[HN Gopher] Flipping FLIP ship saved from scrapyard at last minute
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Flipping FLIP ship saved from scrapyard at last minute
Author : roenxi
Score : 76 points
Date : 2024-11-20 11:01 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (newatlas.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newatlas.com)
| neom wrote:
| Pretty decent 2 minute video detailing the ship more:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dftaWQLtPQ
| lupusreal wrote:
| It doesn't have propulsion of its own and needs to be towed
| everywhere; is it technically a ship? Seems more like a fancy
| barge or platform.
|
| Very cool in any case, I'm glad it's been saved.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It moves. Just only rotationally. :)
| diggan wrote:
| Wikipedia calls it "open ocean research platform" which seems
| more appropriate, agree. But it doesn't rhyme as nicely as
| "Flipping FLIP ship" so I understand the author took a bit of
| liberty in the title, at least they explain what FLIP stands
| for ("FLoating Instrument Platform") which makes it pretty
| clear if it's a ship or platform :)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Related:
|
| _RP FLIP escapes wrecker 's claws_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41964882 - Oct 2024 (50
| comments)
|
| _Scripps Institution of Oceanography's FLIP vessel
| decommissioned after 60 years_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37072588 - Aug 2023 (51
| comments)
|
| _A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific
| measurements_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15078094 -
| Aug 2017 (75 comments)
|
| _" Flip", the vertical ship, marks 50 years at sea_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4193185 - July 2012 (34
| comments)
|
| Wikipedia:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP
| didntcheck wrote:
| Nice. I have fond memories of being chased by a Flesher in one of
| those
| Animats wrote:
| _" FLIP is from a time of bold engineering and optimism for our
| future and our oceans."_
|
| Indeed. There was a time in the 1960s when the oceans were
| considered to be as important to explore as space. From the
| Futurama ride at the 1964 World's Fair:[1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/2-5aK0H05jk?t=152
| bragr wrote:
| >There was a time in the 1960s when the oceans were considered
| to be as important to explore as space.
|
| Arguably a lot of that was just cover for cold war military
| submarine/anti-submarine research. Seabed hydrophones for
| tracking soviet subs, undersea mapping for submarine
| navigation, DSVs for recovering intelligence from wrecks, etc.
| Famously the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic was just the
| cover story for exploring submarine wrecks in the Atlantic.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/13/us/titanic-discovery-classifi...
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I am happy it is not being junked. For many years I saw it
| sailing past the Marine Physics Laboratory (part of Scripts
| Institute of Oceanography). Later my Dad became director of that
| lab, until he retired. Such a cool idea for an experiment
| platform to rotate ninety degrees for stability.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Interesting. I had no idea it was originally designed for testing
| SUBROC.
| roygbiv2 wrote:
| I first read about this in a book as a child and was fascinated
| by it. The same book detailed a channel tunnel that was being
| planned between England and France, that definitely dates me.
| walrus01 wrote:
| The lifespan of any vessel, barge, ship, ferry, whatever that's
| built from steel and lives its entire life in saltwater is
| limited. I don't think anyone should be surprised that something
| built in 1962 has become uneconomical to maintain and needs to be
| scrapped.
|
| In this case it's probably unique enough that someone did the
| math on it and determined that for however many millions of euros
| are being spent to rehabilitate it in a shipyard, keeping it
| viable for another 10-15 years, it's less expensive than building
| an entirely new one to a custom design.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| It's not that it's uneconomical to maintain the core ship. It's
| that ships periodically need to be refitted the same way houses
| get renovated and without a future use to justify that there's
| no reason to do so.
| walrus01 wrote:
| I've seen detailed photo galleries of former WA state ferries
| when they go for auction, after they've reached the end of
| their service life as judged by the state government. Usually
| at the 40+ year mark. Throughout their service lives they get
| refitted and fixed up on an almost continual basis, many
| millions of dollars are spent on maintaining each one, but at
| a certain point, it starts looking like a money pit to pour
| funds into continuing to fix up a 35, 40 year old vessel in
| salt water.
|
| There's some ships on the great lakes which are 70, 75, 80
| years old and don't have nearly the same ongoing corrosion
| issues as similar ones that live in salt water.
| sans_souse wrote:
| _" Our mission is perhaps equally bold: to make humans aquatic by
| enabling our species to live, work and thrive underwater. FLIP
| will play a key role in the DEEP fleet, providing a one-of-a-kind
| platform for ocean research and being capable of supporting
| DEEP's Sentinel habitat deployments as part of our extended
| research network."_
|
| Well, damn..
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(page generated 2024-11-25 23:00 UTC)