Abstract
WE dealt last week with the circumstances relating to the loss of H.M.S. Victoria, and the causes of her sinking with such startling rapidity after she was rammed. The facts, so far as they are known, are fully and, in our opinion, fairly summarised by Mr. W. H. White, in No. 3 of the Admiralty Minutes, just issued; and Mr. White demonstrates clearly, from the results of calculations made in the Construction Department of the Admiralty, that the movements and behaviour of the ship after the accident, and the observed effects upon her line of flotation and her stability, are precisely what would be caused by the entry of water into the compartments at the fore end of the ship, which are known, or believed, to have been filled before she foundered. These calculations serve, therefore, the useful purpose of showing that the water known to have entered those forward compartments that were proved, by evidence given before the Court Martial, to be filled, was quite sufficient to account for the subsequent capsizing and sinking of the ship; and for the capsizing and sinking to happen exactly in the manner that was observed. This is so, as already stated, whether Mr. White be absolutely right or not with regard to the precise state of each separate compartment after the damage; as the evidence is sufficiently conclusive, upon the whole, respecting the various compartments, to reduce the probability of error to a very small amount, such as would not materially affect the practical results of the demonstration.
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ELGAR, F. The Loss of H.M.S. “Victoria”1II. Nature 49, 124–127 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/049124c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/049124c0