[TheForge] Quesiton about a weird event

[marilyn traber 011221]

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
_______________________________________________ 
 
OK, just discussed this with Rob, who recently retired from the Navy as 
Machinists Mate.
 
He said:
 
Actually, the shafts are NOT a solid piece of metal, but rather a hollow tube 
loaded with sand- the tube is actually stronger than a solid billet. And, 
there are a number of couplings down its length. If, perchance someone wanted 
to get something from point A to point B, without dealing with annoyances 
like Customs, it's pretty easy to seperate the shaft at a coupling, lift an 
end ( a crowbar works just fine) , remove some sand and replace it with 
whatever you like, then insert some all-thread into the gap and put 
everything back together. At the other end of the voyage, it's quite easy to 
reverse the process. 
 
And, it could easily be done with none of the normal crew the wiser, although 
usually someone knows something - Shaft Alley is rarely visited by the 
working crew. If it is, however, and if sand is noticed anywhere, it's time 
to call "All Stop!" and investigate, because the sand is usually evidence of 
incipient catastrophic failure. 


Phlip

Don't like getting old? Beats the Hel out of the alternative.

The purpose of life is not to arrive at the grave, a beautiful corpse, pretty 
and well-preserved, but to slide in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally 
worn out, proclaiming, "Wow! What a ride!"