May 01, 2009

It's a record!!! (plus it looks like they only painted one side).
posted by polychrome 15 years ago
  • just been recently christened at a ceremony on March 16, 2009 That explains it. Go after the cartoon character with the champagne bottle!
  • I bet they are going to be a bit reluctant to launch that sister ship sitting on shore...
  • This is both hilarious and pathetic. I actually collect books and information on shipwrecks, and this one is a beaut... the tacky partial paint job, the swiftness of the vessel's demise, the sheer waste of materials... oh yeah. It's not just the Chinese who've had launch problems. And while we're at it, here's more nautical fun for y'all. Thanks, polychrome, for making my Friday.
  • Just think of all the money they saved on paint. A car carrier...I wonder if it was insured.
  • The Vasa capsized on her maiden voyage in August 1628, despite the use of elaborate sculptures to vouchsafe it. These were heavily covered with gold leaf, not just a half coat of paint. In ship building, no amount of fine art can cover up for bad engineering...
  • no amount of fine art can cover up for bad engineering That's absolutely true, although I don't think it strictly applies in either case. The Vasa was built in an age before modern enginnering and was more a failure of incorrect engineering assumptions than good assumptions poorly applied. The lack paint on this new ship speaks to the sloppiness of her builders and the speed and pressure under which they are working. It looks like they're cutting corners, in other words. Very often, on modern ships, an accident like this is caused by the miss-handling of ballast. Given this apparent propensity to cut corners, unsafe ship handling seems, to me, to be a more likely explanation than a fatally flawed design, in itself.
  • Right. Well, at least the ship builder's didn't spare any expense on the Vasa like they do today... Several other layers of blame have been suggested for that early capsizing: the king's orders, the captain keeping the cannon doors open during a squall, the humble ballast "engineer" (if I may stretch the term) for under-loading the hull, given that the designer hadn't left enough room for it... etc.
  • It's always the fault of the little guy. In other words, ballast rolls downhill (then sinks)