Stop whining, America!

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:P0RPe.282907$x96.117848@attbi_s72...
Ocean waves are very far apart so even a 30 foot wave is no big deal,
great
lakes waves are very close together and very steep. Get down in the
trough
of an ocean wave and the water just rolls underneath you. Get in a
trough
of a good sized wave on the great lakes and you are looking at a near
verticle wall of water.

Remember the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"? That was a giant (729
foot) lake freighter, which was either broken in two or driven under by
the waves of a Great Lakes November storm. See http://www.ssefo.com/
fore more info.

The Great Lakes are nothing like an inland lake. I've watched many
awesome storms (thankfully from shore) that generated waves of almost
unbelievable violence, frequency and intensity.

And the closest I've ever felt to death was on a small car ferry,
crossing
"Death's Door" (the gap between Washington Island and Gill's Rock, at
the
tip of the Door Peninsula in Lake Michigan) during an October storm.
The
waves were awesome, and the skeletons of many, many wrecks litter the
bottom of Lake Michigan in that area.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

The Edmund Fitzgerald ran aground and then sank.

Mike
MU-2

Nonsense...nobody knows for sure what sank the Fitz. The best guess is the
bow filled with water and she dove to the bottom. What caused her to fill
by the bow is unknown. The grounding story has been disproven due to the
supposed shoal being a chart error. The shoal she supposedly hit simply
does not exist.

Mike Rapoport wrote:

The Edmund Fitzgerald ran aground and then sank.

No, she foundered in a storm. She was 17 miles from shore and lies in 530' of water.

http://www.boatnerd.com/fitz

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message

The Edmund Fitzgerald ran aground and then sank.

That isn't what I've heard. There was a show on a few years ago that
analyzed the EF wreck in some detail, I think it was the Discovery
channel, but I'm not 100% sure. They basically concluded that the cause
couldn't be fixed with certainty. There most likely scenario was that
the ship took on water due to loose hold covers and that went under when
hit with a large wave. However, as I recall, the ship wreck was found
in two pieces on the bottom and they weren't sure that the above
scenario could cause that. I don't think that running aground was a
scenario at all given the track of the ship.

I saw that one...it was the History Channel.

The best theory I saw presented was where it nosed down into a through and
the bow struck bottom, then another wave snapped it in half.

Jay Honeck wrote:

Both, of course. Our economy has grown strongly and well --

Not in the NY-NJ area it hasn't.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
"JH" == Jay Honeck writes:

Perhaps our parents were investing in infrastructure, and we're simply
using it. Thus the apparent efficiency.

Our parents in the 1950s and '60s invested in the Interstate Highway
System, basic electronics research and funding, a great higher
educational system, water and sewage systems, and an expensive
military. Most of this was paid for with taxes and we got good return
on investment because that tax money was used to pay for
something--basic infrastructure--which would improve the general
economy.


Interesting viewpoint!

Mike
MU-2

("Dave Stadt" wrote)
Wave height is only one factor. Distance between waves is even more
important. I'll take a 50 foot ocean wave over a 25 foot Great Lakes wave
any day.


Plus there's something about water density - Superior's fresh water vs.
ocean salt water - and how that factors into the makeup of the waves.

I've been hunting online for the video of an ore ship on Superior, its bow
twisting and bending in a rough Great Lakes storm. I love Lake Superior, big
ships and waves ...I was awestruck by the sight I saw on that video.

We rent a cabin "on" Superior every year...

Fun site:
http://www.duluthshippingnews.com/
If you like the big boats you can spend hours lost in the links :-)


Montblack

Ships are designed to flex. Remember back in WWII when Kaiser was building
liberty ships, it was a problem because Kaiser had the entire thing welded
up tight, versus riveted. He built them a heck of alot faster, but a few
sank because they could not flex. It wasn't really considered something to
change because we needed the transport ships bad and they were not expected
to last a long time during the war, because they were sitting ducks in the
water. Just one of those useless tidbits of info!
Watching a video of a helicopter main rotor twist and bend, as well as a
commercial jets wings flexing is pretty cool too!
Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"Montblack" wrote in message
...
("Dave Stadt" wrote)
Wave height is only one factor. Distance between waves is even more
important. I'll take a 50 foot ocean wave over a 25 foot Great Lakes
wave
any day.


Plus there's something about water density - Superior's fresh water vs.
ocean salt water - and how that factors into the makeup of the waves.

I've been hunting online for the video of an ore ship on Superior, its bow
twisting and bending in a rough Great Lakes storm. I love Lake Superior,
big ships and waves ...I was awestruck by the sight I saw on that video.

We rent a cabin "on" Superior every year...

Fun site:
http://www.duluthshippingnews.com/
If you like the big boats you can spend hours lost in the links :-)


Montblack

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:%kvPe.279433$x96.36565@attbi_s72...
Everywhere, every day on the radio, television, and in the newspapers, all
I hear is how the "Record Price of Oil" is killing America.

Yet, strangely, Americans keep driving *more*. And I don't see anyone
flying less.

How can this be?

Here are some encouraging stats from the current issue of Newsweek:

Well having safely got back from Oshkosh ( the sunburn was a bit extreme) I
had the please yesterday of paying only $5.40 a gallon for avgas in the UK.

admittedly it was on the Island of Jersey (EGJJ) and the tax regime is more
liberal, which is a damn sight better than the normal $8.64 but flying 200nm
to get it is not the answer.

Chris

On 2005-08-28, W P Dixon wrote:
Ships are designed to flex. Remember back in WWII when Kaiser was building
liberty ships, it was a problem because Kaiser had the entire thing welded

I went on the Jerimah O'Brien (a Liberty ship) a few weeks ago in San
Fransisco. I thought it was a static museum ship until I went on board
and discovered they still sail it. The engine room was very impressive.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-08-28, Chris wrote:
...only $5.40 a gallon for avgas in the UK.

admittedly it was on the Island of Jersey (EGJJ)

For heaven's sake don't let the locals know you said Jersey was part of
the UK! The Channel Islands isn't part of the UK, even though it's
British territory.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"