Design Noah Ark

[Lagmonster]

If I was planning to survive the Noahcian flood with modern materials, I wouldn't even think of building a boat. I'd be looking squarely at sub-surface structures (without any conception of engineering practices, mind you). The kind of water we're talking about wouldn't be arriving in any form I'd want to trust a boat to stay un-capsized in.

[Alyrium Denryle]

If I was planning to survive the Noahcian flood with modern materials, I wouldn't even think of building a boat. I'd be looking squarely at sub-surface structures (without any conception of engineering practices, mind you). The kind of water we're talking about wouldn't be arriving in any form I'd want to trust a boat to stay un-capsized in.

The energy release from the water condensing alone is enough to increase the worlds surface temp by at least 431 degrees celcius. You would need a way to maintain the temperature in this structure, power it, ventilate it... a subsurface structure is worse than a boat. Because on top of every other logistical problem with a faithful recreation of the ark under the same mythic conditions, you have to contend with making ALL the surrounding soil/rock completely impervious to water. because if there is so much as a crack in the bedrock your little structure will more than likely implode.

[Darth Wong]

If I was planning to survive the Noahcian flood with modern materials, I wouldn't even think of building a boat. I'd be looking squarely at sub-surface structures (without any conception of engineering practices, mind you). The kind of water we're talking about wouldn't be arriving in any form I'd want to trust a boat to stay un-capsized in.

You would need an extraordinarily strong structure in order to withstand water pressure, and you would need to ensure that your power generation and environmental control systems can function flawlessly for the entire duration because there is no fallback plan: you can't go outside and take a breath of fresh air. If you're going for a shelter, you'd probably be better off building something on top of a mountain.

[Lagmonster]

You would need an extraordinarily strong structure in order to withstand water pressure, and you would need to ensure that your power generation and environmental control systems can function flawlessly for the entire duration because there is no fallback plan: you can't go outside and take a breath of fresh air. If you're going for a shelter, you'd probably be better off building something on top of a mountain.

I wouldn't have the first clue how to go about engineering such a structure, although I understood at the outset the herculean feats of environmental control and power generation necessary. Seems like the more intelligent thing to do is actually ask the materials engineer: What makes more sense for surviving the flood (screwing the 'every animal' motif in favour of a smaller but manageable ecology on board)? A boat, a solid structure, a space vessel, or some sort of crossover such as a submersible? Or something else entirely?

[Darth Wong]

You would need an extraordinarily strong structure in order to withstand water pressure, and you would need to ensure that your power generation and environmental control systems can function flawlessly for the entire duration because there is no fallback plan: you can't go outside and take a breath of fresh air. If you're going for a shelter, you'd probably be better off building something on top of a mountain.

I wouldn't have the first clue how to go about engineering such a structure, although I understood at the outset the herculean feats of environmental control and power generation necessary. Seems like the more intelligent thing to do is actually ask the materials engineer: What makes more sense for surviving the flood (screwing the 'every animal' motif in favour of a smaller but manageable ecology on board)? A boat, a solid structure, a space vessel, or some sort of crossover such as a submersible? Or something else entirely?

A submarine sounds like a damned good idea to me.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You would need an extraordinarily strong structure in order to withstand water pressure, and you would need to ensure that your power generation and environmental control systems can function flawlessly for the entire duration because there is no fallback plan: you can't go outside and take a breath of fresh air. If you're going for a shelter, you'd probably be better off building something on top of a mountain.

I wouldn't have the first clue how to go about engineering such a structure, although I understood at the outset the herculean feats of environmental control and power generation necessary. Seems like the more intelligent thing to do is actually ask the materials engineer: What makes more sense for surviving the flood (screwing the 'every animal' motif in favour of a smaller but manageable ecology on board)? A boat, a solid structure, a space vessel, or some sort of crossover such as a submersible? Or something else entirely?

A submarine sounds like a damned good idea to me.

Any boat your produce is going to have to practically be a submarine anyway just to withstand the temperature and pressure on the surface... why not. Hell, we can keep embryos frozen and all we have to do is maintain a single parent animal for use as a surrogate... If you are doing just food animals (and screwing every other of the millions of species on this planet, because even the most resilient of fish will die) then that could work

[DavidEC]

Does anyone have an estimate for the number of unique species the Earth holds?

I initially thought that a lot of life, from bacteria right up to about insects would have almost negligible mass and volume required on the ship but then I realised that each one needs to be properly isolated, meaning the negligble mass and volume needed for a bacterium grows into at least that of a containing vial.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Does anyone have an estimate for the number of unique species the Earth holds?

I initially thought that a lot of life, from bacteria right up to about insects would have almost negligible mass and volume required on the ship but then I realised that each one needs to be properly isolated, meaning the negligble mass and volume needed for a bacterium grows into at least that of a containing vial.

Millions of species of insects alone.

Put it this way, I calculated the amount of space it would take, at minimum, to house just a few insect groups

I will go into the space requirements for social insects of the orders Hymenoptera (Bees, ants wasps, etc) and isoptera (termites)

Now, there are a good 2000 species of termites, unfortunately, keeping a mated pair is impossible unless you wan to keep a colony. So, we have to consider this. I maintain termites of the genus Zootermopsis in captivity for research purposes. They are kept in a Rubbermaid® container approximately .05 cubic meters in size filled with moist wood. These are easily stackable. Noah would not have had access to Rubbermaid® containers. he would have been restricted to wooden crates, (bad idea) and pottery. pottery however is not stackable. So, for each species of non-mound building termites like Zootermopsis, he is going to need about 1/6th of a square meter of floor space. Now, because I am lazy and really do not want to look up 2000 species of termites and whether or not they are mound building or not, I will just have to go with the assumption that they are all wood nesters. This will be more favorable to the creationists anyway.

Now, I suppose he would have built a shelving unit. So I will assume that is the case. Reasonably, given the materials, he probably could have stacked them about 6 or 7 shelves up. so I will divide the number of effective termite colonies by 6, giving us 333 effective termite colonies for the purposes of floor space. Diving that by 6 we get about 55 square meters of floor space.

And now for the Hymenoptera. Dear god

130 THOUSAND species. Now, most of these are parasitic wasps. In fact, it is estimated that there are more parasitic wasps than this, because it seems that every other insect species has at least one and usually several species of wasp which parasitize different stages of its life cycle. However these are described species. So, i am going to find the number of ant species, and assume for the sake of being generous that they can be kept in the same amount of space as a termite colony. Some require more space, some require less, but I am being nice, and lazy.

hmm... 12 thousand ant species. Fun

so that means we get, under the same parameters as the termites: 333 square meters of floor space. For ants.

Now, for social bees and wasps. Assuming the same parameters, even though it is patently not true, I am being very very generous. 555 square meters. Gees, these insects take up a lot of space.

Now for the rest, which are mostly parasitic wasps. I will ignore hornets and yellow jackets and other colonial wasps for the sake of laziness and generosity. I will assume that it is possible to keep a parasitic wasp pair alive for a year in a small pottery container with approximately .1 square meters of floor space. I am also limiting myself to DESCRIBED species, not the projection of several million species. How nice am I? (Especially because a parasitic wasp will not live more than 2 weeks, typically less, which means Noah would have to massively increase the numbers of their hosts and go through the trouble of re-hosting 78 thousand wasp species every couple weeks)

Now, that leaves...I will allot 20000 species of colonial wasps... so... 78 thousand species of parsitic wasps (again, a couple orders of magnitude more than this is probably the case in reality)... stacking 6 high, 1/10th of a square meter of space each, no gaps... 1300 square meters.

So, the grand total so far is 5490.5 square meters of space. And I haven't even gotten to the beetles yes
I will assume, that beetles can all be kept like wasps.

there are 350 thousand described species of beetle, if god exists, he thinks of beetles while touching himself between the 6 days of creation.

so this comes to, for the beetles 5833.3 square meters.

Now, we have access to rubbermaid containers and shelving. But that still leaves the parasitoid wasps to need to be rehosted and there are at minimum 78 thousand species, probably a few million.

Bear in mind as well that every time an entomologist in the tropics shakes a tree he discovers 12 new insect species...

[DavidEC]

That's thorough enough for me. Sounds entirely possible with state-of-the-art BibleShipBuilding.

[PainRack]

lol. Wasn't it once estimated that the biomass of ants and beetles on this planet would outweigh the biomass of the human population?

[Patrick Degan]

Patrick, I strongly suspect you're confusing the steadying effect of canvas with topweight.

No, I am not.

You cite one instance of a ship having to cut her masts away in a storm, and another of a ship being unsteady after a dismating.

You provide nothing in either example that illustrates why loss of topweight detracted from stability when the loss of canvas in one instance, and presence of canvas in the other is the most likely explanation.

The Ariel example contradicts your topweight assertion.

You're kidding, right?

You well know how finely balanced the weights on a sailing vessel were and how any sudden shift, addition, or loss could upset that balance. You really imagine that the sudden loss of up to 100 tons of topweight (the combined mass of yards, masts, and canvas on a typical British first-rate, for example) doesn't alter the ship's buoyancy?

Adding weight above a ship's center of mass lowers it's metacentric height, and reduces stability.

As I am well aware of —one of the reasons why the American attempts at line-battleships were failures.

Patrick, six thousand years of shipbuilding demonstrates the lesson learned of avoiding topweight wherever practical; it's presence has been accepted only because of percieved, or valid, need.
Whether that need has been for masts and yards to bend canvas to, provide habitable accommodation, or to provide a vantage point to extend visibility, topweight is added only at the compromise of other charateristics, such as increased beam or decreased freeboard.

