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Author Topic: Water in the Lifeboat  (Read 49764 times)

Chris Johnson

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #15 on: April 06, 2012, 04:36:16 PM »

why????
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richie conroy

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #16 on: April 06, 2012, 04:36:36 PM »

i.e because clean water is in ur cistern right unless u on the space station were they recycle  :)
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Chris Johnson

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #17 on: April 06, 2012, 04:41:09 PM »

ok good point but after 7 days the bird is gone.

Is the WC just a hole?
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Brad Beeching

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2012, 04:42:42 PM »

Quote
Yep, that is why they carried beer on long voyages in sailing ships.
Yes and it's also where India Pale Ale (IPA) comes from. The British developed it because even beer shipped unrefrigerated for long voyages still went bad. So to insure that the colonials in sunny India got something palatable to drink, the brew masters started to introduce massive quantities of Hops, thus introducing a preservative to the brew...
Brad

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richie conroy

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2012, 04:43:48 PM »

dunno thats what am askin ?

it says in a few round the world flight documents amelia had the runs an was exhausted so i hope not  :o
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Chris Johnson

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2012, 04:48:13 PM »

Brad - IPA is a fantastic brew

Richie - love your sideways glance at things, water from the cystern (if i have to be marooned on a island i'd chuck thebeatles discs and have you instead - lol )
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richie conroy

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2012, 04:53:52 PM »

haha thanks but the disc's prob more useful it's only took me nearly 2 years to get imaginative  ;D
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Chris Johnson

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #22 on: April 06, 2012, 04:57:22 PM »

haha thanks but the disc's prob more useful it's only took me nearly 2 years to get imaginative  ;D

cool
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #23 on: April 06, 2012, 09:08:28 PM »

Was the Electra's toilet a chemical type like the Elsan which was in widespread use in aircraft in WW2? These are compact and designed to be emptied at the end of a flight. 
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #24 on: April 06, 2012, 09:30:47 PM »

I think that the matter of any potable water surviving in that lifeboat after 8 years is a complete red herring. I am in full agreement with Brad's clearly put reasons for this. In the final analysis Earhart and Noonan if they landed on the reef at Nikumaroro (and that is still a very big if), would have had three sources of potable water. Any that was on the aircraft, pools of fresh rainwater and at a very long and distant third any they may have been able to get from a well which given their conditions would have been a very hard and exhausting thing to dig.

I am leaving aside the question of opening coconuts because having tried it I can say it isn't easy even in much easier conditions than the aviators would have experienced and building some sort of still because keeping that going would have been exhausting work for the very little water it would have produced.

In the long run simple survival on the island (if indeed they actually landed there) for any length of time over a week would have been extremely difficult for two people sharing the load of gathering food, water and firewood and impossible for one person because the longer they were there the weaker they would have got and any injury or infection incurred in the daily survival battle would have further debilitated them. We also forget the mental trauma and despair they would have experienced as after a couple of days of the hypothesised attempts at radio contact failed to produce any acknowledgement.

I suspect that at most there was a window of about a fortnight in which they could have been rescued alive - after that no.
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Chris Johnson

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #25 on: April 07, 2012, 02:03:41 AM »

Mal,

i tend to agree but for my own interest I like to get to understand why, which is why I ask questions that can appear stupid to some.

If there was a chance that they could somehow purify the water to drink it then it has to be looked into as some people believe that one or both of them survived longer than your 2 weeks.
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #26 on: April 07, 2012, 03:04:23 AM »

Mal,

i tend to agree but for my own interest I like to get to understand why, which is why I ask questions that can appear stupid to some.

If there was a chance that they could somehow purify the water to drink it then it has to be looked into as some people believe that one or both of them survived longer than your 2 weeks.

One thing I note from reading the accounts of the Norwich City wreck and the 1938 survey expedition is that it was remarkable how quickly diarrhea broke out amongst the people involved. The captain of the Norwich City asked for chlorodyne when the rescue ship arrived and in the account of the 1938 survey it is noted that after the natives had gorged themselves on the crabs they came down with diarrhea. These outbreaks were in people who were conditioned either to the basic diet of sailors or natives accustomed to their own food staples, not people being exposed to an exotic and unfamiliar diet for the first time.

I'm not a physician however I suspect that this was probably due to the richness of the crab meat in various oils rather than any germs. Now amongst many things diarrhea dehydrates the body pretty rapidly if unchecked. Now if Earhart and Noonan were relying on crabs and sea birds (also oil rich) for food then to me it seems not unlikely that they would have contracted diarrhea fairly quickly. Unless they had a steady supply of uncontaminated water, and chloradyne or some other drug to control their bowels, then anything they drank would simply have exacerbated the diarrhea and hastened the inevitable causing rapid weakening and eventual incapacity.
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Chris Johnson

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #27 on: April 07, 2012, 04:08:05 AM »

diarrhea could account for the need for additional water supplies if the original was contaminated
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #28 on: April 07, 2012, 07:16:26 AM »

diarrhea could account for the need for additional water supplies if the original was contaminated

Oh I don't for one minute doubt the need for water, but the problem is that if they had developed diarrhea from the food available on the island I doubt that after a few days they would have had the strength to do much physical work to obtain either food or water. Diarrhea not only produces the familiar symptom but there would also be stomach cramps as well. For the sailors from the Norwich City and the natives similarly afflicted in the 1938 visit who had support from others it was just a rather messy and embarrassing affliction. In the hypothetical case that Earhart and Noonan landed on the island they only had themselves. As they progressively weakened they would have lacked the capacity to do heavy work like digging a well and they probably would have been forced to drink whatever was available and that would, as I have said, only made things worse. That is why I doubt that they could have survived very long - extreme temperatures, dehydration and malnutrition kill pretty quickly. But I doubt very much that there was any water potable or otherwise available in that abandoned lifeboat - not after 8 years.   
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Jeff Victor Hayden

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Re: Water in the Lifeboat
« Reply #29 on: April 07, 2012, 07:46:13 AM »

Diarrhoea and vomiting accelerates the process of dehydration. So drinking contaminated water would have been the first step in the downward spiral leading to renal failure, confusion, lethargy and eventual demise. You could possibly survive a few days without water but, add diarrhoea and vomiting then it's goodnight Vienna. IMHO
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