tracker:
We'll see. I did notice that the angle of descent decreased. Speculation is just that.
I dont know if anyone else caught this or not,but look at it this way:
1. Fact the ship is 888' long
2. Fact she was sunk in water that is 212' deep.(give or take)
Most likely when you saw the angle of descent decrease, her screws and fantail had probably hit the bottom.If you watch the Discovery Channel and History Channel,the episodes of ships that are sunk for one reason or another,almost all of the ships that sink stern first (remeber this is where all of the weight is, engines boilers, gensets etc are located.)the ships go pretty close to vertical,before going under and hitting bottom.when the ships length exceeds the depth of the water, something is going to give.in this case most likely the angle of descent.
As a fire dept engineer( the people who drive the truck and pump the water thru hoses) I can tell you from experience that figuring out how long something is going to take is just shy of a nightmare.When I took my enginners class,there was a similar scenario: take a given object, fill it with water,put a hole in it and figure out the following.how long to drain, psi,weight, time, what happens if..... you get the point.That is the short version.There are about 6 different steps to do and they all invlove decimals and math.1 mistake in the beginning throws everything off.I can almost guaruntee that was what happened.It is not an exact science figuring this stuff out.Keep in mind that the ship was planned to sink.She had holes cut in to her sides to help her sink.She had at least 8 20' x 40-50' long holes in her sides and all compartments except a few(to guide the water into certain areas to keep her level, while sinking.
In the mean time I am hoping to get up there in July with a friend of mine and look her over.
To err is human - to foul up requires a typo:
