Word: ballast
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Literary sea voyages often carry a heavy ballast of allegory. The potential, after all, is readymade; it requires no great leap of imagination to see a ship as a tiny world adrift in eternity. Far Tortuga shuns such metaphysics in favor of hard surfaces. Avers is no Captain Ahab, nor is the Eden a ship of fools. The captain and his crew simply make up an exotic collection of drifters, drunks, petty criminals and indefatigable optimists, worth knowing, this novel implies, for their own sakes...
...pieces. According to the CIA's account, the aft two-thirds, including the conning tower and the coveted missiles and code room, slipped back to the seabed. The forward third, which remained gripped firmly in the grapnels, was deposited in the still submerged barge. Blowing its water ballast, HMB-1 rose to the surface. Even if only partially successful, as the CIA claims, the mission was a major technological achievement. Nothing so large had ever before been raised from so great a depth...
...perils. Last summer, during preliminary surveying, the Archimède crashed into rocks several times when it was tossed about by the strong bottom currents. The little sub had another close call when a small electrical fire filled the crew chamber with smoke and caused the premature release of ballast, sending the sub soaring rapidly to the surface. Even so, researchers seem unworried. Says Geologist Xavier Le Pichon, the chief French scientist: "The worst that could happen would be getting stuck under an overhanging cliff. But with three submersible craft in operation, we can come to one another...
...lifting capacity from its helium-filled sphere. The rest comes from the rotation of its wings, which can be pitched as they whirl around to control ascent and descent. This gives the chopper-balloon a distinct advantage over traditional lighter-than-air ships, which must drop ballast or spill their gas when taking on or unloading any cargo. Yet because of the buoyancy provided by its supply of helium, the Aerocrane should be able to loft heavy cargo much more efficiently than a conventional helicopter...
...triangular island almost an acre in size that is towed "on location" atop three sturdy stilts that float on huge pontoons. The pontoons are then filled with water and submerged 146 ft., giving the barge the stability of an iceberg. The barge is securely steadied by electronically controlled ballast and nine anchors while its drill probes into the sea bottom 340 ft. below. Already the drill is bringing up samples from 2,000 ft. below the shelf. The samples are carefully analyzed for hints of oil, but the drill may have to bite as deep...