Harding's plan to use the balloon pumped full of air to raise the ship is fabulous but what would happen once the pipe feeding the air in is detached as they sail away? Would the air remain inside the balloon as it is not sealed or would the balloon then fill with water and the ship sink?
share[deleted]
One assumes that they would have disconnected the pipe and sealed of the baloon (tied it off) to keep the air from escaping. In that sense, it would no longer be a open, hot air balloon that needed heated air to remain inflated.
As long as the balloon was not ripped or torn it should hold its air for a time.
Plus the fact that when the ship was rising as the balloon was inflating, the water in the hold was being displaced and forced out. One the surface, most of the water in the hold would be gone. The inflated balloon would act almost as a patch over the damaged section of the hull, preventing water from rushing in.
Of course, you wouldn't want to live with this situation too long. My thought was that Harding being an engineer would never chance such a makeshift repair on a long voyage.
He would have the original patch that they made (or make another) and fix the hull-- then deflate the balloon. There are several ways that this could be done.
My take anyway.
My question:
Would Elena change out of her goatskin dress or remain the leggy sex kitten on the voyage home?
AE36
I can give them a little dramatic license on this one, as it was a plot device of the keeping of the balloon, and Nemo did question if the fabric would hold.
Mythbusters did an episode a few years ago where they floated a wreck by filling it with ping pong balls, which is similar. (It's using a bunch of small air-filled orbs to displace the water rather than one big one.) They probably would have had better luck if they patched the holes in the ship and then inflated the balloon, but given the factors that were working against them (the island sinking, the giant nautilus, and so on) they were doing the best they could.
shareDid the Mythbusters' successfully floated wreck remain afloat for long?
shareThat I don't know. The ping pong balls weren't falling out (the hull was still in one piece), so I guess it would have stayed afloat.
The difference being the boat they scuttled for Mythbusters didn't have a hole in it, and they have to reinforce the portholes where the ping pong balls had busted through the glass.