Something does not compute or am I missing something Ric?
What you're missing is that tide level above datum is not the same as water level on the reef at the place where we think the airplane was. The reef surface there is not at tidal datum. It's well above tidal datum.
Check your math again, Ric. The only way that the water depth over the reef surface could be higher than the height of the tide above Brandenburg's datum is if the reef surface were
LOWER than the datum. Brandenburg has convincingly determined that the reef surface where the airplane is thought to be sitting is
52 inches ABOVE the datum, not below the datum.
Brandenburg uses the Hull island tide data and he carefully calibrated the height of the reef surface compared to the Hull tidal datum.
Ric, you described this in 2007 this way, "he starts the published tides at Hull (Orona) which have been shown, by our own observations, to be a reasonable proxy for Niku. With reliable tidal data it was then possible to accurately hindcast the tides to 1937. He then calculated the difference between the reef height at Niku and the tidal datum at Hull
through an exhaustive analysis of dozens of photos of the Norwich City wreckage we took at recorded times. This enabled him to establish the approximate water levels on the reef at Niku during the pertinent tidal periods in 1937. It is incumbent upon anyone who feels that Bob's findings are controversial to show an error in his methodology, observations, or calculations."
Brandenburg said it this way, also in 2007. "I just finished a least squares linear regression analysis of Hull Island tides versus tide data we have for the boat landing channel, which includes data collected by Howard's tide gauge, plus some data collected by Ric with a meter stick in 2001. The correlation coefficient is 0.965 (for non- statisticians, 1.0 would be perfect), and the water level at zero tide is 0.538 meter below the landing channel reef edge. The remaining piece of the puzzle is resolving the height of the the reef surface at the landing channel relative to the western reef flat edge. I'm confident we can do this."
Ric, do you now doubt Brandenburg's calculation? If so, what new data are you relying on for this change? And,
as you stated, "It is incumbent upon anyone who feels that Bob's findings are controversial to show an error in his methodology, observations, or calculations." Can you point out an error in his calculations?
gl