No, it's presence was accepted because of actual need when larger vessels than a carrack or a cog were required for ocean-going voyages or in warships to carry as many guns as were feasible and still make a passage in a decent amount of time or to put on speed when required. You also seem to overlook just how long a time during that 6000 years it actually took for people to start looking at shipbuilding as an engineering discipline instead of an art and to start undertaking serious scientific study into marine architecture and hydrodynamics. Most of the "lessons learned" up to the time of Seppings and Brunel were simply pure trial-and-error and rote copying of patterns which managed to work.

A ship with a metacentric height that's too high bobs like a cork; one with a metacentric height that's below the waterline capsizes.

The former is exactly the effect rendered with a dismasted vessel that has lost the topweight of her rig.

A ship that has a quick, "lively" action in a seaway is not neccessarily unstable, depending on usage:

Do you use "unstable" to mean "not steady" or "in danger of capsizing"?

Unsteady and uncontrollable. I never said a dismasted vessel was automatically in danger of capsizing.

BTW, that RN commander who wrote that letter you cited was either an idiot or worked for someone with a stake in manufacturing paddle-driven steamships

I presume you have something in the way of evidence to back the implied Appeal-to-Motive on Capt. Hoseason's criticisms.

Am I required to to demonstrate something beyond the the fact that his arguments for the paddle wheel were recognised as transparently false at the time, and have been completely refuted with 160 years of experience?

When you make a charge or an assertion, you've got to present the evidence to back it up. Debate Rule 6.

As for the former, keep in mind that the Great Britain was something entirely new in shipbuilding technology for the time. The vessel was in fact originally conceived as a paddle-wheeler design before I.K. Brunel altered her plan to accomodate the then-new innovation of screw propulsion. To conservative shipwrights and naval officers, such a departure from the tried-and-true pathway of construction would have engendered much criticism and doubt (as the number of naysaying experts similarly said about the USS Monitor when she was first proposed). Also, Capt. Hoseason spoke mostly from his own experience of war at sea with all-sail fighting vessels.

Then you accept that he offered no valid criticism of the propellor, no valid proposal for the paddle-wheel, and is arguing for tradition while ignoring ration?

The man comes out states his baldfaced anti-science bias in no uncertain terms, after all.

And you just didn't even to bother to read on in the article linked to in this thread in which he further based his position on the poor results of screw propulsion in the steamship Bee, which managed to make only a quarter-knot against a strong headwind with her engines going full-out, while citing that a paddle-wheeler (which shipbuilders of the time had greater experience with) would have managed five knots, did you? No, of course you didn't.

[Frank Hipper]

You're kidding, right?

You well know how finely balanced the weights on a sailing vessel were and how any sudden shift, addition, or loss could upset that balance. You really imagine that the sudden loss of up to 100 tons of topweight (the combined mass of yards, masts, and canvas on a typical British first-rate, for example) doesn't alter the ship's buoyancy?

Of course any loss of weight above the center of mass alters bouyancy, it improves it!

Again, you provide nothing that even remotely shows how topweight is beneficial to stability.

Do so.

No, it's presence was accepted because of actual need when larger vessels than a carrack or a cog were required for ocean-going voyages or in warships to carry as many guns as were feasible and still make a passage in a decent amount of time or to put on speed when required.

I don't know what you think "valid" means, but sometimes it's a synonym for "actual".

Also, just so you know, you cannot imagine the pleasure I take in reading something from someone that mentions carracks, and ships carrying guns in the same breath; all while attempting to argue that topweight adds stability.

Perhaps you could put 2 and 2 together, and recall what sort of ship introduced the gunport, and why.

You also seem to overlook just how long a time during that 6000 years it actually took for people to start looking at shipbuilding as an engineering discipline instead of an art and to start undertaking serious scientific study into marine architecture and hydrodynamics. Most of the "lessons learned" up to the time of Seppings and Brunel were simply pure trial-and-error and rote copying of patterns which managed to work.

So what? Are you disagreeing, agreeing...was there a point in posting this?

Rote copying of things that work is pretty good definition of "lessons learned", you know.

When you make a charge or an assertion, you've got to present the evidence to back it up. Debate Rule 6.

My assertion was that he was either an idiot or working for someone with an interest in building paddle-wheel driven ships.

Two choices, either A or B. I cannot recommend strongly enough for you to NOT play cherry picking games with me, you fucking asshole.

He was wrong on propellors making ships roll, torque and hydrodyanimc forces from a propellor ease a ship's roll in the direction of rotation.
He was wrong about bilge keels being a bad idea for every reason he lists, they inhibit rolling materially and marginally if at all affect speed.
He was too fucking stupid and shortsighted to realise that wind halting a ship's forward momentum, a ship with only 260 hp, in no way takes into account the possibility of more powerful ships or more efficient design...on and on it goes.

Considering the brain-dead irrational vehemence with which he's attacking the propellor, it is FAR from unreasonable to assume he could be writing a smear piece for financial gain, especially considering the time in which he's writing.

The absence of any validity in any of his claims shows him to be at least an idiot...the most superficial examination of shipbuilding history demonstrates this.

And you just didn't even to bother to read on in the article linked to in this thread in which he further based his position on the poor results of screw propulsion in the steamship Bee, which managed to make only a quarter-knot against a strong headwind, while citing that a paddle-wheeler (which shipbuilders of the time had greater experience with) would have managed five knots, did you? No, of course you didn't.

Of course I fucking read it you asshole!
Where the hell do you think I got the idea he was working for someone from?

He in no way describes what sort of propellor it was, how powerful the engine was, describe what this mysterious "expansion gear" is, describe any understanding of the equipment with which the propellor was connected to the engine by, if that machinery ever actually worked, provided the same power to the prop as the paddle wheels,nor does he ever say that the fucking thing under paddle wheels actually did achieve three knots!
(Not five knots, if you're going to attempt to accuse me of not reading the piece of shit, at least you could)

That entire letter is an opinion piece, with ridiculously vague or anonymous citations of zero merit.

Anyone who cites a Victorian op-ed letter as their primary source, and then has the unmitigated gall to quote rules to someone who helped write those rules had better get their ass in gear finding evidence for the assinine claim that topweight contributes to stability, or concede; do you understand?

Do you understand me, you rules quoting fuck?

You WILL provide evidence for your idiotic, anti-physics claim, or you will concede.







Oh, and one more thing; this wouldn't possibly sound familiar, would it?

A heavy rolling ship, whose center of gravity lies low, will require a lofty sail to keep her steady in the water, and to lay her down for that purpose.

[wautd]

Does anyone have an estimate for the number of unique species the Earth holds?

I initially thought that a lot of life, from bacteria right up to about insects would have almost negligible mass and volume required on the ship but then I realised that each one needs to be properly isolated, meaning the negligble mass and volume needed for a bacterium grows into at least that of a containing vial.

Millions of species of insects alone.

Put it this way, I calculated the amount of space it would take, at minimum, to house just a few insect groups

I will go into the space requirements for social insects of the orders Hymenoptera (Bees, ants wasps, etc) and isoptera (termites)

Now, there are a good 2000 species of termites, unfortunately, keeping a mated pair is impossible unless you wan to keep a colony. So, we have to consider this. I maintain termites of the genus Zootermopsis in captivity for research purposes. They are kept in a Rubbermaid® container approximately .05 cubic meters in size filled with moist wood. These are easily stackable. Noah would not have had access to Rubbermaid® containers. he would have been restricted to wooden crates, (bad idea) and pottery. pottery however is not stackable. So, for each species of non-mound building termites like Zootermopsis, he is going to need about 1/6th of a square meter of floor space. Now, because I am lazy and really do not want to look up 2000 species of termites and whether or not they are mound building or not, I will just have to go with the assumption that they are all wood nesters. This will be more favorable to the creationists anyway.

Now, I suppose he would have built a shelving unit. So I will assume that is the case. Reasonably, given the materials, he probably could have stacked them about 6 or 7 shelves up. so I will divide the number of effective termite colonies by 6, giving us 333 effective termite colonies for the purposes of floor space. Diving that by 6 we get about 55 square meters of floor space.

And now for the Hymenoptera. Dear god

130 THOUSAND species. Now, most of these are parasitic wasps. In fact, it is estimated that there are more parasitic wasps than this, because it seems that every other insect species has at least one and usually several species of wasp which parasitize different stages of its life cycle. However these are described species. So, i am going to find the number of ant species, and assume for the sake of being generous that they can be kept in the same amount of space as a termite colony. Some require more space, some require less, but I am being nice, and lazy.

hmm... 12 thousand ant species. Fun

so that means we get, under the same parameters as the termites: 333 square meters of floor space. For ants.

Now, for social bees and wasps. Assuming the same parameters, even though it is patently not true, I am being very very generous. 555 square meters. Gees, these insects take up a lot of space.

Now for the rest, which are mostly parasitic wasps. I will ignore hornets and yellow jackets and other colonial wasps for the sake of laziness and generosity. I will assume that it is possible to keep a parasitic wasp pair alive for a year in a small pottery container with approximately .1 square meters of floor space. I am also limiting myself to DESCRIBED species, not the projection of several million species. How nice am I? (Especially because a parasitic wasp will not live more than 2 weeks, typically less, which means Noah would have to massively increase the numbers of their hosts and go through the trouble of re-hosting 78 thousand wasp species every couple weeks)

Now, that leaves...I will allot 20000 species of colonial wasps... so... 78 thousand species of parsitic wasps (again, a couple orders of magnitude more than this is probably the case in reality)... stacking 6 high, 1/10th of a square meter of space each, no gaps... 1300 square meters.

So, the grand total so far is 5490.5 square meters of space. And I haven't even gotten to the beetles yes
I will assume, that beetles can all be kept like wasps.

there are 350 thousand described species of beetle, if god exists, he thinks of beetles while touching himself between the 6 days of creation.

so this comes to, for the beetles 5833.3 square meters.

