"Chuck Gould" wrote in
oups.com:


Sound like that might be similar to some of the problems experienced
by the earlist Liberty ships during WWII. Their "stress cracking" was
probably slightly different- the light build schedule and cold water
stress on the cheap grade of steel resulted in a lot of them simply
snapping across the beam and sinking faster than anybody could even
think about abandoning ship.

They solved the Liberty ship problem by welding reinforcing strips to
the gunwales just below the sheer line. Let's hope there's a
"retrofit" available to the USCG.


The "fix" was to RIVET (not weld) doubler plates along the hull..... a
practice which was continued well into the sixties.
With the reduced scantlings used on many ships, stress cracking is still a
problem .... though this is not always the reason for it.

otn