484 Loss of Life at Sea. (October, 
subjects say that crankness is a benefit and not a defect, so 
they have recommended little stability ! 
The ship was lost, like the Captain, because ‘‘ she was not 
endowed with sufficient initial stability ;”’ for this the naval 
architect was primarily to blame, and merited condemnation 
by the Court as having contributed to the loss of life which 
occurred. Had the ship been lost within Chilian jurisdiction, 
it appears the captain also would have lost his life. 
The ship never was seaworthy from deficiency in her 
initial stability, and whether that proceeded from direct 
design, from a double bottom, and from not making due 
allowance for that, or from an error in calculation, the naval 
architect alone was to blame and ought to be held responsible; 
and it will be useless legislating for the safety of lifeand property 
if naval architects are allowed to do as seems good in their 
own eyes without being held accountable. To say that the 
deck load capsized this vessel is no exoneration, as the Froude- 
Reed system provides that ships in a seaway shall have a 
deck load of the greatest, most generally damaging and 
dangerous kind, that of water, which will rush to the lower 
side and guarantee an upset; for in providing so far as they 
could that a ship shall remain upright in a sea, they provide 
that the waves shall roll into and over her. 
These gentlemen may say, Oh, no, we think there ought 
to be sufficient stability to enable ships to carry the amount 
of sail with which they are furnished. Let us consider 
this :-— 
The maximum pressure of wind must be assumed, acting 
at the given leverage occasioned by height and area of sail; 
in fact, the stability must be equal to the force shown by the 
wind couple in the case; and more, as a force coming 
suddenly is said to occasion double the inclination, the 
stability should be double this; then the stability should be 
sufficient to bear the ship up against inevitable deck loads 
of water, or a blow of a heavy sea striking her when she is 
inclining, such as proved fatal to the Captain, because of 
her small initial stability. 
The metacentric height, while that is the accepted mode 
of estimating stability, ought not to be less than 6 feet for 
smaller, and 5 feet for larger sailing vessels, somewhat less 
for steam vessels with little more than fore and aft sail. 
{t is clear no such quantity was contemplated for the 
Invincible or Sultan anda fleet of other men of war, which 
a deck load of water from a sea or other weight would have 
cut short in their career while hardly begun if they had not 
been heavily ballasted; and yet a vessel of war shorn of the 
