Bertram 630 Sportfish Sinks?

No, I witness them installing all of our AC/refrigeration systems.

I still do not understand how the boat would travel along the bottom for 1-2 miles? 100,000 lbs? How much buoyancy would be created by the 1/2 empty fuel tanks? I would be surprised if that was enough to make a material difference. Is there any evidence of this boat having originally come to rest 1-2 miles away from the current site.

Bet it hasn't budged and inch since those photos were taken. Storm or no storm.

as previously posted, i have no knowledge of boat building or engineering. to answer the question of this post, i believe that storms do in fact have the energy to move sunken boats. see the article below (http://www.floridakeys.com/keylargo/spiegelgrove.htm), referencing the spiegel grove a (510 foot steel boat) being uprighted after hurricane dennis.




Storm uprights Spiegel Grove!

July 2005 - Underwater turbulence generated by Hurricane Dennis has uprighted the 510-foot artificial reef known as the Spiegel Grove.

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is working on an emergency closure of the site while it assesses the ship's stability and its general condition. Workers will be removing the mooring buoys temporarily, sanctuary spokeswoman Cheva Heck said.

The shifted position of the 510-foot ship comes as a surprise because the area experienced minimal tropical-storm force winds during the passage of Hurricane Dennis on Saturday.

On Monday, a boat from Key Largo dive shop Ocean Divers visited the former Navy ship, which was scuttled in 130 feet of water May 17, 2002. When divers arrived at the site six miles offshore, they saw that several mooring balls were missing.

The dive boat tied off on one of the three remaining moorings and instructors Bob Snyder and Steve Schalk descended the mooring lines. At 90 feet, Schalk said he saw nothing and came to the surface. Snyder, who descended to the ship's bow, was stunned by what he saw.

"I was in shock," he said Monday. "I had to ask myself, 'Am I narcked [suffering from nitrogen narcosis]?' There was only 10-foot visibility, so I dropped down 10 feet and I could see both sides of the ship. It was sitting upright."

Sea Tow says they had to anchor the wreck to keep it from moving. If there is any bouyancy left at all the currents can certainly move it. However, it's a whole new ballgame if you contend that the currents caused the damage. I don't see how it's possible.

A couple of other points as I have fished this area.

1) 60-80 ft deep. No chance of reef material being hit. None at all.
2) No big ships would ever anchor here. Perhaps some smaller fishing boats (center consoles, etc). Maybe a 16# Danforth was dropped on this, but nothing more.

Bouyancy of fuel tanks is about 1.5 lbs per gallon of fuel and 7.4 lbs per gallon of air. I would guess the tank capacity at around 900 gallons +/- 150.

The vessel only weighs 100,000lbs in air. The specific gravity difference between air and salt water are considerably different and you have to use the differences in SG from all the materials in comparison with salt water to figure out its weight under water (however, its mass/inertia and kinetic energy while hitting things underwater does not change)

There is no ship that would drop their anchor there, absolutely no reason.

What?
And you ran (or worked for) a salvage company?
You're killing me, Smalls.

With all due respect Henning, please read and understand Archimedes' principle and the laws of buoyancy and displacement before you quote things like that.

If the boat weighs 100,000 lbs, and it's in salt water, you should know it's exact weight underwater based on a simple displacement calculation.

You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy

Specifically:

Picture attached for the lazy.

While it is not my wont to jump to Henning's defense, you are a bit off base my subsea sniper.

Several submersible vehicles use a ballast system that transfers oil from a "hard tank" to an external bladder. When all the oil is contained within the bladder the vehicle is either neutrally buoyant or even negative, depending on the fixed ballast installed. When oil is transferred from the tank to the bladder the vehicle becomes more buoyant.

In either condition, the weight of the vehicle has not changed a single ounce.

Likewise, if my submersible is too heavy in the water for the job I want to perform, I can add weight externally to correct that condition. Sounds really off the wall, right? Not so, the weight happens to be syntactic foam which has a density less than water. It is heavy as hell but still less dense than the water it displaces so even though my boat is heavier in air, it is lighter in water.

