by "Robert M. Gary" rmg1@[EMAIL PROTECTED] Nov 18, 2005 at 09:22 AM


Didn't they only recently discovered what acutally caused her to go
down? It guess they think that she had a couple hatches not secured and
gained water but that wouldn't have sunk her along. The documentry I
recently saw seemed to think it was bad luck of catching a wave on her
bow and stern at the same time while the middle of the ship was in a
"gully". In otherwords, the middle of the ship was out of water while
the front and back were lifted by giant waves. As a result, she snapped
in two from port to starboard right in the middle. Certainly the
increased weight in the middle due to the flooding hatches contributed
to the snap.

-Robert

There was an excellent documentary on the tradgedy. I watched it on PBS a
few years back. As I recall, the lead theory is that the ship was caught
between two megawaves, which elevated the bow and stern, leaving the
center unsupported. She cracked in two and rapidly submerged, thus
explaining the lack of a mayday. Unsecured hatches may have contributed
to the flooding. But, it is still a mystery.

The sea, like the sky, can be very fickle: friendly and forgiving at one
moment, and then a wicked beast the next. Difficult to decide what was
more frightening: being in the right seat of the Cessna when it got hazy
over Long Island with my VFR friend or suddenly in the soup with 8-10 foot
waves breaking over the bow while trying to find the inlet to Block Island
Harbor -- with radar gone to s___t with all the turbulence and bilge pumps
automatically clicking on and off. GPS came to my rescue both times.