Video of how ships are launched into the ocean
July 11, 2011 9:11 AM   Subscribe

 
This involved far fewer faces than I had been led to expect.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 9:14 AM on July 11, 2011 [12 favorites]




Joakim Ziegler: This involved far fewer faces than I had been led to expect.

Well, that number of ships would only require 0.4% of face, or if you prefer, 4 millihelenes.
posted by Kattullus at 9:20 AM on July 11, 2011 [6 favorites]




Here's some more

And jeez. Some of those look like very sane methods of launching ships (ie. rails that gradually take the boat down a slope into the sea). Shoving a gigantic ship off of the dock sideways? Not so much.
posted by schmod at 9:23 AM on July 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Those sideways ones are not at all what I would have expected.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:32 AM on July 11, 2011


This involved far fewer faces than I had been led to expect.

The definitive guide to female beauty in Helens, in terms of arsons and ship launches.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:32 AM on July 11, 2011 [5 favorites]


That must be a hell of a ride, up there on the bridge. Is anyone onboard when they drop those puppies in the water?
posted by Happy Dave at 9:36 AM on July 11, 2011


Make sense to me. If it's top heavy or structurally unsound, I'd want to know ASAP.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:40 AM on July 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


The timing of this post and the next one are a bit uncanny. Hey, someone had to mention it.
posted by Edgewise at 9:40 AM on July 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Shoving a gigantic ship off of the dock sideways?

I don't know. The ships are designed to roll a lot without capsizing, right? And here I suppose they're carrying a minimal load, so they'd be extra bouncy. Seems like this might be totally within normal operating parameters.
posted by stebulus at 9:56 AM on July 11, 2011


Shoving a gigantic ship off of the dock sideways?

The perpendicular backwards launch is probably more common, but in several of these cases it's done because the waterway is not wide enough to do it that way. At least the first one takes place in the Netherlands. You'll notice that there's a road on the other side of the canal, and beyond that is farmland which is below the level of the water and the road; a polder, in other words.

When I was a kid in the Netherlands I witnessed a perpendicular launch in a spot like this. The ship was about 20 meters shorter than the width of the canal, and there was a polder on the other side. If they didn't stop the ship and turn it as soon as it was fully in the water, it would keep right on going, break the dike and flood many square km of farmland. They had rigged a set of cables in such a way that as the ship approached the dike, at considerable speed, it suddenly stopped and turned so it ended up lengthwise in the canal. Quite a feat. Here's a newsreel video of that launch.
posted by beagle at 9:57 AM on July 11, 2011 [13 favorites]


Sideways is a lot better idea than lengthwise. That long lever arm could easily break the ship.
posted by DU at 10:01 AM on July 11, 2011


The last one, I'm pretty certain is the NOAA Pisces, more info on the lauch here.
posted by bonehead at 10:01 AM on July 11, 2011


That said, when did dry docks stop existing?
posted by DU at 10:02 AM on July 11, 2011


The second of last is one of the Canadian Coast Guard Light Icebreaker/High Endurance vessels, probably the CCGS Ann Harvey or the CCGS Sir William Alexander, I can't tell which. In any case that's the Halifax drydock in the background, probably in 1987.
posted by bonehead at 10:11 AM on July 11, 2011


Almost all Clyde launches were end-on (despite the narrowness of the river) after the Daphne disaster of 1883, where over a hundred people onboard were killed when a side-launch went wrong.
posted by scruss at 10:31 AM on July 11, 2011


The ships are designed to roll a lot without capsizing, right?

Oh my. That last one, the NOAA ship, reminded me of years ago when I was on a similar research vessel in the ʻAlenuihāhā channel in Hawai'i. Yes, the ship rolled that much. (At the time I was only thinking of the sister ship, the Holo Holo that had capsized nearby in '78. Scary channel.)
posted by Surfurrus at 10:33 AM on July 11, 2011


Many of the small to mid-size CCG ships (though not the icebreakers) are rated to do a complete 360 in the water, that is, to be able to roll over and come up the other side. Apparently this is one of the highlights of training on those boats. For the instructors, at least: apparently there's very little warning of this given to the trainees.
posted by bonehead at 12:02 PM on July 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Here's a short piece about launching a local 275-foot paddleboat, the Showboat Branson Belle, using 2 tons of bananas.
posted by shinynewnick at 1:17 PM on July 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


Love these videos. been watching them for a while. Just incredible.
posted by Skygazer at 1:35 PM on July 11, 2011


That said, when did dry docks stop existing?

They certainly use them to do repair and refurb work on ships, because you aren't doing this kind of move to a fully decked out cruise ship.
posted by smackfu at 1:54 PM on July 11, 2011


Oh, my, yes.

It's impossible for me not to hear this in Professor Farnsworth's voice.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:21 PM on July 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


« Older Is Sex Passe?   |   Tragedy on Volga Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments