Question:

[Again, sorry, I'm politicked out for today. -BZ]

For the engineers and nautical experts amongst you:

Look at the above photograph I took back in 2004 of Holland America's cruise ship Zaandam entering Glacier Bay, Alaska.

When some of the greatest dangers a ship -- any ship -- can face are heavy seas with rogue waves and "nautical" weather, why is it that massive ships -- in this case, civilian ships -- are designed to be, essentially, "top heavy"? Still, these days, most ships in dangerous waters (commercial, civilian, military) are struck by capsizing, which is an issue of rolling.

Please note the width of this large ship as contrasted to its height. For notation's sake, the draft of the Zaandam is 26-feet, not a huge amount of footage below the water, considering the overall 780-foot length and 60,906 ton weight of the ship.

Does it not appear that it is "over-tall" and "too narrow" for blue waters and heavy seas?

On this planet, a given object can react in only three dimensional ways: roll, pitch and yaw. These are respective rotational axes sourced from a defined equilibrium state in air and water.

My question is this: With a tall ship, narrow width, does that not make the Zaandam, for example, subject to greater amounts of roll in nautical weather than a lower, wider ship?

When it would seem to me that the equation in shipbuilding is lower height coupled with greater width, where is it that I "go wrong"? Is this not the issue with the creation of, for example, the catamaran quotient? And further, does this not become, all things considered, a matter of safety?

WWII destroyers of the US were, to make another example, tall, narrow and light. They also fared the worst in heavy weather. Check out the new non-fiction book "Down To The Sea" by Bruce Henderson in which Admiral Halsey ordered ships into a typhoon, which resulted in the smallest ships -- destroyers -- taking massive casualties. Three ships sunk, 28 ships damaged, 146 aircraft damaged, with 756 human casualties. Further, the three ships sunk had recent modifications which included additional war guns and armor to their superstructures. Which, in turn, raised their calculated centers of gravity. Plus poor ship-handling.

One additional book to consider: "The Wave" by Susan Casey, which indicates that heavy weather, coupled with a huge increase in so-called "rogue waves" results in a Lloyd's of London estimation that most ships frequenting disaster are bulk carriers, with hatch problems, metal fatigue and poor maintenance. Yet, the trend is to continue building more massive ships.

That said, the IMO reported, from 1990 to 1997, a total of 99 bulk carrier ships lost.

In 1995, Sir Ronald Warwick, captain of the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth II (a 1,000-foot cruise ship!) encountered a series of 95-foot waves which smashed windows and part of its foredeck. He later went on to captain the virgin Queen Mary II because of his skills.

Lloyd's of London currently estimates that 100 + ships sink per year due to heavy and/or unusual/loading conditions, but these statistics are highly guarded and mine are subject to confirmation. Which means, of course, they won't be confirmed because the issue is too highly volatile. Some think that two large vessels sink weekly. I cannot confirm this.

Two large ships sink every week on average," according to Wolfgang Rosenthal, of the GKSS Research Center in Geesthacht, Germany. This equals out to about 100 ships per year, excluding small craft or docked ships sunk by hurricanes or storms, which could be in the thousands in a given year. Many sinks are attributed to rogue waves, but they are often accounted to 'bad weather' and so it is difficult to track.

Perhaps some of my expert readers can answer my primary question.

It would, of course, apply to the bulk of boats and ships produced as well.

BZ