[TheForge] Quesiton about a weird event...

[Demon Buddha]

What about the feds and the "don't talk about this or you will die" 
admonitions?  That's pretty weird stuff.

Garrick Peterson wrote:
> Strangely enough, this sounds like the effect you get when you take a
> cylindar of clay, grab it with both hands, and twist quickly in
> opposite directions. A nice, clean sheer.
> 
> That would be my guess: a defect in the metal combined with a seisure
> of the prop caused  the shaft to sheer. I can't even begin to imagine
> how rare such a failure might be, though.
> 
> ~Garrick
> 
> On 6/6/06, Demon Buddha <osan at netlabs.net> wrote:
> 
>> I had an old (literally) friend, Walter.  He is a retired merchant
>> marine captain.  He had a hundred stories of his life on the sea, but
>> one of the ones that really stands out involved an equipment failure.
>> He was captain of a freighter passing scross the Carribean.  As they
>> made headway one evening, the ship experienced a vibration and then
>> stopped making headway.  He called down to the engineers and they said
>> that everthing was OK by them.  He went below and they walked the prop
>> shaft.  He told me that in mid-span between two bearings the shaft, some
>> 24" of solid steel, split such that there was about 1/16 inch gap
>> between the rotating end and the end attached to the prop, which had
>> stopped dead in its bearings.  He told me that the shaft was cut so
>> perfectly that you would swear it was done by machine, so to speak.
>>
>> They had to get a tow.  When they got into port, NSA, FBI, and CIA were
>> waiting for them.  After the inspection, the crew were warned not to
>> speak to anyone about this for any reason, lest dire consequences befall
>> them.  It never happened and they never saw anything.
>>
>> Anyone have any clue as to what this could have been about?  How does a
>> shaft that large fail in such a fashion that the break is so perfect
>> that you could not perceive motion of the shaft by observing the break?
>>   Walter was a character, but he was dead serious about this one.  Said
>> it was the strangest thing that he'd ever experienced.
>>
>> Comments/speculations welcome.
>>
>>         -Andy
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