Now, we have access to rubbermaid containers and shelving. But that still leaves the parasitoid wasps to need to be rehosted and there are at minimum 78 thousand species, probably a few million.

Bear in mind as well that every time an entomologist in the tropics shakes a tree he discovers 12 new insect species...

Awesome. I may have to steal this for future references

[The Spartan]

That works out to about 2.8 acres for beetles, wasps, ants and termites alone. I knew it was all impossible, but to actually look at the numbers is staggering.

[Lagmonster]

Frankly, without divine intervention afterwards, the Noahcian flood really is a global startover event for pretty much all higher forms of life. Ecologically speaking, it doesn't make sense to try to rescue every living species. You are probably screwed when the global environment gets washed away, so think about staying indoors a lot after the flood, trusting your survival to a small, circular, self-contained ecology that can support itself and you can artificially manage to keep balanced and healthy.

[Patrick Degan]

You're kidding, right?

You well know how finely balanced the weights on a sailing vessel were and how any sudden shift, addition, or loss could upset that balance. You really imagine that the sudden loss of up to 100 tons of topweight (the combined mass of yards, masts, and canvas on a typical British first-rate, for example) doesn't alter the ship's buoyancy?

Of course any loss of weight above the center of mass alters bouyancy, it improves it!

Again, you provide nothing that even remotely shows how topweight is beneficial to stability.

Do so.

Very well:

The scientific investigations of the late Mr. Froude and others have placed the true principles of the matter beyond all question. Nor is any great amount of scientific investigation needful to a true appreciation of the subject.

[color-yellow]If a ship possessing a very low centre of gravity, and consequently, great stability, be forcibly moved from the upright position in still water, and then left free to go back, she will (neglecting the question of her moment of inertia) return with violence to the upright position; pass, by virtue of the moment acquired, beyond the upright, and then come to rest; return again through the upright position; and so on,[/color] oscillating about that position through decreasing angles, until the momentum has become expended, and she is brought eventually to rest.

. . .

This idea, while needing manifold developments and qualifications, is the fundamental idea which regulates, if we may so to speak, a ship's behaviour in waves; and it points immediately and directly to the doctrine that, within certain limits, a very stable ship may be regarded as tending to violent rolling in waves, while a ship of small stability may be regarded as having much less inducement to violent rolling. The limit on the side of great stability is to be found in the fact that were the stability of a ship infinite, an exact conformity to changes of mean wave-slope the condition of maximum motion; the limit on the side of small stability is of course to be found in the well-understood danger of capsizing from excessive crankiness

To sum up the relevant points:

A) The higher the ship's centre of gravity, the more she will tend toward less ideal stability but less violent motion in the water.

B) Top weight of masts in regards to this question in a sail vessel serves two purposes: a CG higher up from the ship's centre of buoyancy; at the same time, the additional weight increases displacement (by a small degree).

C) Without said top weight, such as when the vessel is dismasted, two effects occur: the distance between the ship's centre of gravity and centre of buoyancy is reduced; the sudden loss of top weight also reduces displacement (by a small degree).

D) The result of the above two effects means the hulk will be more easily, not less easily, rolled by wave action which, in an open sea, will not diminish.

Get the point?

No, it's presence was accepted because of actual need when larger vessels than a carrack or a cog were required for ocean-going voyages or in warships to carry as many guns as were feasible and still make a passage in a decent amount of time or to put on speed when required.

I don't know what you think "valid" means, but sometimes it's a synonym for "actual".

Also, just so you know, you cannot imagine the pleasure I take in reading something from someone that mentions carracks, and ships carrying guns in the same breath; all while attempting to argue that topweight adds stability.

Perhaps you could put 2 and 2 together, and recall what sort of ship introduced the gunport, and why.

You cannot imagine the disappointment I experience by your resort to such a simple-minded cheap shot. I'd have expected better from the likes of you.

Just what in your view causes such "amusement" in mentioning carracks and ships carrying guns "in the same breath"? Did you even bother to read and understand the sense of what I had said:

No, it's presence was accepted because of actual need when larger vessels than a carrack or a cog were required for ocean-going voyages or in warships to carry as many guns as were feasible and still make a passage in a decent amount of time or to put on speed when required.

—denoting the need for a vessel exceeding the rather obvious limitations of a carrack by comparison?

You also seem to overlook just how long a time during that 6000 years it actually took for people to start looking at shipbuilding as an engineering discipline instead of an art and to start undertaking serious scientific study into marine architecture and hydrodynamics. Most of the "lessons learned" up to the time of Seppings and Brunel were simply pure trial-and-error and rote copying of patterns which managed to work.

So what? Are you disagreeing, agreeing...was there a point in posting this?

One which very evidently sailed past your pointy little head at great altitude.

Rote copying of things that work is pretty good definition of "lessons learned", you know.

It's also a pretty good definition of mimickry. It does not indicate a capacity for true understanding of principle nor any capacity to leap beyond "lessons learned".

When you make a charge or an assertion, you've got to present the evidence to back it up. Debate Rule 6.

My assertion was that he was either an idiot or working for someone with an interest in building paddle-wheel driven ships.

Two choices, either A or B. I cannot recommend strongly enough for you to NOT play cherry picking games with me, you fucking asshole.

Your backpedaling and evasion avails you naught. You very clearly made a definite charge regarding Capt. Hoseason's motivations. So I must insist: present the evidence which backs your assertion in that regard.

By the way, you have no idea how much it amuses me to see you making a charge regarding someone's alleged association with the paddle-wheel steamship builders while ignoring the fact that the man who built the ship Capt. Hoseason is criticising, I.K. Brunel, went on to undertake as his next project the largest paddle-wheel steamship ever built, the Great Eastern.

He was wrong on propellors making ships roll, torque and hydrodyanimc forces from a propellor ease a ship's roll in the direction of rotation.

Except that was not quite what Capt. Hoseason was talking about in that regard.

He was wrong about bilge keels being a bad idea for every reason he lists, they inhibit rolling materially and marginally if at all affect speed.
He was too fucking stupid and shortsighted to realise that wind halting a ship's forward momentum, a ship with only 260 hp, in no way takes into account the possibility of more powerful ships or more efficient design...on and on it goes.

Except more powerful engines were not on anybody's drawing board in 1846 and in that time were not even possible until a substitute to tallow as a lubricant could be found. That had not occured either.

Considering the brain-dead irrational vehemence with which he's attacking the propellor, it is FAR from unreasonable to assume he could be writing a smear piece for financial gain, especially considering the time in which he's writing.

I will insist again: evidence that this was Capt. Hoseason's motive.

The absence of any validity in any of his claims shows him to be at least an idiot...the most superficial examination of shipbuilding history demonstrates this.

Does he not present several experimental results which did, at that time, appear to back his criticisms? Keeping in mind that several engineering problems waited to be solved before screw propulsion could be properly and far more advantageously exploited at the time.

And you just didn't even to bother to read on in the article linked to in this thread in which he further based his position on the poor results of screw propulsion in the steamship Bee, which managed to make only a quarter-knot against a strong headwind, while citing that a paddle-wheeler (which shipbuilders of the time had greater experience with) would have managed five knots, did you? No, of course you didn't.

Of course I fucking read it you asshole! Where the hell do you think I got the idea he was working for someone from?

Plucked out of your ass, it appears, since you offer zero evidence for the assertion beyond saying, over and over again "I think it's so".

He in no way describes what sort of propellor it was, how powerful the engine was, describe what this mysterious "expansion gear" is, describe any understanding of the equipment with which the propellor was connected to the engine by, if that machinery ever actually worked, provided the same power to the prop as the paddle wheels,nor does he ever say that the fucking thing under paddle wheels actually did achieve three knots!

Funny, but in a professional journal discussing what is available at the time, it's presumed that his readership that he's aiming for will be cognizant of these details. He's not writing for the 19th century equivalent of Popular Mechanics.

(Not five knots, if you're going to attempt to accuse me of not reading the piece of shit, at least you could)

Oh, what a devastating point you do score because I misquote a number.

That entire letter is an opinion piece, with ridiculously vague or anonymous citations of zero merit.

Funny coming from the man who is spewing a charge against said author's motivations with no citations and zero merit.

Anyone who cites a Victorian op-ed letter as their primary source, and then has the unmitigated gall to quote rules to someone who helped write those rules had better get their ass in gear finding evidence for the assinine claim that topweight contributes to stability, or concede; do you understand?

You mean like I do above.

A heavy rolling ship, whose center of gravity lies low, will require a lofty sail to keep her steady in the water, and to lay her down for that purpose.

See above.

[Frank Hipper]

Very well:

The scientific investigations of the late Mr. Froude and others have placed the true principles of the matter beyond all question. Nor is any great amount of scientific investigation needful to a true appreciation of the subject.

[color-yellow]If a ship possessing a very low centre of gravity, and consequently, great stability, be forcibly moved from the upright position in still water, and then left free to go back, she will (neglecting the question of her moment of inertia) return with violence to the upright position; pass, by virtue of the moment acquired, beyond the upright, and then come to rest; return again through the upright position; and so on,[/color] oscillating about that position through decreasing angles, until the momentum has become expended, and she is brought eventually to rest.

. . .

This idea, while needing manifold developments and qualifications, is the fundamental idea which regulates, if we may so to speak, a ship's behaviour in waves; and it points immediately and directly to the doctrine that, within certain limits, a very stable ship may be regarded as tending to violent rolling in waves, while a ship of small stability may be regarded as having much less inducement to violent rolling. The limit on the side of great stability is to be found in the fact that were the stability of a ship infinite, an exact conformity to changes of mean wave-slope the condition of maximum motion; the limit on the side of small stability is of course to be found in the well-understood danger of capsizing from excessive crankiness

To sum up the relevant points:

A) The higher the ship's centre of gravity, the more she will tend toward less ideal stability but less violent motion in the water.

