A few posts ago I posted some pictures of The "Vasa" a big Swedish war ship of the Galleon variety the sunk on its maiden voyage due to it being too full of guns and not full enough of ballast.
Reading up on it today as I lay awake at work, I found that they actually had checked it for stability in the harbour just after it was launched.
How? by the traditional method of getting 30 sailors to run, at the same time, from one side of the deck to the other and see how long it took for things to get wobbly. The sailors could only run across the deck three times (!!!) before the test had to be stopped.
The guy running the test reported to the dockyard manager that the ship was a death trap and due to the fact that the guy who designed it was a "master shipbuilder" (AHEM!) he said "I'm sure he knows what he is doing"
Yeah right.
Bloody officials. Know bugger all most of the time.
