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[Lord Shonus]

Meanwhile the number of Russian ships that developed sudden seafloor cravings is up to 5. Not necessarily a concerted sabotage effort but boy howdy is it starting to look like one.

The tankers were far simpler than that. They were only really suitable for river traffic and should never have been on the open sea in the first place.

[Bralbaard]

Apparently Russia did not only shoot down the plane but they subsquently rejected it's request for an emergency landing, so it had to try and make it to Kazachstan.

[Loud Whispers]

Meanwhile the number of Russian ships that developed sudden seafloor cravings is up to 5. Not necessarily a concerted sabotage effort but boy howdy is it starting to look like one.

The tankers were far simpler than that. They were only really suitable for river traffic and should never have been on the open sea in the first place.

The Volgoneft-212 was 55 years old, registered in St Petersburg and recently refitted. The centre was cut out and the stern and bow were welded together, forming a huge seam in the middle. It is this section that appears to have broken.

Yeah, aging ocean tankers converted to river tankers and then sent back to the ocean

[King Zultan]

Aw man who would have thought that cutting a chunk out of a boat and gluing the two sides together wouldn't work, I mean who needs structural integrity, I mean it's never done anything useful for us before, like keep boats from falling apart or anything like that.

[Lord Shonus]

It can work - the Brits basically glued two different boats (HMS Nubian, which had the front half destroyed by a torpedo, and HMS Zulu that had the back half destroyed by a mine) together in WWI and the resulting ship (HMS Zubian) served well.

[Starver]

It can work - the Brits basically glued two different boats (HMS Nubian, which had the front half destroyed by a torpedo, and HMS Zulu that had the back half destroyed by a mine) together in WWI and the resulting ship (HMS Zubian) served well.

Alas for the crew of the HMS Nulu...

[Loud Whispers]

Aw man who would have thought that cutting a chunk out of a boat and gluing the two sides together wouldn't work, I mean who needs structural integrity, I mean it's never done anything useful for us before, like keep boats from falling apart or anything like that.

Could also just be cummulative fatigue from 50 years of service in a corrosive environment, stress shearing or bending from a flat bottomed river ship being rocked around by the ocean (causing all its cargo to pool in one end), or they got lifted up by two big waves from bow to stern, leaving the middle unsupported (breaking it like a baguette bent in two)

It can work - the Brits basically glued two different boats (HMS Nubian, which had the front half destroyed by a torpedo, and HMS Zulu that had the back half destroyed by a mine) together in WWI and the resulting ship (HMS Zubian) served well.

Alas for the crew of the HMS Nulu...

Yeah they had to torpedo that idea before it left port

[Eric Blank]

It can work - the Brits basically glued two different boats (HMS Nubian, which had the front half destroyed by a torpedo, and HMS Zulu that had the back half destroyed by a mine) together in WWI and the resulting ship (HMS Zubian) served well.

To be honest, I would absolutely pit my life in the hands of England's army/maritime engineering corps in wartime than in the hands of businessmen from any nation at any time. The engineering corps will do good work for their fellow men, not cut labor and materials costs for shareholders yacht money (does that count as irony? I don't know any more I failed all my English classes)

It's not really a 1:1 comparison is what I'm getting at. The work ethic and motivation behind the work ethic (saving your countrymen's and family's lives vs capitalist profit margins) are very different in these two cases.

[Grim Portent]

I mean, Shonus is still correct in that attaching two halves of a boat together can work perfectly well. I'd even go so far as to say the Russians might have done a decent job at it, they aren't always terrible engineers who cut corners, plenty of their stuff works fine. I would have probably been happy to ride the tanker in question along a river for a while.

What I wouldn't want to do is take any large vessel designed for rivers or lakes onto the open ocean. There are some vessels that can do that, but I don't think a tanker has the leeway in design specs for that.

[wobbly]

I mean, Shonus is still correct in that attaching two halves of a boat together can work perfectly well. I'd even go so far as to say the Russians might have done a decent job at it, they aren't always terrible engineers who cut corners, plenty of their stuff works fine. I would have probably been happy to ride the tanker in question along a river for a while.

What I wouldn't want to do is take any large vessel designed for rivers or lakes onto the open ocean. There are some vessels that can do that, but I don't think a tanker has the leeway in design specs for that.

It's a bit of a weird situation, from what I can tell if design a bad boat it might sink but if that bad boat drags it anchor in the right place it can actually break the internet in parts of Europe.

[Grim Portent]

I think that's more of an issue in the Baltic Sea, because the only land route to the Nordics is through Russia. I think the bit of water between Finland and the Baltic States probably has some stuff in it, and the islands of Denmark probably have some stuff stringing between their mainland and Sweden/Norway. A boat could definitely snag on things in the relatively shallow narrow areas that are also easy to lay cables in.

[anewaname]

Well, there is no reason to drag an anchor on the bottom unless you are attempting to cause the damage.

If some ships sink unexpectedly, it should reduce the anchor-dragging incidents simply because there would be fewer mariners willing to take the side gig.

[Loud Whispers]

Well, there is no reason to drag an anchor on the bottom unless you are attempting to cause the damage.

If some ships sink unexpectedly, it should reduce the anchor-dragging incidents simply because there would be fewer mariners willing to take the side gig.

Sometimes you get:
1. Dumbasses who don't know better, use GPS exclusively and don't use charts which list where pipes or lines are, drop anchors, anchors get snagged and then they try force the anchors up thinking it's stuck on seaweed or something
2. The ship is caught in some seriously strong winds and currents whilst at anchor, dragging the ship (and the anchor) along for a ride. Especially vulnerable are ships passing through channels and straits, where you can anchor in calm waters but then tidal currents can change going >10 knots (most bulk shipping vessels go around 15 knots, so the effect can be like dropping anchor whilst at full speed). Places like the Baltic Sea or the English Channel are particularly vulnerable because you get a combination of narrow spaces, shallow seabeds, strong tidal currents, huge volume of traffic and high density of pipes & cables
This case study has an example where a ship was dragged at anchor by a river current of 5 knots

[Il Palazzo]

Sometimes you get:

3. A country that fancies itself at war with you - but you haven't caught on to it yet - and proceeds to destroy your infrastructure.

[Loud Whispers]

Sometimes you get:

3. A country that fancies itself at war with you - but you haven't caught on to it yet - and proceeds to destroy your infrastructure.

Sometimes shork