Foam Flotation
Kent Crispin (kent@songbird.com)
Tue, 5 Jan 1999 05:39:49 -0800
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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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On Tue, Jan 05, 1999 at 01:15:23AM -0500, JBlumhorst@aol.com wrote:
> Yes, there is a pile of busted-up, mildewed stryofoam up under the v-berth,
> with bits of white stuff wandering all the way back to the port sink and
> starboard cabinet. I plan to remove it in the spring when Toys-R-Us has 6
> foot "pool noodles" of closed cell foam on sale again for $2 each
> (approximately 1 cubic foot each) which will be the replacement foam. About
> 32 cubic feet ought to do it (displacement = 2048 pounds of seawater). I plan
> to attach the noodles as high up as I can along each side of the v-berth so
> that the flotation up as high as practical. I'll also put a few noodles high
Let's see -- the noodles I've seen are about 3 inches in diameter, so
the volume is pi*r*r*h = 3.14*1.5*1.5*72 = 509 cubic inches, which is
something less than a third of a cubic foot. (509/1728)*62.3 = 18.4
pounds displacement per noodle. That's in fresh water. So 2000
pounds of flotation would require about 100 noodles, if they are
indeed three inches in diameter. If they are 4 inches in diameter,
you would need about 60 noodles, if I did all this arithmetic
correctly.
You would probably put a quarter of them on each side of the
v-berth, and a quarter above or below each quarter berth. 15 to 25
noodles in each place...
I went through this calculation a while back, and concluded that the
factory flotation on the P19 was marginal. But it is very hard to
measure the actual volume used. Does anyone know of actual
occurences of a potter sinking?
kent
--
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com lonesome." -- Mark Twain