Some of you might recall that I had previously posted about contact I had with Stockton Rush about a dozen years ago with discussions on my employer building the hull for his submersible. Nutshell summary: we weren’t convinced his design ideas were a good match for fiber reinforced epoxy pressure vessels that are great as pressure vessels but lousy with external pressure and he ultimately choose a different partner. The last time I spoke to Rush he told me if I were ever in Seattle he’d take me for a sub ride. Whew!
Anyway, the US Coast Guard issued its report and the approach and lack of discipline is even worse than first reported. Apparently the thing had been hit by lightning and they really didn’t do anything to verify integrity after. Combined with what I believe is a fundamental flaw in their design concept, a forced fit manufacturing approach, and practically unmatched hubris of Stockton Rush, this result was inevitable.
It’s a shame to see people die from something like that. Just goes to show use of safety precautions has to be vigilantly done. Too many corners got cut here.
Watched the Netflix thing on it. The hubris of putting carbon fiber in high compression baffles me - seems like tension is much more what the material is great for. The popping sounds the deeper they got (and kept happening) seemed to me that you couldn’t reuse it that much but they did anyway. They went through so many engineering directors and team that recent grads were running it like a senior project and key concerns were brushed aside. Tragic, but so avoidable.
What has been happening with Orcas has been getting studied lately because of its increasing frequency of occurrence. Some Oceanic Biologists believe the attacks are just juvenile orcas using these smaller ships as playthings.
That’s real! Read Survive The Savage Sea. An old epic story about the Robinson family, the sailboat got boat rammed in the late 70s and survived. I don’t know, it’s something like three or four weeks at sea.
There was also another one on Max that was really good as well. My son is a Mechanical Engineer like HoopUte and understands this stuff very well. We have had some interesting discussions about how compromised everyone was at that company and how it was very clearly a disaster that was inevitable.
My degrees are ME, but I tell everyone I’m a recovering engineer as I got into data science/analysis over a decade ago and left engineering research (fluid dynamics, heat transfer) for better pay in corporate America vs. govt labs/firm run like an academic dept.
Speaking of fluid dynamics and something that terrifies me thru the depth of my soul. All underwater water-slide where you get pulled through the tube using something called communicating vessels.
I am still waiting for the guy to come out the other side, what if he never made it?!?