B) Top weight of masts in regards to this question in a sail vessel serves two purposes: a CG higher up from the ship's centre of buoyancy; at the same time, the additional weight increases displacement (by a small degree).

C) Without said top weight, such as when the vessel is dismasted, two effects occur: the distance between the ship's centre of gravity and centre of buoyancy is reduced; the sudden loss of top weight also reduces displacement (by a small degree).

D) The result of the above two effects means the hulk will be more easily, not less easily, rolled by wave action which, in an open sea, will not diminish.

Get the point?

Not so sure you do, though.
The article you're quoting is describing oscillation as a product of roll produced by wave action, you would have been better off without your point "(D)".

Furthermore, dampening this pendulum effect is needed only in a ship that has a narrow beam and a very low CoG, not wooden ships in general, as per your original claim.

You cannot imagine the disappointment I experience by your resort to such a simple-minded cheap shot. I'd have expected better from the likes of you.

Just what in your view causes such "amusement" in mentioning carracks and ships carrying guns "in the same breath"? Did you even bother to read and understand the sense of what I had said:

No, it's presence was accepted because of actual need when larger vessels than a carrack or a cog were required for ocean-going voyages or in warships to carry as many guns as were feasible and still make a passage in a decent amount of time or to put on speed when required.

—denoting the need for a vessel exceeding the rather obvious limitations of a carrack by comparison?

A small mediterranean carrack of the late 1400s would be in the same gross tonnage range as HMS Bounty's 260 tons. Average sized carracks were in the neighborhood of 400.

Mary Rose, whose excessive topweight of armament and men caused her loss, was 700 tons gross, and was by far not the largest of the type.
Carracks were not lacking in size for sailing ships.
Nor were they lacking in size for oceanic voyaging, or acceptable speed for the purpose as demonstrated by Portugese employment of them in the spice trade for more than a century.

The point of amusement you miss is that carracks introduced gunports in order to reduce topweight...

One which very evidently sailed past your pointy little head at great altitude.

No, it simply doesn't exist.
Not unless excess verbiage of an irrelevant nature constitutes a point, that is.

It's also a pretty good definition of mimickry. It does not indicate a capacity for true understanding of principle nor any capacity to leap beyond "lessons learned".

When something is produced that fulfills it's intended purpose, and the point is that the object fulfills it's intended purpose due to a successful tradition, condemning the process of it's production for not being as technically advanced as later techniques makes no sense, especially when those later techniques expand on those earlier practices...idiot.

Your backpedaling and evasion avails you naught. You very clearly made a definite charge regarding Capt. Hoseason's motivations. So I must insist: present the evidence which backs your assertion in that regard.

I very clearly presented my reasoning for asserting that he was an irrational idiot, as part of a very indefinite charge; you labeling the clarification of that assertion as "backpedaling" goes quite some way in illustrating your own idiocy, however.

Stop ignoring the fact that I satisfactorily support my assertion. He was a fucking idiot.

By the way, you have no idea how much it amuses me to see you making a charge regarding someone's alleged association with the paddle-wheel steamship builders while ignoring the fact that the man who built the ship Capt. Hoseason is criticising, I.K. Brunel, went on to undertake as his next project the largest paddle-wheel steamship ever built, the Great Eastern.

It was also the largest screw ship built to date; so what?

Except that was not quite what Capt. Hoseason was talking about in that regard.

Read the second paragraph of that again, idiot!
It's exactly what he says!

Except more powerful engines were not on anybody's drawing board in 1846 and in that time were not even possible until a substitute to tallow as a lubricant could be found. That had not occured either.

Great Britain...you know the ship he's irrationally smearing?
Well, not only was it on someone's drawing board, but it was in the process of being built with a published output of 1000hp (it produced 1500hp, actually), and the moron states that explicitly in his letter; you're taking a shit in my mouth and calling it a sundae.

I will insist again: evidence that this was Capt. Hoseason's motive.

It's a reasonable assumption in lieu of contradictory information, and in light of the competitive and cutthroat mercenary atmosphere of British shipbuilding.
Take your insistance, roll it in a tube, and go fuck yourself with it.

His published attack on the propellor as means of propulsion makes no sense in light of information available at the time, and certainly not 160 years later, and demands an explanation; I'll voice my speculation.

Does he not present several experimental results which did, at that time, appear to back his criticisms?

You mean where they modify the propellor on the Bee, and he uses the superior results to fucking condemn it?
Really?

Keeping in mind that several engineering problems waited to be solved before screw propulsion could be properly and far more advantageously exploited at the time.

Those solutions were being applied in a Bristol drydock, and were the target of his attack.

Plucked out of your ass, it appears, since you offer zero evidence for the assertion beyond saying, over and over again "I think it's so".

When confronted with irrational behavior, idly speculating as to it's cause comes naturally.

Funny, but in a professional journal discussing what is available at the time, it's presumed that his readership that he's aiming for will be cognizant of these details. He's not writing for the 19th century equivalent of Popular Mechanics.

If you're going to make something a point of contention, don't make excuses because your source doesn't contain any real information.

Oh, what a devastating point you do score because I misquote a number.

When you accuse someone of not reading material you present, and then display ignorance of it's content yourself, you better believe it's a devastating point, you stupid motherfucker.

Funny coming from the man who is spewing a charge against said author's motivations with no citations and zero merit.

More cherry-picking, selective reading, I see.

You mean like I do above.

You do, but it's a claim that's valid in particular circumstances, not nearly as general as you at first implied.

A heavy rolling ship, whose center of gravity lies low, will require a lofty sail to keep her steady in the water, and to lay her down for that purpose.

See above.

Thank you for showing that you're perfectly capable of confusing the steadying effect of sail with topweight, just as I said earlier.

[Alien-Carrot]

Patric, it's funny that you post an article by Sir Edward James Reed.

Heres some neat little facts bout Mr. Reed.

1860, Reed is appointed as Secretary to the Institute of Naval Architects. which means he is lead designer for all British naval warships.

1868, british admarality wants him to build the HMS Monarch, with the stipulation that it have sails instead of steam engined. Reed objected, statin that sails on a ship were no longer desirable, as the would impeede combat DUE TO PITCHING.

1869, one of Reeds juniors, Cowper Phipps Coles, designer or the rotating turret, designed the HMS Captain, a sailed vessel. The vessel was funded by parliament, (not the admiralty), and was to be built without help from Reed, and contrary to his objestions. The Captain was launched in 1870, and sank in 1871, when it capsized DO TO THE WAIGHT OF ITS SAILS. Coles died with his ship.

1871, Reed is given permission to design his own warship, and begins construction of hte HMS Devastation. The Devestation has the distinction of being the FIRST MASTLESS NAVAL VESSEL. It was sunk in combat in 1908, 37 years later. There is no evidence that this, the first ship without sails, ever had a problem with excessive pitching, or ballast.



So, your so-called source of proof, was also the man who designed the first mastless ship, specifically stating that sailed vellels were unstable, and should be replaced with mastless ships.

If you have any other outdated articles about ships and sails, i will be happy to point out all the flaws in you posting them.

[wautd]

Just midly going off topic here but goddamn the Brits always came up with badass ship names

[Patrick Degan]

Very well:

The scientific investigations of the late Mr. Froude and others have placed the true principles of the matter beyond all question. Nor is any great amount of scientific investigation needful to a true appreciation of the subject.

If a ship possessing a very low centre of gravity, and consequently, great stability, be forcibly moved from the upright position in still water, and then left free to go back, she will (neglecting the question of her moment of inertia) return with violence to the upright position; pass, by virtue of the moment acquired, beyond the upright, and then come to rest; return again through the upright position; and so on, oscillating about that position through decreasing angles, until the momentum has become expended, and she is brought eventually to rest.

. . .

This idea, while needing manifold developments and qualifications, is the fundamental idea which regulates, if we may so to speak, a ship's behaviour in waves; and it points immediately and directly to the doctrine that, within certain limits, a very stable ship may be regarded as tending to violent rolling in waves, while a ship of small stability may be regarded as having much less inducement to violent rolling. The limit on the side of great stability is to be found in the fact that were the stability of a ship infinite, an exact conformity to changes of mean wave-slope the condition of maximum motion; the limit on the side of small stability is of course to be found in the well-understood danger of capsizing from excessive crankiness

To sum up the relevant points:

A) The higher the ship's centre of gravity, the more she will tend toward less ideal stability but less violent motion in the water.

B) Top weight of masts in regards to this question in a sail vessel serves two purposes: a CG higher up from the ship's centre of buoyancy; at the same time, the additional weight increases displacement (by a small degree).

C) Without said top weight, such as when the vessel is dismasted, two effects occur: the distance between the ship's centre of gravity and centre of buoyancy is reduced; the sudden loss of top weight also reduces displacement (by a small degree).

D) The result of the above two effects means the hulk will be more easily, not less easily, rolled by wave action which, in an open sea, will not diminish.

Get the point?

Not so sure you do, though.

The article you're quoting is describing oscillation as a product of roll produced by wave action, you would have been better off without your point "(D)".

Furthermore, dampening this pendulum effect is needed only in a ship that has a narrow beam and a very low CoG, not wooden ships in general, as per your original claim.

"Roll produced by wave action". Such as found on the open sea. Such as the experience of every ship dismasted in open sea. Which numerous sea captains and marine engineers have testified to over the years. Which was part and parcel with my claim.

You cannot imagine the disappointment I experience by your resort to such a simple-minded cheap shot. I'd have expected better from the likes of you.

