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> I have never met a captain who will depart if they are not absolutely positive about the stability of their ship

A lesson learned in 17th century Sweden.



Not entirely learned. There was a french ocean liner built in the last century that installed far too much marble in the first class areas near the top of the ship.

They had to rip it all out.

Sorry, I forgot the name of that liner.


Search engine returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Imperator , a German ship.

"In October 1913, Imperator returned to the Vulkan shipyard to facilitate drastic work to improve handling and stability, as it had been discovered that his center of gravity was too high (see metacentric height). To correct the problem, the marble bathroom suites in first class were removed and heavy furniture was replaced with lightweight wicker cane. The ship's funnels were reduced in height by 9.8 ft (3 m). Finally, 2,000 tons of cement was poured into the ship's double bottom as ballast. This work cost £200,000, which had to be borne by the shipyard as part of their five-year warranty to the shipowners."


Care to share what happened in 17th century in Sweden?


They built a ship called Vasa which was so loaded with cannons that it sank immediately after leaving the harbor on its maiden voyage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)


IIRC it was really top heavy and would have sunk anyways without the cannons, as the geometry and ballast space ratios were hopelessly f'ed... I remember something about testing it by running sailors from one side of the ship to the other and the captain? Admiral? wanted to nope out of it but the orders to launch stood.


Wow, even with restoration, those pictures make it look like it is in shockingly good shape. I would expect hundreds of years in seawater to leave essentially nothing remaining.


The Baltic Sea is cold and too low in salt for sea worms, so wooden wrecks survive much longer than anywhere else in the world.


Til. Cool


The section about conservation in that article is quite fascinating. Apparently the worms are also missing because of pollution in that part of the Baltic Sea, and said pollution is now destroying the ship anyway.


Thankfully now it makes an interesting museum.




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