Pride & Stability, Part 2: Author's Career Trajectory Leads Directly to the Case
Getting Pride of Baltimore Data for the Coast Guard Proves Difficult
Part 2: Naval architect Roger Long chronicles the science behind the May 14, 1986 sinking of Pride of Baltimore.1 His account, originally posted in the WoodenBoat forum, is being reprinted by Loose Cannon in a series of eight stories. The issues raised here are particularly timely given the recent sinking of the cargo schooner De Gallant, now under investigation by French maritime authorities.
By ROGER LONG, N.A.
The path to my involvement with the Pride of Baltimore began in 1973 when I was walking around the Boston waterfront in need of a job. I was a young man who wanted to be a yacht designer but my life was about to change.
Despite prior employment at Philip L. Rhodes in New York, I had just been politely shown the door at C. Raymond Hunt’s office. At their suggestion, I was headed for John W. Gilbert’s commercial vessel design firm on the next wharf where my drafting skills got me hired. It took about three days for me to realize that working boats with real jobs to do were far more interesting than toy boats, even if they didn’t have sails.
An energetic fellow named Cory Cramer went into the front office about a year later with a roll of plans, and I heard him discussing a large steel schooner with my boss. Later, the chief engineer went in, and I heard him say, “Roger likes sailboats. Why don’t we give him this project?”
The vessel was the Schooner Westward, recently purchased by the young Sea Education Association. As I did stability analysis and designed a new deckhouse for the vessel, I learned about the program and became enamored. Here was a working craft with sails and an important mission.
Within a few months, I had worked out an arrangement with SEA to go to work for them designing and planning a second ship to accommodate their expected growth. As a first step, I would leave Gilbert’s and be SEA’s superintendent in the shipyard overseeing the work I had designed. I would then sail to Bermuda aboard Westward for my first deep sea experience.
I sailed to Bermuda that October, a trip in which we blew out a sail every night and I saw the ship completely underwater after driving through a rogue wave in the Gulf Stream. While I was at sea on the Westward, repairing sails for hours in the deckhouse I had designed, Cory Cramer was engaged in a struggle with his board. Strong willed founders of programs usually have problems as young organizations mature from one-man rule. The board was looking for an issue with which to slap his wrists about taking independent action and I was handy. I arrived back from Bermuda unemployed.
I decided to go back to my original plan, becoming a wooden boat designer and builder. During the few years I tried to make that work, I couldn’t shake the feeling that designing Westward’s replacement was my destiny. I designed a few yachts, built a couple of wooden boats, and spent a winter working as a consultant to SEA. in their offices, preparing the conceptual design for a new vessel although considerably larger than they eventually built.
I then spent a couple years working in the Port Office at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where I developed what would become my primary professional interest, oceanographic research vessels. Jack Gilbert took me back into his office in 1980 and I worked there for a couple more years during which one of my projects was to a proposal to design SEA’s next ship.
In the fall of 1982, I was invited to join two other Gilbert alumni as Vice President of Woodin and Marean in Boothbay Harbor. I had just learned that John W. Gilbert Associates and Woodin and Marean comprised the short list for designing SEA’s next ship. I bundled up the cat, the litter box, my few other possessions, and moved to Maine. Two weeks after I arrived, Woodin and Marean were selected to design the vessel which would become the Corwith Cramer.
The Sea Education Association recognized that it could not build a suitable ship to operate under U.S. Coast Guard passenger vessel rules. These stability requirements restrict most vessels in ocean service to sail plans which are basically suitable only for putting on a show for the passengers while the vessel proceeds under power.
A Council of Educational Ship Owners (later renamed the Sailing School Vessel’s Council and folded into ASTA), was formed. The efforts of this group resulted in Congress requiring the Coast Guard to set up a joint Coast Guard-industry task force to develop appropriate regulations for sail training vessels. Woodin and Marean were selected to be the naval architects and technical consultants for the project.
We divided up the work. I would tackle stability since I knew how to program the new machine on the desk that wasn’t even known as a “PC” yet. Parker Marean, with his incredible capacity for attention to detail, would take on everything else.
The stability project began by sending out a worldwide request to every sail training organization and large sailing vessel operator for stability information. Packages of vessel plans and stability calculation books began to arrive in the mail and pile up on my drawing board.
As designers of traditional wooden vessels like the Rockland windjammer Heritage, and having conducted the Coast Guard required stability tests for the many other vessels in the Maine fleet, Woodin and Marean already had a significant body of data on the stability characteristics of large sailing vessels. The data that was flooding in added considerably to this.
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Fairly late in this process, a thin envelope with Gillmer’s return address arrived and we knew that we finally had the data on the Pride of Baltimore. We already had a good idea what to expect, based on comparison with vessels in our data base, and were eager to see how close we were. The ship was well known as a “hot” vessel so anticipation was high when we gathered around to open the envelope. We expected very accurate calculations in view of her designer’s background and authorship of a standard textbook on stability.
There was a shocked silence followed by laughter. Inside were just a couple sheets of paper showing righting arm curves with no other calculations or supporting data. The righting arm curves showed the kind of stability that could only be expected in a light modern yacht with high freeboard and a deep keel.
I can’t remember Parker Marean’s exact words but they were along the lines of, I don’t know what they smoke down there in Annapolis, but this is useless. We put the envelope aside along with any intention to include the ship in our analysis.
Months of analysis and meetings with the Coast Guard followed. During the meeting where we presented our preliminary findings, the Coast Guard asked, “Where is the Pride of Baltimore on these graphs?” I explained that we had been unable to get usable stability data from the designer and therefore had not included her.
They asked that the ship be included in the database because they felt that she was not suitable for sail training and wanted to clearly understand how her stability would relate to the new regulations. We were asked to try again to obtain stability data.
Coming Next, Part 3: Pride & Stability 3: Team Renews Effort for 'Believable' Data. Reported Righting-Arm Curve Based on Erroneous Assumption.
PREVIOUSLY:
An interesting read thus far. As a SEA, and RV Westward, "W90" alum, who also sailed from Woods Hole to Bermuda, in October, I had a similar experience to the author's. In fact, we rounded Bermuda but didn't make a port call, the captain decided not to, later saying he was afraid if he did half the students would disembark, and would never be seen again. Lots of green water on the deck and cold salt water showers, it was trial by fire. I last saw Westward in Portland ME a few years ago, looking a bit forlorn I'm afraid, lotta nms under her keel.