Just what in your view causes such "amusement" in mentioning carracks and ships carrying guns "in the same breath"? Did you even bother to read and understand the sense of what I had said:

No, it's presence was accepted because of actual need when larger vessels than a carrack or a cog were required for ocean-going voyages or in warships to carry as many guns as were feasible and still make a passage in a decent amount of time or to put on speed when required.

—denoting the need for a vessel exceeding the rather obvious limitations of a carrack by comparison?

A small mediterranean carrack of the late 1400s would be in the same gross tonnage range as HMS Bounty's 260 tons. Average sized carracks were in the neighborhood of 400.

Mary Rose, whose excessive topweight of armament and men caused her loss, was 700 tons gross, and was by far not the largest of the type.
Carracks were not lacking in size for sailing ships.

Nor were they lacking in size for oceanic voyaging, or acceptable speed for the purpose as demonstrated by Portugese employment of them in the spice trade for more than a century.

You are being quite obtuse. My point in this regard spoke to the need for ever larger ships to carry more freight and larger complements of gunnery. Which I thought I had made adequately clear but evidently had not to spark comprehension on your part. Throwing up examples of sixth-rates and smaller ships does not defeat the observation.

The point of amusement you miss is that carracks introduced gunports in order to reduce topweight...

Which had nothing to do with my argument at all.

One which very evidently sailed past your pointy little head at great altitude.

No, it simply doesn't exist. Not unless excess verbiage of an irrelevant nature constitutes a point, that is.

As you wish...

It's also a pretty good definition of mimickry. It does not indicate a capacity for true understanding of principle nor any capacity to leap beyond "lessons learned".

When something is produced that fulfills it's intended purpose, and the point is that the object fulfills it's intended purpose due to a successful tradition, condemning the process of it's production for not being as technically advanced as later techniques makes no sense, especially when those later techniques expand on those earlier practices...idiot.

What a pathetic attempt at a rebuttal. Smacks of being an Appeal to Tradition Fallacy, actually.

Your backpedaling and evasion avails you naught. You very clearly made a definite charge regarding Capt. Hoseason's motivations. So I must insist: present the evidence which backs your assertion in that regard.

I very clearly presented my reasoning for asserting that he was an irrational idiot, as part of a very indefinite charge; you labeling the clarification of that assertion as "backpedaling" goes quite some way in illustrating your own idiocy, however.

Stop ignoring the fact that I satisfactorily support my assertion. He was a fucking idiot.

You certainly failed to substantiate anything in regard to your statement that Capt. Hoseason was acting in the interest of the "paddlewheel manufacturers". Further, you have offered nothing to defeat the essential observation he cited as regards to the rolling of dismasted ships, which is the one point relevant to this discussion. You have attempted to argue every other tangent and in the end even clearly asserted a mercenary interest on his part as motivation for his position.

By the way, you have no idea how much it amuses me to see you making a charge regarding someone's alleged association with the paddle-wheel steamship builders while ignoring the fact that the man who built the ship Capt. Hoseason is criticising, I.K. Brunel, went on to undertake as his next project the largest paddle-wheel steamship ever built, the Great Eastern.

It was also the largest screw ship built to date; so what?

So plenty. The ship's screw engines were auxilliaries to its main sidewheel propulsion. No screw engine then in existence could have driven such a large ship on its own. Further, the fact that Brunel did build a sidewheeler as his next project after Great Britain only makes your accusation on Hoseason's motivations all the more ridiculous.

Except that was not quite what Capt. Hoseason was talking about in that regard.

Read the second paragraph of that again, idiot! It's exactly what he says!

No, we will read what Hoseason was speaking to regarding what he viewed as the stabilising effect of paddlewheels:

The simple cause of her terrible rolling is that she is not a paddle-wheel steamer; for were she so, the wheels would effectually serve to check so great a defect, for the weather-wheel would require a powerful force to raise it out of the water, and the lee-wheel a still greater force to immerse it; thus, then most powerful counteracting effects would be in full operation to bring within some degree of limitation so dangerous and michievious a tendency.

In regards to the second paragraph in Hoseason's letter you point to: taken in context with the latter passage cited above, it's obvious that what he speaks to is what he sees as the similar lack of stability between a ship without paddlewheels (to act as counterbalances) and a dismasted sailing vessel. He is not saying "screw propulsion causes excessive roll".

Except more powerful engines were not on anybody's drawing board in 1846 and in that time were not even possible until a substitute to tallow as a lubricant could be found. That had not occured either.

Great Britain...you know the ship he's irrationally smearing?

Well, not only was it on someone's drawing board, but it was in the process of being built with a published output of 1000hp (it produced 1500hp, actually), and the moron states that explicitly in his letter; you're taking a shit in my mouth and calling it a sundae.

No, you're being very, very obtuse. To underscore the point:

On comparing the screwsteamer of the present time with the best examples of steamers propellcd by paddlewheels, the superiority of the former is so marked that it may cause some surprise that the revolution just descrited should have progressed no more rapidly. The reason of this slow progress, however, was probably that the introduction of the rapidlyrevolving screw, in place of the slowmoving paddlewheel, necessitated a complete revolution in the design of their steamengincs; and the unavoidable change from the heavy, longstroked, lowspeed engines previously in use, to the light engines, with small cylinders and high pistonspeed, called for by the new system of propulsion, was one that necessarily occurred slowly, and was accompanied by its share of those engineering blunders and accidents that invariably take place during such periods of transition. Engineers had first to learn to design such engines as should he reliable under the then novel conditions of screwpropulsion, and their experience could only be gained through the occurrence of many mishaps and costly failures. The best proportions of engines and screws, for a given ship, were determined only by long experience, although great assistance was derived from the extensive se ries of experiments made with the French steamer Pelican. It also became necessary to train up a body of enginedrivers who should be capable of managing these new engines; for they required the exercise of a then unprecedented amount of care and skill. Finally, with the accomplishment of these two requisites to success must simultaneously occur the enlightenment of the public, professional as well as nonprofessional, in regard to their advantages. Thus it happens that it is only after a considerable time that the screw attained its proper place as an instrument of propulsion, and finally drove the paddlewheel quite out of use, except in shoal water.

Now our large screwsteamers are of higher specd than any paddle-steamers on the ocean, and develop their power at far less cost. This increased economy is due not only to the use of a more efficient propelling instrument, and to changes already described, but also, in a great degree, to the economy which has followed as a consequence of other changes in the steamengine driving it. The earliest days of screwpropulsion witnessed the use of steam of from 5 to l5 pounds pressure, in a geared engine using jetcondensation, and giving a horsepower at an expense of perhaps 7 to 10, or even more, pounds of coal per hour. A little later came directacting engines with jetcondensation and steam at 20 pounds pressure, costing about 5 or 6 pounds per horsepower per hour. The steampressure rose a little higher with the use of greater expansion, and the economy of fuel was further improved. The introduction of the surfacecondenser, which began to be generally adopted some ten years ago, brought down the cost of power to from 3 to 4 pounds in the better class of engines. At about the same time, this change to surfacecondensation helping greatly to overcome those troubles arising from boiler in station which had prevented the rise of steampressure above about 25 pounds per square inch, and as, at the same time, it was learned by engineers that the deposit of limescale in the marine boiler was determined by temperature rather than by the degree of concentration, and that all the lime entering the boiler was deposited at the pressure just mentioned, a sudden advance took place. Careful design, good workmanship, and skillful management, made the surfacecondenser an efficient apparatus; and, the dangers of incrustation being thus lessened, the movement toward higher pressures recommenced, and progressed so rapidly that now 75 pounds per square inch is very usual, and more than 125 pounds has sines been attained.

From chapter five of A History Of The Growth Of The Steam Engine by Robert Thurston, A.M., C.E. (1878). You may note that the innovations cited by Thurston (a marine engineer, BTW) occurred only ten years prior to writing his book. Which places the date at 1868 —a bit over twenty years after Great Britain plied the seas. Which supports the point that the final triumph of screw propulsion awaited the solution of several engineering problems which were still considerable roadblocks in I.K. Brunel's day.

I will insist again: evidence that this was Capt. Hoseason's motive.

It's a reasonable assumption in lieu of contradictory information, and in light of the competitive and cutthroat mercenary atmosphere of British shipbuilding. Take your insistance, roll it in a tube, and go fuck yourself with it.

Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

His published attack on the propellor as means of propulsion makes no sense in light of information available at the time, and certainly not 160 years later, and demands an explanation; I'll voice my speculation.

Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

Does he not present several experimental results which did, at that time, appear to back his criticisms?

You mean where they modify the propellor on the Bee, and he uses the superior results to fucking condemn it? Really?

Also the results of tests carried out with the Rattler and the Phoenix, as well as citation of problems with the performance in the American steamer Massachussets.

Keeping in mind that several engineering problems waited to be solved before screw propulsion could be properly and far more advantageously exploited at the time.

Those solutions were being applied in a Bristol drydock, and were the target of his attack.

Sigh.

To underscore the point:

On comparing the screwsteamer of the present time with the best examples of steamers propellcd by paddlewheels, the superiority of the former is so marked that it may cause some surprise that the revolution just descrited should have progressed no more rapidly. The reason of this slow progress, however, was probably that the introduction of the rapidlyrevolving screw, in place of the slowmoving paddlewheel, necessitated a complete revolution in the design of their steamengincs; and the unavoidable change from the heavy, longstroked, lowspeed engines previously in use, to the light engines, with small cylinders and high pistonspeed, called for by the new system of propulsion, was one that necessarily occurred slowly, and was accompanied by its share of those engineering blunders and accidents that invariably take place during such periods of transition. Engineers had first to learn to design such engines as should he reliable under the then novel conditions of screwpropulsion, and their experience could only be gained through the occurrence of many mishaps and costly failures. The best proportions of engines and screws, for a given ship, were determined only by long experience, although great assistance was derived from the extensive se ries of experiments made with the French steamer Pelican. It also became necessary to train up a body of enginedrivers who should be capable of managing these new engines; for they required the exercise of a then unprecedented amount of care and skill. Finally, with the accomplishment of these two requisites to success must simultaneously occur the enlightenment of the public, professional as well as nonprofessional, in regard to their advantages. Thus it happens that it is only after a considerable time that the screw attained its proper place as an instrument of propulsion, and finally drove the paddlewheel quite out of use, except in shoal water.

