Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 7:21 pm
Any smart ones out there that could help a brotha out? At what depth would the barges have either imploded due to water pressure, OR the two hole stops would’ve blasted inward because of pressure? I’m looking at this hydrostatic pressure table here:
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/hydr ... _1632.html
and I’m thinking these things would fail catastrophically at ~ 15 feet. Anyone want to take a stab at this *cough* DR. W?
- Doc
Hey Doc,
19th-century sailing vessels with wooden hulls with three or more masts would have had a draft of more than 15 feet. Three-masted clipper ships loaded with passengers and some cargo, and say 200 ft. stem-to-stern with a 30 ft. beam, would have a draft of around 16 to 20 feet. Forces exerted on the sails of tall-masted ships must be balanced by a deep keel, and in many cases, ballast as well.
Clipper ships were built for speed and so would have been mostly single-hulled. At sea, their keels and lower hulls would be subject to the same psi pressure as any other structures at that depth. While there was a lot of flexing, the hulls had adequate strength (mainly from the stringers as shown in the image below) that they did not fail, or even deform to any significant extent.
However, they do leak. No matter what, wooden-hulled vessels leak and must have an adequate means of discharging bilge water. As Philo pointed out, it's pretty hard to discharge bilge water out through a breathing hole.
Below is an image from a present-day Arabian Dhow construction yard. Note the complex multilayering of strakes (outer hull lumber) stringers, stiffeners, and deck posts.
The only way I can see to build the wooden semisubmersibles described in the Book of Mormon would be to build a bottom "dish" hull (as shown) and a top "dish" deck. The two could then be mated together at some beltline and sealed.
As a final response, considering that they were "light upon the water" and buoyant enough to float at the surface in calm seas, the chances of them ever sinking to crush depth would be minimal. They would be more likely to take on enough water in rough seas that they would simply swamp and become uninhabitable.
It would require more calculations than I care to run through to determine if, being made of wood, they would have been heavy enough with crew and cargo to actually sink. More likely that they would have simply broken up in heavy seas and become flotsam and jetsam - and fish food.