Not as much as you think. A 72 cubic foot scuba tank, complete with it's full complement of compressed air hardly weighed much more than the empty tank itself. If the gas used was helium, instead of air (mostly nitrogen), the weight would be negligible compared to the system. Design bags to inflate to 80% of the room's space.

Would it work?

Yes. It would prevent sinking, provided the bags were durable.

A very good idea, Noclevername.

You should be highly commended.

- Mugs.

PS: From a cost-analysis perspective, there's some doubt that it would cross the cost barrier. That is, even though the cost of the ship is measured in millions, if not billions of dollars, the chance of a catostrophic collision is very very slight, given the millions of man-hour-miles traversed, and the added cost of the anti-sinking system seems to be about the same as the very slight risk of sinking.

Believe it or not, most senior ship engineers run through these calculations before they sign on the bottom line. Evidently, the other systems are more expensive than the statistical liklihood of complete ship's failure.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

Due to the shape of the hull, compared to the shape of various compartments, there can be voids that can be filled with closed cell foam. It seems that, although usable space aboard a ship is a premium, there should be enough space in the unusable voids to provide enough foam to at least keep a ship just afloat.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Uh………actually, it was tony873004’s suggestion. Noclevername was arguing against it.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Umm....that's extremely linear. y = 14.7 + 0.44* X

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

And as with any active system, there's the question of complexity. How much to add all the sensors, wiring, power sources, etc., needed to activate the doodads? How high a failure rate? How would it effect insurance? And so on.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

The ship was double-hulled. Why wasn't the space between the hulls filled with foam?

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Well, looks like she sank. Hmm, one news article mentions reports of flooding in the sanitary system. That might explain how water was able to spread throughout the ship. Maybe (just a wild thought) the isolation valves didn't work as designed (or were not closed if they weren't check valves) and water thus found a path throughout the ship.

tony873004, some of your comments seem to suggest that you think the MS Explorer and the Clipper Adventurer are the same type of ships or very similar (and thus are now worried about you trip on her). To put you at ease, the Clipper is 4364 tons and the Explorer 2398 tons. Further, the Clipper is about 84 feet longer (330 ft versus 248 ft) Oh and the Explorer drafts 14.7 ft not 28 ft, so even less water pressure than at the 25 feet people are using. So you were on a bigger and newer ship, plus a different company with probably different maintenance requirements.

Double hulled and ice hardened, she really took a hit. I'm having difficulty finding anything on what Llyod's ice rating specifications are.

Thanks. I was just going on the pictures without looking at the specs. They sure look the same except for the paint job. One web site had pictures of the interior of the Explorer. The dining hall, the lecture hall and the social lounges all looked familiar. The Explorer was even doing the same route that we did: Ushuaia, Falklands, South Gerogia...

Glad to know I was safer than I thought.

The expidition I was on was run by Linblad. They owned the Explorer until 3 years ago according to an article I read. Maybe they got rid of her for a reason.

It's still a little unnerving to realize that submerged ice exists. I had never heard of it until Grant's description. Based on his description I'd imagine it could only occur in shallow water. But they seemed to be in open ocean when they struck ice. If it was shallow enough for submerged ice they should have avoided the area, or perhaps travelled slower.

On our trip we'd hit ice a lot, but floating ice. We'd be sitting at dinner and the whole ship would shake from a collision. The passengers would all turn white with fear, and start talking about the Titanic, while the crew tried to contain their amusement at our reactions. I think they realized it made us order more drinks

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www.gravitysimulator.com

The ship may have struck a drifting mine or torpedo. Thousands of these things unaccounted for after two world wars. Some eventually break free of their moorings and drift with currents. An account I read (Toronto Star) from a passenger reports the usual crunching of ice, then a loud "bang".

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The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
John F. Kennedy

Unsinkable ship? Low production costs? Send out a call to the Pykrete man!

A ship made with this could be sawn in half and still float.

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Currently conducting pre-deployment training, shortly followed by mobilization to Iraq. Note that PMs may take a long time to be responded to.

That “bang” was Captain Smith banging his head on the bulkhead when he realized he hit an iceberg.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Technically, it could be broken into bite sized chunks and at least the hull and superstructure would still float

That is really some amazing stuff

It would appear that there is a lesson here: " It is still fool hardy to
make way through an ice field in anything less than a certified ice breaker ".
It is also clearly absurd to speed through an icefield 'IN THE DARK' !.
Arrogance is a malevolent shipmate. Their examples litter the ocean floor.

Best regards,
Dan

Would that technicaly be paleontology and not archeology?

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Steel can not float! All steel ships are a HOAX!

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

For Creationists, those are the same thing. Being that man was made only one day after the first animals and all.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

" Sir, this ship is made from iron. I assure you that it can sink."
.......... a young Mr. Andrews , an engineer associated with a ship
of the White Star Line .

Dan

Paleontheology

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Aye, if it was bones ye be lookin' at. But, if we're talking about pottery and old papyrus scr