- mobby_6kl
- Aug 9, 2009
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by Fluffdaddy
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I'm not super into marine stuff, but I found this to be a fascinating topic and a great article IMO:
High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace
quote:
Latitude 48° 14 North. Longitude 174° 26 West. Almost midnight on the North Pacific, about 230 miles south of Alaska's Aleutian Islands. A heavy fog blankets the sea. There's nothing but the wind spinning eddies through the mist.
Out of the darkness, a rumble grows. The water begins to vibrate. Suddenly, the prow of a massive ship splits the fog. Its steel hull rises seven stories above the water and stretches two football fields back into the night. A 15,683-horsepower engine roars through the holds, pushing 55,328 tons of steel. Crisp white capital letters — COUGAR ACE — spell the ship's name above the ocean froth. A deep-sea car transport, its 14 decks are packed with 4,703 new Mazdas bound for North America. Estimated cargo value: $103 million.
On the bridge and belowdecks, the captain and crew begin the intricate process of releasing water from the ship's ballast tanks in preparation for entry into US territorial waters. They took on the water in Japan to keep the ship steady, but US rules require that it be dumped here to prevent contaminating American marine environments. It's a tricky procedure. To maintain stability and equilibrium, the ballast tanks need to be drained of foreign water and simultaneously refilled with local water. The bridge gives the go-ahead to commence the operation, and a ship engineer uses a hydraulic-powered system to open the starboard tank valves. Water gushes out one side of the ship and pours into the ocean. It's July 23, 2006.
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Mar 14, 2017 12:23
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May 6, 2024 01:14
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- mobby_6kl
- Aug 9, 2009
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by Fluffdaddy
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^^^
You have to admit, it's a pretty effective show!
Reading things like this makes me sad I was turned down for a job in marine salvage. Several friends from college did go into that field and one of them was involved in lifting the kursk. They couldn't lift the thing in one go and decided to use what amounts to a giant band saw to cut it in two. In order to set the speed of the saw and plan the process they asked the russians for the strength and thickness of the steel used for the pressure hull.
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Apr 6, 2017 17:13
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Mar 14, 2017 12:23
