Monday, June 14, 2010

RMS Queen Mary encountered freaque wave

I noticed this story of RMS Queen Mary during WWII in Wikipedia:
In December 1942, the Queen Mary was carrying 16,082 American troops from New York to Great Britain, a standing record for the most passengers ever transported on one vessel. While 700 miles from Scotland during a gale, she was suddenly hit broadside by a rogue wave that may have reached a height of 28 metres (92 ft). An account of this crossing can be found in Walter Ford Carter's book, No Greater Sacrifice, No Greater Love. Carter's father, Dr. Norval Carter, part of the 110th Station Hospital on board at the time, wrote that at one point the Queen Mary"damned near capsized... One moment the top deck was at its usual height and then, swoom! Down, over, and forward she would pitch." It was calculated later that the ship tilted 52 degrees, and would have capsized had she rolled another 3 degrees.
So Queen Mary was "damned near capsized" but she did not! No large ship had ever really been capsized. I maintain that the Hollywood horror movie "Poseidon", which was known to have inspired by the Queen Mary case, unnecessarily scaring people with fictional non-facts. I would not recommend any one to see either versions of that movie.

Queen Mary is now a hotel somewhere. Here' an old picture of her:

2 comments:

Les Chappell said...

She is a floating Hotel in Long Beach California!!!

Anonymous said...

It's freak.