On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:59:15 -0400, Jeff wrote:


Perhaps you are underestimating to ability of a fool to do the wrong
thing at the wrong time. All the big ships will capsize, and not come
back.

Do you have a point?

There actually are two, the really obvious ones.

it usually turns out to be human error,

See above, about fools. Then there are good sailors who rarely make
mistakes. Sometimes one is all it takes There was the guy on the
messdeck of a big ship, in a bad storm. He opened the backing plate on
a porthole, was so horrified by what he saw that he failed to properly
secure the port. and about fifteen tons of water entered. The water
got to the engine room, drowned lots of electrics and the ship
evertually sank when it lost all engine power.

The self righting vessels are actually rare. During a wartime
crossing the Queen Mary came within a degree or so of going over. Wave
took out the wheelhouse windows, ninety feet above sea level. Nothing
except a submarine is immune to big waves. Of course, those things
routinely recover from sinking. I heard that ten thousand shipping
containers are lost, during storms, every year. Hit one of those with
many small craft, and you may not be concerned with capsizing.

This is another risk where cats have a large advantage - there are
numerous cases of cats surviving major damage that would sink a
monohull in minute

Some favor a watertight bulkhead forward on monohulls, with cargo
containers in mind. Those things can even mess up a screw on a big
ship.