Valentine's day marked the 20th anniversary of this event. I thought it might bear repetition. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- Upon "learing by rote" testing products: ------
Here's a little story from the Bering Sea. Bear with me and you'll see why the 'thread' fits. The Anacortes, Washington fishing family had been very successful in the late 1980's. Early 1990 saw four brand-new crab boats ready to plunder the king crab population in an area the coast guard describes as 'the major leagues' compared to North Atlantic fishing ground weather conditions. Not too far out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, two of those boats capsized, killing all 15 [14, gfh] crew members aboard, including the son of one of the surviving vessels. While the craft were carrying out a load of 800lb. 'pots, photos of the loaded boats before their doomed departure showed nothing visible to point toward load instability. Investigations, of course, followed. Over a year later, as the investigation was closing, without answers, almost as an afterthought, a shipyard worker approached one investigator. "I don't know if it really matters, but we had some extra bottom paint, and we added an extra 12 inches around the hull of both boats", he told them. Anti-fouling bottom paint, to combat marine organisms, makes a very visible waterline on the hull of a vessel. Normally, this would be considered a 'bonus' for an owner. This time, however, was different. The engineering specifications had the craft designed with bottom paint to a certain level on the hull. The 25 year-old skipper had loaded the crab pots *to the waterline as indicated by the additional 12 inches of paint*. No one, not the planners, not the skipper, not the investigators, had thought that the paint-line, so visible in the after-the-fact photos, was so 'out of spec.' Twelve inches deeper on a 150 foot boat equals tons of additional displacement. The boats flipped like tops; there was not even time for a 'mayday'. There are a couple of lessons here. The first, and most obvious, is "follow the engineering specifications without error." The second, and more relevant to this thread, was that the skipper was operating by rote. He apparently did not understand that the stability of the vessel was not due to a line in the water, but to exact engineering specifications that were inviolate physics. So, does learning to pass the CCxx test(s) require rote learning? Yes. Does that rote learning style make you a safe "skipper"? Probably not. Know your engineering, as much as possible. The "Why's it do that?" are perhaps more important than just knowing it does... Very best, G. VP OG Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=63165&t=63165 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
