anyway!

 

I'm not sure how practical it would be. Air bags or lift bags are an old salvage item, but to permanently install them for emergency use would be a different thing. This would require their removal from the spaces on a routine basis and test inflation by a service company (like the liferafts have), and then repacking and recharging the inflation gas, lots of money for very little return. Also, as crowded as engine rooms are, with as many sharp corners and edges, hot surfaces, etc., you'd have to have a premier bag, and it might have to be custom made for each area to ensure complete inflation.

 

How do you trigger it, how do you keep it from triggering itself accidentally and killing someone in the space? When do you trigger it, there are lots of things you can do in a flooding compartment before all is lost.

 

Interesting thought, I don't see it as practical.

[dsrdsrdsr]

I'd have thought there must be fairly significant dangers in having that much compressed gas, especially in an engine room.

[bruadhin]

I'd have thought there must be fairly significant dangers in having that much compressed gas, especially in an engine room.

 

They would almost certainly use something inert in such a situation, probably nitrogen. Although that would add another set of dangers. Any leak would be likely to suffocate crew in the space if the leak was sufficiently large enough.

[IsanTom]

Torpedo.

 

As a former Navy Man, I agree!

[Hlitner]

What would it take to since a cruise ship? A very bad day!

[AmazedByCruising]

I'm not sure how practical it would be. Air bags or lift bags are an old salvage item, but to permanently install them for emergency use would be a different thing. This would require their removal from the spaces on a routine basis and test inflation by a service company (like the liferafts have), and then repacking and recharging the inflation gas, lots of money for very little return. Also, as crowded as engine rooms are, with as many sharp corners and edges, hot surfaces, etc., you'd have to have a premier bag, and it might have to be custom made for each area to ensure complete inflation.

 

How do you trigger it, how do you keep it from triggering itself accidentally and killing someone in the space? When do you trigger it, there are lots of things you can do in a flooding compartment before all is lost.

 

Interesting thought, I don't see it as practical.

 

OK, once again this might not be such a good idea. :)

 

For the right time for triggering and preventing people getting killed:

 

Maybe not really installing them but keep the canisters in trays that can easily be replaced by new ones while the old ones are checked/refilled/replaced in the factory. Similar to fire extinguishers which is not very expensive (in my experience, probably ships have higher criteria than my office :)). Of course, adding new things to increase safety will always increase costs, but that didn't stop seat belts.

 

The crew can then bring the trays to any room with a leakage (or maybe even fire), press a button and have 60 seconds to leave the room before all canisters explode like popcorn and automatically find the best way to completely fill the room by themselves.

 

To be honest, even if it would work I'm not sure I'd pay like $5/cruise extra to know there is such a system on board. The odds are too low that it would be used, and even lower to be used successfully, especially compared to the dangers of human error (Concordia) or -I think- more probable in these times, human intent (Achille Lauro).