Now our large screwsteamers are of higher specd than any paddle-steamers on the ocean, and develop their power at far less cost. This increased economy is due not only to the use of a more efficient propelling instrument, and to changes already described, but also, in a great degree, to the economy which has followed as a consequence of other changes in the steamengine driving it. The earliest days of screwpropulsion witnessed the use of steam of from 5 to l5 pounds pressure, in a geared engine using jetcondensation, and giving a horsepower at an expense of perhaps 7 to 10, or even more, pounds of coal per hour. A little later came directacting engines with jetcondensation and steam at 20 pounds pressure, costing about 5 or 6 pounds per horsepower per hour. The steampressure rose a little higher with the use of greater expansion, and the economy of fuel was further improved. The introduction of the surfacecondenser, which began to be generally adopted some ten years ago, brought down the cost of power to from 3 to 4 pounds in the better class of engines. At about the same time, this change to surfacecondensation helping greatly to overcome those troubles arising from boiler in station which had prevented the rise of steampressure above about 25 pounds per square inch, and as, at the same time, it was learned by engineers that the deposit of limescale in the marine boiler was determined by temperature rather than by the degree of concentration, and that all the lime entering the boiler was deposited at the pressure just mentioned, a sudden advance took place. Careful design, good workmanship, and skillful management, made the surfacecondenser an efficient apparatus; and, the dangers of incrustation being thus lessened, the movement toward higher pressures recommenced, and progressed so rapidly that now 75 pounds per square inch is very usual, and more than 125 pounds has sines been attained.

From chapter five of A History Of The Growth Of The Steam Engine by Robert Thurston, A.M., C.E. (1878). You may note that the innovations cited by Thurston (a marine engineer, BTW) occurred only ten years prior to writing his book. Which places the date at 1868 —a bit over twenty years after Great Britain plied the seas. Which supports the point that the final triumph of screw propulsion awaited the solution of several engineering problems which were still considerable roadblocks in I.K. Brunel's day.

Plucked out of your ass, it appears, since you offer zero evidence for the assertion beyond saying, over and over again "I think it's so".

When confronted with irrational behavior, idly speculating as to it's cause comes naturally.

Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

Funny, but in a professional journal discussing what is available at the time, it's presumed that his readership that he's aiming for will be cognizant of these details. He's not writing for the 19th century equivalent of Popular Mechanics.

If you're going to make something a point of contention, don't make excuses because your source doesn't contain any real information.

As you wish...

Oh, what a devastating point you do score because I misquote a number.

When you accuse someone of not reading material you present, and then display ignorance of it's content yourself, you better believe it's a devastating point, you stupid motherfucker.

What a nitpicking little pinhead you are demonstrating yourself to be. Sorry, but a single misquoted number in the course of an ever lengthening chain of arguments is not a devastating point on anything no matter how much you stamp your feet and scream about it like a little baby.

Funny coming from the man who is spewing a charge against said author's motivations with no citations and zero merit.

More cherry-picking, selective reading, I see.

More evasion on your part, I see. To reiterate: Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

You mean like I do above.

You do, but it's a claim that's valid in particular circumstances, not nearly as general as you at first implied.

Such as in a rolling sea, which are the conditions often present in a dismasting.

A heavy rolling ship, whose center of gravity lies low, will require a lofty sail to keep her steady in the water, and to lay her down for that purpose.

See above.

Thank you for showing that you're perfectly capable of confusing the steadying effect of sail with topweight, just as I said earlier.

Which was never what I was speaking to, which is not something I've denied once in the course of this discussion, which is not relevant to the point of whether or not the sudden loss of topweight will cause a ship to roll more violently or not.

Quite simply, you're pathetic.

[Frank Hipper]

"Roll produced by wave action". Such as found on the open sea. Such as the experience of every ship dismasted in open sea. Which numerous sea captains and marine engineers have testified to over the years. Which was part and parcel with my claim.

Roll, and oscillation initiated by that roll are two different things, and are not dependant on a ship being built of wood; there's something that's part and parcel to your claim that is completely nonsensical.

How would a hypothetical Noah's Ark experiement be affected by this phenomenon? That's the crux of the matter right there and hasn't even been touched on yet...

You are being quite obtuse. My point in this regard spoke to the need for ever larger ships to carry more freight and larger complements of gunnery. Which I thought I had made adequately clear but evidently had not to spark comprehension on your part. Throwing up examples of sixth-rates and smaller ships does not defeat the observation.

No, you dishonest and illiterate fuck, my citing Bounty's diminutive size in comparison to carracks shows you to not have any idea of what you're talking about when it comes to what sort of ship is capable of making an oceanic voyage.

Which had nothing to do with my argument at all.

Sure, topweight has nothing to do with your argument at all.

You're a lying fuck.

What a pathetic attempt at a rebuttal. Smacks of being an Appeal to Tradition Fallacy, actually.

Citing a tradition that produced practical solutions to the complex engineering problem of shipbuilding is not a fallacy, idiot.

Your sneering, cowardly attempt at poisoning the well (with a failure to commit to an accusation of fallacious reasoning), is too weak for words.

You certainly failed to substantiate anything in regard to your statement that Capt. Hoseason was acting in the interest of the "paddlewheel manufacturers".

Cherry picking a claim in order to accuse me of failing to follow board rules; I really must insist you go fuck yourself with it, again...

Further, you have offered nothing to defeat the essential observation he cited as regards to the rolling of dismasted ships, which is the one point relevant to this discussion.

A dismasted ship can roll for many different reasons; it can be otherwise stable, yet caught broadside to the direction of the waves, a loss of sails or rigging to utilise the wind to dampen roll, or a loss of counter weight to the pendulum effect.
He never states why a dismasted ship rolls, and his failure to state can only be taken as further evidence of his irrational bias to towards the propellor.

You have attempted to argue every other tangent and in the end even clearly asserted a mercenary interest on his part as motivation for his position.

When a claim is presented conditionally as "Either-Or", the only requirement is to satisfy either "A" or "B", you retarded motherfucker; I am sick unto death of having to repeat this.

So plenty. The ship's screw engines were auxilliaries to its main sidewheel propulsion.

Oh, really? Why were the screw engines more powerful if they were mere auxilleries, then?

No screw engine then in existence could have driven such a large ship on its own. Further, the fact that Brunel did build a sidewheeler as his next project after Great Britain only makes your accusation on Hoseason's motivations all the more ridiculous.

The unquestioned success of Great Britain shows Hoseason's pathetic smear campaign to be idiotic, and your continued strident defense of it to be even worse.

No, we will read what Hoseason was speaking to regarding what he viewed as the stabilising effect of paddlewheels:

The simple cause of her terrible rolling is that she is not a paddle-wheel steamer; for were she so, the wheels would effectually serve to check so great a defect, for the weather-wheel would require a powerful force to raise it out of the water, and the lee-wheel a still greater force to immerse it; thus, then most powerful counteracting effects would be in full operation to bring within some degree of limitation so dangerous and michievious a tendency.

More evidence of the man's idiocy, and I can't believe you'd be so dense as to draw attention to it; paddle wheels do not increase stability, they reduce it, and actions he describes are the cause!

Lifting one wheel out of the water has no effect on roll, but it most definitely introduces instability in another dimension entirely; yaw.

The yawing movement of a paddle driven ship causes problems of unequal stress on the hull, discomfort to passengers, and decrease in directional stability.

In regards to the second paragraph in Hoseason's letter you point to: taken in context with the latter passage cited above, it's obvious that what he speaks to is what he sees as the similar lack of stability between a ship without paddlewheels (to act as counterbalances) and a dismasted sailing vessel. He is not saying "screw propulsion causes excessive roll".

Liar!

To quote, "...the frightful and dangerous rolling which is the inevitable consequence of this mode of propulsion" is what he fucking said in that second paragraph and you damned well know it!

No, you're being very, very obtuse. To underscore the point:

You have got to be shitting me; what kind of drugs are you on that lead you to think that antique work in any way addresses the fact that Hoseason's condemnation of a 260 hp ship failed to take into account ships of higher horsepower?

Is your attention span really so short that you've forgotten that you claimed Hoseason could not have been expected to forsee ships of significantly higher power, even when he quotes 1000hp for Great Britain?

Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

I satisfied the "Either-Or" conditions of that, AND YOU WILL STOP IGNORING IT!

Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

Selective Reading Fallacy; go fuck yourself with it, hard.

Also the results of tests carried out with the Rattler and the Phoenix, as well as citation of problems with the performance in the American steamer Massachussets.

The Rattler, which amazingly enough won the famous tug of war against the Alecto, while that ship was commanded by a certain Cmdr. Hoseason RN, experienced difficulties in re-attching it's propellor; a mechanical difficulty that in no way has anything to do with screw propulsion.

The auxilary steamer Massachusets made long passage for reasons unstated; there's no compelling reason to make anything of that, other than they had a difficult crossing.

With 260 hp, the Phoenix was underpowered, yet he ascribes standing still while facing into a storm to screw propulsion without saying why; irrational bias.

Sigh.

None of that shows the Great Britain a failure, or anything but a solution to the question of screw driven, iron steamship.

What a nitpicking little pinhead you are demonstrating yourself to be. Sorry, but a single misquoted number in the course of an ever lengthening chain of arguments is not a devastating point on anything no matter how much you stamp your feet and scream about it like a little baby.

