EXCERPTS FROM THE DAILY LEVEL # 2

Tuesday, September 2, 1998

 

 

 

THE HOBBYROOM LOG

- mouthpiece for the last of a species -

SAFE AT SEA LEVEL

Sea Level, N.C., July 31, 1998

....we were almost to Curaçao, and going through Windward Passage already....headed between Cuba and Hispaniola, and we were heading for Curaçao....there were submarines in the area, and we knew it....we were light....we had levelled the empty tanks off with salt water ....just opened up the valves and let the ship go down to sea level, so that if she was at, and got hit, she would not sink....just let the tanks fill up and just let her sail like that....the tanks weren't full, I imagine they were three-quarters full....we had been carrying cargo and there was gas in the tanks....if we got hit when they were empty, there was more oxygen than there would be in a full tanker, so a fire would happen much more readily....she had as much ballast as she could take .... the engine-room and the bow would keep her afloat ....you can't do that normally if the seas are heavy, or when you expect bad weather, but she was in the Caribbean, and the Caribbean was very calm at that time....that's why we did it....now, if they would have hit her in the engineroom, or hit her in the bow or something, she would have sunk, but they hit her in the number four tank, which is the tank right forward of the bridge.... as long as she didn't get hit in the engine room or bow, she was alright....the torpedo exploded, but the ship didn't explode....it just put a big hole in the side....it wasn't that big a hole, because we used mattresses to stuff it up and block it up...we didn't even need to patch her, because she was already at sea level....that's what happened....

(Harrison Maycroft)