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The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The idea of the area as uniquely prone to disappearances arose in the mid-20th century, but most reputable sources dismiss the idea that there is any mystery.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) uses the ocean thermal gradient between cooler deep and warmer shallow or surface seawaters to run a heat engine and produce useful work, usually in the form of electricity. OTEC can operate with a very high capacity factor and so can operate in base load mode.
HMHSBritannic was the third and final vessel of the White Star Line's Olympic class of steamships and the second White Star ship to bear the name Britannic. She was the youngest sister of the RMS Olympic and the RMS Titanic and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner. She was operated as a hospital ship from 1915 until her sinking near the Greek island of Kea, in the Aegean Sea, in November 1916. At the time she was the largest hospital ship in the world.
Ocean Ranger was a semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit that sank in Canadian waters on 15 February 1982. It was drilling an exploration well on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, 267 kilometres (166 mi) east of St. John's, Newfoundland, for Mobil Oil of Canada, Ltd. (MOCAN) with 84 crew members on board when it sank. There were no survivors.
A submersible is a watercraft designed to operate underwater, usually supported by a nearby surface vessel, platform, shore team or sometimes a larger submarine. The term submersible is often used to differentiate from other underwater vessels known as submarines, which are fully self-sufficient craft, capable of independent cruising with its own power supply and air renewal system. In common usage by the general public, however, the word submarine may be used to describe a craft that by the technical definition is actually a submersible, and by the standard meaning of the word, all submarines are submersibles.
LP Odyssey is a self-propelled semi-submersible mobile spacecraft launch platform converted from a mobile drilling rig in 1997.
MV Joyita was an American merchant vessel from which 25 passengers and crew mysteriously disappeared in the South Pacific in October 1955. She was found adrift with no one aboard.
Capsizing or keeling over occurs when a boat or ship is rolled on its side or further by wave action, instability or wind force beyond the angle of positive static stability or it is upside down in the water. The act of recovering a vessel from a capsize is called righting. Capsize may result from broaching, knockdown, loss of stability due to cargo shifting or flooding, or in high speed boats, from turning too fast.
The fishing vessel Gaul was a deep sea factory ship based at Hull, United Kingdom. She was launched in December 1971 by Brooke Marine of Lowestoft, entering service during 1972 with the Ranger Fishing company, where she was registered at North Shields as Ranger Castor, SN18. She was renamed when Ranger Fishing was bought by British United Trawlers and re-registered at Hull as Gaul, H243. She sank some time on the night of 8-9 February 1974 in storm conditions in the Barents Sea, north of Norway. No distress signal was received and her loss was not realised until 10 February after she twice failed to report in. An extensive search operation was launched but no trace of the ship was found, apart from a lifebuoy recovered three months later. All thirty-six crew were lost. The president of the British Trawler Federation described the loss of the Gaul as "the worst ever single-trawler tragedy".
USS Munsee (AT/ATF-107) was an Abnaki-class fleet ocean tug. She is the only ship of the United States Navy to hold the name Munsee, which is the name of a subtribe of the Delaware Indians, still living in Wisconsin and Kansas.
SS Waratah was a passenger and cargo steamship built in 1908 for the Blue Anchor Line to operate between Europe and Australia. In July 1909, on only her second voyage, the ship, en route along the coast of the Colony of Natal from Durban to Cape Town, disappeared with 211 passengers and crew aboard. No trace of the ship has ever been found and her fate remains unknown.
R/P FLIP is an open ocean research platform owned by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) and operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The platform is 108 meters (355 ft) long and is designed to partially flood and pitch backward 90°, resulting in only the front 17 meters (55 ft) of the platform pointing up out of the water, with bulkheads becoming decks. When flipped, most of the ballast for the platform is provided by water at depths below the influence of surface waves, hence FLIP is stable and mostly immune to wave action similar to a spar buoy. At the end of a mission, compressed air is pumped into the ballast tanks in the flooded section and the platform, which has no propulsion, returns to its horizontal position so it can be towed to a new location. The platform is frequently mistaken for a capsized ocean transport ship.
Marine salvage is the process of recovering a ship and its cargo after a shipwreck or other maritime casualty. Salvage may encompass towing, lifting a vessel, or effecting repairs to a ship. Protecting the coastal environment from oil spillages or other contaminants is also a high priority. Before the invention of radio, salvage services would be given to a stricken vessel by any passing ship. Most salvage is carried out by specialist salvage firms with dedicated crew and equipment. The legal significance of salvage is that a successful salvor is entitled to a reward, which is a proportion of the total value of the ship and its cargo. The bounty is determined subsequently at a "hearing on the merits" by a maritime court in accordance with Articles 13 and 14 of the International Salvage Convention of 1989. The common law concept of salvage was established by the English Admiralty Court, and is defined as "a voluntary successful service provided in order to save maritime property in danger at sea, entitling the salvor to a reward"; this definition has been further refined by the 1989 Convention.
The free surface effect is a mechanism which can cause a watercraft to become unstable and capsize.
Sub Marine Explorer is a submersible built between 1863 and 1866 by Julius H. Kroehl and Ariel Patterson in Brooklyn, New York for the Pacific Pearl Company. It was hand powered and had an interconnected system of a high-pressure air chamber or compartment, a pressurized working chamber for the crew, and water ballast tanks. Problems with decompression sickness and overfishing of the pearl beds led to the abandonment of Sub Marine Explorer in Panama in 1869 despite publicized plans to shift the craft to the pearl beds of Baja California.
SS Marine Sulphur Queen, formally Esso New Haven, was T2 tanker converted to carry molten sulphur. It is notable for its disappearance in 1963 near the southern coast of Florida, taking the lives of 39 crewmen.
Shipwrecking is an event that causes a shipwreck, such as a ship striking something that causes the ship to sink; the stranding of a ship on rocks, land or shoal; poor maintenance; or the destruction of a ship either intentionally or by violent weather.
MS Wawel is a ferry launched in 1979 as the Scandinavia. She spent a large part of her career serving the Dover-Calais cross channel ferry route with successive operators. She is currently in service with Polferries as the Wawel.
On 11 September 1990, a Faucett Perú Boeing 727 airliner, registered OB-1303, disappeared in an area of the Atlantic Ocean approximately 180 miles southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, Canada. The aircraft was being ferried back from Malta to Peru after having been leased to Air Malta, and had six crewmembers on board as well as ten passengers consisting of airline employees and their families. The last contact with the crew was a distress message stating that the aircraft had run out of fuel and that they were preparing to ditch. The aircraft was hundreds of miles off course at the time. Nothing more was ever heard from the flight, and no trace of the aircraft or any of the occupants has since been found.
References
- Marine Casualty Report: MV Holo Holo; Disappearance in the Pacific Ocean on 11 December 1978 with Presumed Loss of Life
- The Holoholo Mystery: An Unsolved UH Sea Tragedy with a Lasting Impact
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