Fact checking to make sure your posts agree with your own sources is simple expediency, complaining about being mocked for not doing so isn't going to do anything but make you look worse.

Such as in a rolling sea, which are the conditions often present in a dismasting.

They do not apply in a ship with a small length-to-beam ratio and moderate-to-high center of gravity, something which a Noah's Ark experiment would likely be.

Which was never what I was speaking to, which is not something I've denied once in the course of this discussion, which is not relevant to the point of whether or not the sudden loss of topweight will cause a ship to roll more violently or not.

Except that topweight dampens pendular oscillation, not roll; two different phenomena.

Quite simply, you're pathetic.

Quite simply, you're a cut and paste moron with little comprehension of the antiquated bullfuckery you choose to cite over more succinct, explicit, technically sophisticated modern resources.

You deliberately and fallaciously ignore that I satisfy the "A" or "B" conditions of a claim; when the conditions are a choice between "A" or "B", demanding support for only one of your choice is cherry picking, you stupid motherfucker.

You go to extraordinary lengths to defend a Victorian era opinion piece with zero technically descriptive content, and assinine criticims that have been irrefutably demolished by 160 years of experience.

Pathetic? You'll find that staring out of your closest mirror.

[Patrick Degan]

"Roll produced by wave action". Such as found on the open sea. Such as the experience of every ship dismasted in open sea. Which numerous sea captains and marine engineers have testified to over the years. Which was part and parcel with my claim.

Roll, and oscillation initiated by that roll are two different things, and are not dependant on a ship being built of wood; there's something that's part and parcel to your claim that is completely nonsensical.

The crux of the matter is NOT whether or not the ship is built of wood, strawmanderer.

You are being quite obtuse. My point in this regard spoke to the need for ever larger ships to carry more freight and larger complements of gunnery. Which I thought I had made adequately clear but evidently had not to spark comprehension on your part. Throwing up examples of sixth-rates and smaller ships does not defeat the observation.

No, you dishonest and illiterate fuck,

Look who's talking.

my citing Bounty's diminutive size in comparison to carracks shows you to not have any idea of what you're talking about when it comes to what sort of ship is capable of making an oceanic voyage.

Uh huh. Try mounting 100 or more guns on a carrack, dense one. Try cramming 500-1000 men and their supplies on one. Sort of ties in to my entire point about larger ships being needed, which would have required more sail to propel them, which led to inevitable and necessary increase of topweight, which evidently still eludes your grasp.

Which had nothing to do with my argument at all.

Sure, topweight has nothing to do with your argument at all.

You're a lying fuck.

Again, look who's talking. My point, in regards to that area of the discussion was:

No, it's presence was accepted because of actual need when larger vessels than a carrack or a cog were required for ocean-going voyages or in warships to carry as many guns as were feasible and still make a passage in a decent amount of time or to put on speed when required.

Which was in reply to this statement of yours:

Patrick, six thousand years of shipbuilding demonstrates the lesson learned of avoiding topweight wherever practical; it's presence has been accepted only because of percieved, or valid, need.

Citing a tradition that produced practical solutions to the complex engineering problem of shipbuilding is not a fallacy, idiot.

It is when it's used by you as an excuse to handwave away the fact that shipbuilding practises up to that point very largely did not proceed from a full understanding of the principles involved and resisted innovation.

Your sneering, cowardly attempt at poisoning the well (with a failure to commit to an accusation of fallacious reasoning), is too weak for words.

Once more, look who's talking. Your false indignation impresses me not.

You certainly failed to substantiate anything in regard to your statement that Capt. Hoseason was acting in the interest of the "paddlewheel manufacturers".

Cherry picking a claim in order to accuse me of failing to follow board rules; I really must insist you go fuck yourself with it, again...

Sayeth the man who's entire support for his "argument" on that particular point is "Speculation is evidence, I need nothing more".

Once again: Debate Rule Number Six.

Further, you have offered nothing to defeat the essential observation he cited as regards to the rolling of dismasted ships, which is the one point relevant to this discussion.

A dismasted ship can roll for many different reasons; it can be otherwise stable, yet caught broadside to the direction of the waves, a loss of sails or rigging to utilise the wind to dampen roll, or a loss of counter weight to the pendulum effect.
He never states why a dismasted ship rolls, and his failure to state can only be taken as further evidence of his irrational bias to towards the propellor.

Even for your diminishing standards in the course of this increasingly silly discussion, that is pathetic indeed. Not only it is rather obvious that Capt. Hoseason's letter is speaking of wave-induced roll, which anybody with basic reading-comprehension could induce, you attempting to again fill in a great gaping void in the evidence with even more speculation smacks of outright dishonesty on your part.

So I must insist, if you please: Debate Rule Number Six.

You have attempted to argue every other tangent and in the end even clearly asserted a mercenary interest on his part as motivation for his position.

When a claim is presented conditionally as "Either-Or", the only requirement is to satisfy either "A" or "B", you retarded motherfucker; I am sick unto death of having to repeat this.

Translation from Hipper-speak: "Speculation is evidence, I need nothing else".

So plenty. The ship's screw engines were auxilliaries to its main sidewheel propulsion.

Oh, really? Why were the screw engines more powerful if they were mere auxilleries, then?

FOUR steam engines drove Great Eastern's paddles; a single engine drove her screw. No screw propulsion system then in existence could have moved an 32,000 ton vessel.

No screw engine then in existence could have driven such a large ship on its own. Further, the fact that Brunel did build a sidewheeler as his next project after Great Britain only makes your accusation on Hoseason's motivations all the more ridiculous.

The unquestioned success of Great Britain shows Hoseason's pathetic smear campaign to be idiotic, and your continued strident defense of it to be even worse.

For "strident defence" read "clarification" —something which you not only avoid but are going to great lengths to obsfucate.

No, we will read what Hoseason was speaking to regarding what he viewed as the stabilising effect of paddlewheels:

The simple cause of her terrible rolling is that she is not a paddle-wheel steamer; for were she so, the wheels would effectually serve to check so great a defect, for the weather-wheel would require a powerful force to raise it out of the water, and the lee-wheel a still greater force to immerse it; thus, then most powerful counteracting effects would be in full operation to bring within some degree of limitation so dangerous and michievious a tendency.

More evidence of the man's idiocy, and I can't believe you'd be so dense as to draw attention to it; paddle wheels do not increase stability, they reduce it, and actions he describes are the cause!

Lifting one wheel out of the water has no effect on roll, but it most definitely introduces instability in another dimension entirely; yaw.

The yawing movement of a paddle driven ship causes problems of unequal stress on the hull, discomfort to passengers, and decrease in directional stability.

YOUR accusation in regards to Hoseason's statements were that he was stating that "screw propulsion is the CAUSE of a ship's rolling". The entire purpose of my quoting the above extract from his letter was to demonstrate that this was not what the man was saying at all. At all.

In regards to the second paragraph in Hoseason's letter you point to: taken in context with the latter passage cited above, it's obvious that what he speaks to is what he sees as the similar lack of stability between a ship without paddlewheels (to act as counterbalances) and a dismasted sailing vessel. He is not saying "screw propulsion causes excessive roll".

Liar!

You certainly are.

To quote, "...the frightful and dangerous rolling which is the inevitable consequence of this mode of propulsion" is what he fucking said in that second paragraph and you damned well know it!

I pointed out the context by which that statement was used in the man's arguments, but you just ignore this altogether.

No, you're being very, very obtuse. To underscore the point:

You have got to be shitting me; what kind of drugs are you on that lead you to think that antique work in any way addresses the fact that Hoseason's condemnation of a 260 hp ship failed to take into account ships of higher horsepower?

Is your attention span really so short that you've forgotten that you claimed Hoseason could not have been expected to forsee ships of significantly higher power, even when he quotes 1000hp for Great Britain?

A partial concession on that point —I was indeed careless. As to the rest, however, the "antique work" you dismiss so readily cites the limitations of maritime steam technology as they existed at the time and chronicles the necessary advances which took twenty or so years after the launch of Great Britain to be realised. Which did impede the full exploitation of the technology.

Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

I satisfied the "Either-Or" conditions of that, AND YOU WILL STOP IGNORING IT!

You mean by saying that your speculations count as sufficient proof on the matter? Laughable on its face.

Debate Rule Six. Either present your evidence or concede the point. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

Selective Reading Fallacy; go fuck yourself with it, hard.

Wrong.

You made a claim.

You have yet to provide any shred of a proof for the claim that Hoseason was in any way motivated by mercenary interest. That he is in error in other areas of his argument does not nullify the requirement to actually back a statement when you make it. And your "my speculation is all the proof I need" or similar handwaving doesn't cut it.

And according to the plain text of the rule I've been invoking, the only "either/or" condition is "you either produce this evidence or concede the point until such time as you can produce this evidence".

So you know where you can shove that "Selective Reading Fallacy" statement of yours, don't you?

Also the results of tests carried out with the Rattler and the Phoenix, as well as citation of problems with the performance in the American steamer Massachussets.

The Rattler, which amazingly enough won the famous tug of war against the Alecto, while that ship was commanded by a certain Cmdr. Hoseason RN, experienced difficulties in re-attching it's propellor; a mechanical difficulty that in no way has anything to do with screw propulsion.

The officer on the Alecto was one William Hoseason. The one we're arguing over is John Cochrane Hoseason, who had commanded HMS Inflexible on the East Indies station. However, to return to the point, it was your allegation that Hoseason was offiering totally baseless opinion, to which I had pointed out that he had put forth operational examples which, at the time, appeared to back his position.

What a nitpicking little pinhead you are demonstrating yourself to be. Sorry, but a single misquoted number in the course of an ever lengthening chain of arguments is not a devastating point on anything no matter how much you stamp your feet and scream about it like a little baby.