You forgot about density ... and Henning did mention that the mass remains the same as does the inertia available. Trust me, after having rammed a neutrally buoyant 5-ton submersible into an immovable object I can attest to the fact that a "weightless" object can still do some serious damage.

Go back and revisit what Archimedes was looking for when he weighed that crown.

I'm quite familiar with density in how it effects buoyancy and how it applies to Archimedes' principle. My reference was to Henning's post, which made absolutely no sense with how it was presented.

If you wish to take the topic up in another thread, I'd gladly debate the issue. However we are talking about physics, that of which neither you or I an change the properties of. So the end result is going to be the same. Physics will win. And I can gladly explain the oil / bladder / tank / buoyancy topic, and why it is the way it presents itself at face value.

let it suffice to say the boat still has enough flotation in it to allow it to move along the sandy bottom with the current

did you guys notice the part in a recent post about the the boat having been repaired?

that seems like new info but has been hinted at along the way

Of course it does.
It doesn't weigh 100,000 lbs at the bottom of the ocean.

And with all that damage from being tumbled to and fro, tempest-tossed for lo so many days undersea we are as yet unenlightened as to how, exactly, those infernally dense driveline components and terrifically buoyant partly-filled partly-emptied (though if vented, surely by now emptied and refilled with mother ocean's finest vintage) tanks stayed miraculously intact.

Does 2+2=3 or 5 these days?

In my non expert opinion, I believe the condition of the Bertram, can only be explained by it's be driven by the currents. Just open your eyes and look, there is damage everywhere, bow, stern, port, starboard, so much damage. Even if the boat came apart, there is no way it would look like it does. The only explanation, I believe, is it traveled on the bottom.

Whether or not their was delamination, is another story, but with what the boat went through in the currents, it will be very difficult to prove the delamination theory and I believe that Bertram will be saved.

Bertram must, however, make good and follow through with survey's of owners boats.

I did. That certainly piqued my interest. Where had you heard that Liam?

The fuel tanks have a vent which would allow the air to escape out of them and for them to fill with sea-water and fairly quickly.

Yes, the boat can move underwater with currents and such, but the speed and force that it produces on itself would not be enough to cause any of this damage. The damage happened during the initial sinking. If the boat was tossing and turning on the bottom floor like everyone is saying, the propellors would totally indicate that, and they do not. Since the boat is totally submerged in nearly 100 feet of water, the force of it moving on the bottom would not delaminate the boat. If it was sitting half out of the water on a reef and a storm was causing it to bounce on the bottom and get pushed around then it could do some heavy damage. Look at wrecks they sink on the bottom in 80-120' of water. 30 years later the ships look exactly the same.......Does everyone remember how the Titanic came apart due to steel that was too brittle and it broke into two pieces before it was totally submerged?

I want to know what the Capt says about the transom issue before/when it went down... if it was supposedly damaged traveling across the sea floor then why is it a clean shear at the corners and cockpit floor area ONLY and no damage from waterline down??...

It appears to me that there was not enough overlap in the fiberglass matting after going around the corners. They might have laid up the hull sides seperately from the transom and did the transom part last while it was in the mold (maybe after lunch) and too much time occured between the two operations and it didn't adhere.......Other ideas are possibly, the captain backed the vessel down hard to keep water from coming in the bow (but a sportfish transom should be strengthened with this in mind). Another idea is a wave came over the side of the vessel while the boat was coming apart, filling the cockpit completely, and the force of the vessel running and wave put too much stress on it. Last option is possibly the boat that rescued them pulled up to the transom (logical place) to evacuate the crew and hit it or tied to it........

yeah but it's a slight radius transom and the floor seperation is virtually a straight across clean cut .... I mean fracture... no tearing, ripping, or delam... same with the vertical corners... wierd...