At high tide with the tail half-in the water (weighed down), the tail wheel unable to pivot, one landing gear in a depression, surf hitting the side, I believe the Electra would have buckled in the middle of the fuselage across the patched window and door. No aircraft is designed to take such pounding lateral forces on the fuselage. The Electra may have already sustained damage in this area from a hard landing at Miami in addition to structural compromises for the large window opening and additional damage from a reef landing at Gardner.
That's a really interesting theory that deserves closer scrutiny. The first question that occurs to me is whether the pattern of failure on the edges of the artifact fits the scenario you describe.
James' theory that the Electra fuselage folded in the middle due to a force in the middle (waves) being resisted by both ends of the structure seems unlikely to me - it requires the tail and landing gear to hold stationary while the wave bucked the middle of the fuselage. I think it is more likely that the tail, with its large vertical surfaces near the ground and that were perpendicular to wave action, would have pivoted with the waves even if it was weighed down with internal water.
Note that the force required to buckle a beam in the center that is "fixed" at both ends is much greater than the force required to buckle a cantilever beam. In this case James' concept is the beam fixed at both ends, and mine is the cantilever.
So if the front of the Electra resisted the sideways force of the waves (let's say because of a stuck landing gear) the tail could buckle as a result of the pounding of heavy surf.
Additionally:
1. There is no reason to think that the portion of the fuselage weakened by the installation of the window would have performed better in tension or compression - both seem equally likely to me. Since 2-2-V-1 clearly exhibits failure in tension, this strongly suggests that the buckling occurred with the starboard side of the aircraft on the outside of the fold. If the buckling force was provided by heavy surf hitting the tail from starboard and the tail was unrestrained, that means the Electra was facing south at the time, and quite possibly fixed in place by a stuck landing gear.
This conclusion - that the Electra was likely facing south on the reef - may be useful or merely entertaining...
2. The other source of sufficient force to "tear" the patch would be a hard landing (probably harder than the one in Miami), where the buckling would likely proceed vertically. I think that one effect of a hard landing would be a strong upward force on the rear of the fuselage, but others may know better.
If the fold pivot was along the top of the fuselage, tearing would occur as seen in 2-2-V-1. If the fold pivot was at the bottom of the fuselage, the patch would have been under compression and the patch would not look as it does. However, I would argue for a bottom fold pivot in this scenario - the bottom beam of the fuselage was stronger and the added window would have weakened the top half of the fuselage. In this case the patch would have been compressed and not look as it does.
So my #2 scenario seems unlikely, leaving us - I believe - with the Electra facing south and wave action as the force, as posited by James.
3. The "tearing" exhibited by 2-2-V-1 along the edge with the tab shows a strong directional bias - the tearing is much more exaggerated at the left end (with the tab facing upwards) than at the right. Does this tell us anything useful in regard to the above theory?
Cheers,
Jon