Fact checking to make sure your posts agree with your own sources is simple expediency, complaining about being mocked for not doing so isn't going to do anything but make you look worse.

An amusing statement indeed coming from a man who couldn't even be bothered to know which officer of the Royal Navy he was slandering.

Quite simply, you're a cut and paste moron

No, Frankie —it's called "presenting evidence to back one's claims".

with little comprehension of the antiquated bullfuckery you choose to cite over more succinct, explicit, technically sophisticated modern resources.

"Antiquated bullfuckery" eh? And in what way is the information regarding the development and performances of steam propulsion outlined by Thurston invalidated by virtue of being written when those developments had or were just occurring?

You deliberately and fallaciously ignore that I satisfy the "A" or "B" conditions of a claim; when the conditions are a choice between "A" or "B", demanding support for only one of your choice is cherry picking, you stupid motherfucker.

The only "A or B" condition recognised by the rule you say you helped write is: "you either produce this evidence or concede the point until such time as you can produce this evidence". You have done neither.

You go to extraordinary lengths to defend a Victorian era opinion piece with zero technically descriptive content, and assinine criticims that have been irrefutably demolished by 160 years of experience.

Sayeth the man who, instead of leaving the matter in regards to an observation of how a steam vessel may be likened to a dismasted vessel in open sea, which was the one relevant issue in regards to whether or not the sudden loss of a sail-vessel's topweight of masts, yards, and canvas negatively affected roll stability, chose rather to launch into a protracted effort to bury that one point under a mountain of obsfucation and defence of an unprovable claim of mercenary interest colouring one man's opinion and a protracted refusal to admit that you can't back that claim to save your life.

[Frank Hipper]

The crux of the matter is NOT whether or not the ship is built of wood, strawmanderer.

The crux of the matter is how this applies to a Noah's Ark experiment, you illiterate fuck.

Wooden ships are "part and parcel" to your claim, liar, and the claim is there for anyone to see for themselves.

Remember me?

Uh huh. Try mounting 100 or more guns on a carrack, dense one. Try cramming 500-1000 men and their supplies on one. Sort of ties in to my entire point about larger ships being needed, which would have required more sail to propel them, which led to inevitable and necessary increase of topweight, which evidently still eludes your grasp.

Not only did carracks carry crews well in excess of 500 men, not only did they carry guns far in excess of 100 (small as they were), and that from before the turn of the 16th century, but it was the carrack that introduced an entirely new form of rigging ships, the three and four masted full rigged ship.

A revolution in naval gunnery was realised with the carrack, a revolution in rigging ships was realised with the carrack; the topweight of those innovations in the case of the Mary Rose doomed her, and it generally led to the type's demise as a warship.

Your ignorance of the subject is profound, and your conclusions couldn't be more wrong.

I await your argument on how increased size requires increased topweight.

Again, look who's talking. My point, in regards to that area of the discussion was:

Blah, blah, blah; you virtually repeat what I say with an opposite, false, conclusion.

What's next?

Sentence diagrams?

It is when it's used by you as an excuse to handwave away the fact that shipbuilding practises up to that point very largely did not proceed from a full understanding of the principles involved and resisted innovation.

How that has anything to do with any point raised only exists in your bizarre excuse for a mind.

The dangers of topweight are one of the most basic questions addressed in ship design, and were understood in a practical sense long before the 19th century, criticism of the method in which those practices were realised could NOT be more irrelevant.

Sayeth the man who's entire support for his "argument" on that particular point is "Speculation is evidence, I need nothing more".

Outrageous lie, baldfaced and so easily shown to be one that I'm almost embarrased for you.

Scroll.
Up.

Once again: Debate Rule Number Six.

L-O-G-I-C, aquaint yourself with it.

Even for your diminishing standards in the course of this increasingly silly discussion, that is pathetic indeed. Not only it is rather obvious that Capt. Hoseason's letter is speaking of wave-induced roll, which anybody with basic reading-comprehension could induce, you attempting to again fill in a great gaping void in the evidence with even more speculation smacks of outright dishonesty on your part.

Complex cause.

Do you forget your own Victorian piece on ship stability and oscillation and the by no means universal hull ratios and weight distributions needed to experience that oscillation?

So I must insist, if you please: Debate Rule Number Six.

For what? That the fool made a vague remark that you insist on applying specifically?

Translation from Hipper-speak: "Speculation is evidence, I need nothing else".

Such a lying piece of shit...

FOUR steam engines drove Great Eastern's paddles; a single engine drove her screw. No screw propulsion system then in existence could have moved an 32,000 ton vessel.

No, moron; TWO inverted, twin cylinder oscillating engines drove the paddles, and a SINGLE horizontal direct acting engine drove the screw.

The two paddle engines produced a combined output of 3670hp, while the single screw engine produced 3900hp.

The single screw engine was nearly twice as powerful as a single paddle engine; what I was addressing..well, refuting, actually, was your ignorant assertion that the screw was an auxilliary.

For "strident defence" read "clarification" —something which you not only avoid but are going to great lengths to obsfucate.

While this statement is really beneath comment, I have to point out that you lie repeatedly when pressed.

You should really look up the meaning of "obfuscate", because I don't think you know what it means...

YOUR accusation in regards to Hoseason's statements were that he was stating that "screw propulsion is the CAUSE of a ship's rolling". The entire purpose of my quoting the above extract from his letter was to demonstrate that this was not what the man was saying at all. At all.

It is exactly what he said, previously in the letter....but at least you aren't claiming he was correct with this spew.

I pointed out the context by which that statement was used in the man's arguments, but you just ignore this altogether.

Context?
That?
He makes that unequivocal assertion in the context of claiming engineers ignore seamen's experience; his completely incorrect assertions about paddle steamers possesing superior stability to propellor driven ships comes paragraphs later!

A partial concession on that point —I was indeed careless. As to the rest, however, the "antique work" you dismiss so readily cites the limitations of maritime steam technology as they existed at the time and chronicles the necessary advances which took twenty or so years after the launch of Great Britain to be realised. Which did impede the full exploitation of the technology.

Thank you for conceding that, but despite being factually correct, Great Britain being primitive in comparison to later examples is a Red Herring.

You mean by saying that your speculations count as sufficient proof on the matter? Laughable on its face.

Why do I have to even go so far as to point out that I've never said anything even remotely resembling that; doesn't lying so blatantly embarrass you?

You made a claim.

And your pitiable misunderstanding of the conditional nature of that claim, and your fallacious demands that a or b = a + b have gotten all the answer they require, you retarded, anti-logic motherfucker.

Just because you're incapable of understanding the nature of a claim does not mean that I am required to satisfy your lack of comprehension.

The officer on the Alecto was one William Hoseason. The one we're arguing over is John Cochrane Hoseason, who had commanded HMS Inflexible on the East Indies station. However, to return to the point, it was your allegation that Hoseason was offiering totally baseless opinion, to which I had pointed out that he had put forth operational examples which, at the time, appeared to back his position.

They could have "appeared" to be The Second fucking Coming, they were straw grabbing bullshit to the Nth degree, and totally baseless.

An amusing statement indeed coming from a man who couldn't even be bothered to know which officer of the Royal Navy he was slandering.

You are capable of taking a hint only by the application of a ball-peen hammer between the eyes...

J. C. Hoseason was William Hoseason's brother, my purpose in mentioning that cetrtain commander of the Alecto at the time of the tug-of-war (one of several trials she lost to Rattlesnake, BTW) was to examine why J.C. Hoseason could be so childishly desperate to smear the Great Britain; why would the brother of an officer who was sent to a shore post after his ship lost a series of highly publicised trials go to such nonsensical lengths publicly attacking what would be one the greatest engineering triumphs of all time?

"Antiquated bullfuckery" eh? And in what way is the information regarding the development and performances of steam propulsion outlined by Thurston invalidated by virtue of being written when those developments had or were just occurring?

The point is that citing work more than a century old when more recent work is available is senseless.

The only "A or B" condition recognised by the rule you say you helped write is: "you either produce this evidence or concede the point until such time as you can produce this evidence". You have done neither.

You can demand that a or b = a + b to your heart's content; it only shows how little comprehension of the most basic concepts of logic you posses.

Sayeth the man who, instead of leaving the matter in regards to an observation of how a steam vessel may be likened to a dismasted vessel in open sea, which was the one relevant issue in regards to whether or not the sudden loss of a sail-vessel's topweight of masts, yards, and canvas negatively affected roll stability, chose rather to launch into a protracted effort to bury that one point under a mountain of obsfucation and defence of an unprovable claim of mercenary interest colouring one man's opinion and a protracted refusal to admit that you can't back that claim to save your life.

Good god!
Not only do you still fail to recognise that the force of wind in sail reducing roll, and weight above the CoG dampening pendular motion are ENTIRELY different phenomena, still confusing the two, but you put responses to your repeated challenges of observations of Hoseason's letter on my fucking head?

I swear to fucking god it is LITERALLY like talking to a three year old.

[MKSheppard]

The real danger from dismasting comes from that 100+ tons of canvas and yardage going into the sea still attached to your ship via lines, and immediately soaking up plenty of water; in effect becoming a 140+ ton anchor dragging your ship over, or acting as a sea anchor, dragging you over to take the seas perpendicular, which is bad.

.

[Julhelm]

In Clive Cussler's wonderfully pulp "Atlantis Found", the genetically bred nazi badguys plan to use four of those "Freedom Ships" to survive the flood in a nod to the ark.

As for a submarine, the best idea would probably be to simply connect several pressure hulls together in a huge cluster and then relying on ballast tanks for stability. Since there is no need for any hydrodynamically streamlined hull as the boat need not move, it can be designed using modular sections that are easy to mass-produce.