Tweet
Re: Pride and Stability
A couple years after the Coast Guard inquiry, two senior captains of the “Pride” and I found a quiet bar corner at an ASTA conference and put everything we knew about the capsizing on the table along with the beers. We traced the event practically minute by minute and I doubt that a more informed or objective analysis of the tragedy has ever been undertaken. This discussion has caused me to say often over the years that it was as much a control failure as a stability deficiency. However, the stability characteristics precluded recovery.
The “Pride” was certainly not an inevitable accident waiting to happen as were the other capsizes I have studied. I think the “Pride” could well have been still sailing today. The probability of that outcome would have been significantly increased by a better understanding of her actual stability characteristics and how it affected her mission planning and operation.
The Coast Guard inquiry left the Pride organization comfortable enough about Gillmer’s handling of the stability issues on the first vessel that he was selected to design the replacement. A press release stated that the new ship would meet the strictest Coast Guard requirements, including carrying paying passengers on ocean routes. I remember thinking, This I’ve got to see. The whole sailing school vessel regulatory effort had been based on the impossibility of getting sufficient sail on ocean route passenger vessel for all except a very narrow range of types. Baltimore Clippers were certainly not in this group and the first sail plans I saw released had me wondering how much all the carbon fiber necessary to make it work was going to cost.
I became a board member of the American Sail Training Association and was the founding chairman of their technical committee. My company was selected to design a full rigged ship billed as “America’s Tall Ship” and to be named Discovery. A few months after the plans for the Pride of Baltimore II were announced, I was sitting with the executive director of the “Discovery” organization in the outer office of the Coast Guard officer in charge of the group that reviews and approves vessel plans. We were waiting to discuss our new project with him when another USCG officer went into his office through a side door.
I could hear him say, “We’ve got these plans for the new Pride of Baltimore here and there are no stability calculations. The designer says he wants us to do them. We never do that, do we?”
The officer at the desk looked out and saw us sitting in the outer office and held up his hand. The other officer closed the door. I’m sure the quiet murmurs we heard after that concerned the fact that submittal of stability calculations is always required. The Coast Guard prepares their own, but to insure that the calculations are independently done twice. I don’t know if Gillmer ever submitted his own calculations but the ship never received certification remotely close to what was promised at the beginning of the project.
I have no basis for reservations about the stability of the new ship and would be glad to sail on her myself. However, the way in which everything about the stability of these vessels was handled will always bother me.
Not long after this meeting, I received a subpoena from the IRS and the Discovery tall ship project quickly folded up into trial and punishment for people who had been my friends. The unpaid bills forced the closing of my design office. I turned my back on sail and entered the oceanographic research vessel design phase of my career which has been very productive and satisfying.
The Pride has kept resurfacing in my life as books have been published. Many years later, I saw the designer’s beautiful book about the ship at a friend’s house. Leafing through it, I read:
I remember thinking it was merciful that an old man wasn’t carrying guilt to his grave but that the story needed to be told someday. A mutual friend later told me, “Tom wakes up in the night hearing screams.” This conversation was largely the reason I waited so long to tell this story.
I have told this story to the authors of three books on the sinking but none really grappled with it. The pieces of the story are there spread out through three different books and some magazine articles but it would take more time and knowledge than most readers posses to assemble them. I hope this thread will clarify some technical aspects of the tragedy and how the handling of the technical issues may have affected decision about her operation. The failure of the management and operators of the ill fated vessel to better understand her stability characteristics will always be central to the story, regardless of what conclusions may be drawn about its contribution to the loss of a ship and four lives.
A couple years after the Coast Guard inquiry, two senior captains of the “Pride” and I found a quiet bar corner at an ASTA conference and put everything we knew about the capsizing on the table along with the beers. We traced the event practically minute by minute and I doubt that a more informed or objective analysis of the tragedy has ever been undertaken. This discussion has caused me to say often over the years that it was as much a control failure as a stability deficiency. However, the stability characteristics precluded recovery.
The “Pride” was certainly not an inevitable accident waiting to happen as were the other capsizes I have studied. I think the “Pride” could well have been still sailing today. The probability of that outcome would have been significantly increased by a better understanding of her actual stability characteristics and how it affected her mission planning and operation.
The Coast Guard inquiry left the Pride organization comfortable enough about Gillmer’s handling of the stability issues on the first vessel that he was selected to design the replacement. A press release stated that the new ship would meet the strictest Coast Guard requirements, including carrying paying passengers on ocean routes. I remember thinking, This I’ve got to see. The whole sailing school vessel regulatory effort had been based on the impossibility of getting sufficient sail on ocean route passenger vessel for all except a very narrow range of types. Baltimore Clippers were certainly not in this group and the first sail plans I saw released had me wondering how much all the carbon fiber necessary to make it work was going to cost.
I became a board member of the American Sail Training Association and was the founding chairman of their technical committee. My company was selected to design a full rigged ship billed as “America’s Tall Ship” and to be named Discovery. A few months after the plans for the Pride of Baltimore II were announced, I was sitting with the executive director of the “Discovery” organization in the outer office of the Coast Guard officer in charge of the group that reviews and approves vessel plans. We were waiting to discuss our new project with him when another USCG officer went into his office through a side door.
I could hear him say, “We’ve got these plans for the new Pride of Baltimore here and there are no stability calculations. The designer says he wants us to do them. We never do that, do we?”
The officer at the desk looked out and saw us sitting in the outer office and held up his hand. The other officer closed the door. I’m sure the quiet murmurs we heard after that concerned the fact that submittal of stability calculations is always required. The Coast Guard prepares their own, but to insure that the calculations are independently done twice. I don’t know if Gillmer ever submitted his own calculations but the ship never received certification remotely close to what was promised at the beginning of the project.
I have no basis for reservations about the stability of the new ship and would be glad to sail on her myself. However, the way in which everything about the stability of these vessels was handled will always bother me.
Not long after this meeting, I received a subpoena from the IRS and the Discovery tall ship project quickly folded up into trial and punishment for people who had been my friends. The unpaid bills forced the closing of my design office. I turned my back on sail and entered the oceanographic research vessel design phase of my career which has been very productive and satisfying.
The Pride has kept resurfacing in my life as books have been published. Many years later, I saw the designer’s beautiful book about the ship at a friend’s house. Leafing through it, I read:
However, another and most troublesome attack on the Pride's credibility was deliberately introduced through the news media by an employee of a ship design firm in New England. This report charged that in a study prepared for the Coast Guard for certifying the requisite stability of sail training vessels according to certain criteria, the criteria of the Pride of Baltimore showed her to be the least stable all sample sail training vessel selected for comparison, with a stability range of only 76 degrees. This was purely a contrived criticism, factually and technically incorrect, put forward for inexplicable reasons. The study was wisely marked by the federal investigators as not to be admitted into evidence. Its use as a reference of comparison was prejudicial.
I have told this story to the authors of three books on the sinking but none really grappled with it. The pieces of the story are there spread out through three different books and some magazine articles but it would take more time and knowledge than most readers posses to assemble them. I hope this thread will clarify some technical aspects of the tragedy and how the handling of the technical issues may have affected decision about her operation. The failure of the management and operators of the ill fated vessel to better understand her stability characteristics will always be central to the story, regardless of what conclusions may be drawn about its contribution to the loss of a ship and four lives.
Comment