2935: Ocean Loop

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Ocean Loop

Title text: I can't believe they wouldn't even let me hold a vote among the passengers about whether to try the loop.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a GULF JET STREAM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Upon hearing the term "ocean loop", many people think of horizontal ocean gyres or ocean currents. This comic illustrated a vertical, rather than horizontal, ocean loop.

The comic shows a large construction, rising out of the sea to dwarf a nearby cruise ship. It involves a submerged water-jet sending water up out of the surface and round a rollercoaster-loop-like water-flume trough. The scale is such that it seems that the ship, once caught in the necessarily powerful stream of water, is intended to be in turn propelled around the inverting loop before "safely" exiting at the other side.

Apart from various other issues regarding large "loop-de-loops", the stream of water required to maintain this setup would be acting upon the nearby water and so the nearby ship is probably already close enough to be drawn into the loop (with the best option left being to deliberately steer into it, rather than risk being swept uncontrollably into the structure), assuming that it isn't already caught in the tug of the water-jet's inward flow.

Even assuming a "successful" loop (the stresses, and rotation, inflicted by the loop are likely beyond the design limits of such a vessel), the emergence back into the relatively calm and stationary waters beyond the exiting outflow would be a severe challenge to navigation. On the positive side, due to the nature of buoyancy, if the loop structure itself is capable of withstanding the force of the water being forced round it then it should be equally capable of withstanding the passage of the ship, unlike an impromptu rail-based loop which might stand up on its own but then shake itself apart when the first carriage is sent around it.

Not only would there be problems for the engineers, ship and navigators, the "ride" wouldn't be pleasant for the passengers of the ship in any way. Many of the passengers would suffer extreme injuries from the changes of velocity (up to 230 mph based on a loop radius of 3 x ship length) and rotation (unlike rollercoasters, or even airplanes during simple take-off and landing, passengers aren't normally strapped down). It is possible that the initial extreme undercurrent would likely capsize the ship. Depending upon where in the ship you were, the centripetal forces and the ships rotation may not match for all passengers, forcing anyone not properly secured out towards the bow or stern. As well as the passengers, this also is relevant to all unsecured items (e.g. knives and forks would go flying off tables), as well as the dangers of breakable glass, liquids and many other dangerous objects which could create hazards even (or particularly) against those who have strapped themselves down to prevent their own movement through the ship.

The bottom text, "I don't know why the cruise line fired me", implies that someone (maybe Black Hat?) either suggested or implemented this idea, much to the dismay of his company.

The title text suggests that the not only are those in charge of the ship skeptical about sailing into this loop, but that they are worried that opening the decision-making process to the passengers might favor the exciting risk over the well-founded reason of the staff. However, cruise ships generally don't function as democracies even outside of absurd situations such as the one depicted.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[A cruise ship approaches an enormous loop-de-loop flume. A large jet of water is being propelled into the loop-de-loop.]

[Caption below the panel:]

I don't know why the cruise line fired me.

Trivia

• This trivia section was created by a BOT
• The standard size image was uploaded with a resolution/size larger than the supposed 2x version.
• This may have been an error.
• At the time of posting, the image was massive, 4760 x 4295 pixels.

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Discussion

The 'standard' and '2x' sized images had unexpected sizes, so a Trivia section has been automatically generated, and an imagesize parameter has been added (at half size) to render the image consistently with other comics on this website. --TheusafBOT (talk) 20:47, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there anyway to get notifications when a new comic comes out? I'm always late to these 21:27, 20 May 2024 (UTC)Jush

I believe that there may be a Twitter (or X, or Xwitter, whatever we're calling it out) announcement direct from Randall's account, but I don't use that myself. And, like me, you were here right as it came out, more or less, so so don't worry too much. You could write your own BOT-like poller (various ways, but do at least considerately throttle it back to checking perbaps no more frequently than every 15 minutes, 'cos too many people doing that would be 'problematical'), if you can't find a push-notifying service that does most of the hard work for you (and a whole host of other subscribers). 172.70.85.241 22:23, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Happy Victoria day to anyone else in Canada! 162.158.146.235 21:39, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Due to not being told about any Edit Conflict, I managed to co-edit the initial explanatuon with A.N.Other (sorry, haven't checked who, probably the first major editor in the page-history). I've put the most useful bit (IMO) of their article into mine, but some of it seemed wrong. Or at least not right.

• "because of the size and speed of a cruise ship, the ship likely wouldn't make it around the loop without falling off" - well, given the mass of water nicely holding itself to the loop, a ship floating around in it at the same speed would be holding itself to the loop quite nicely (moreso, perhaps, with its CoG taking a tighter loop than the fluid-loop).
  • Of course, it could be slower, but that would mean fighting the current. Whatever huge velocity the water is going, you'd have to be capable of going full-reverse at significant speed to overcome that,
    • Well, you could be just less than the just more than fast-enough water, but it's probably significantly faster than loop-speed, or a lot of edge-surface water would shed out of the topmost loop-trough due to fluidic friction against the trough itself.
    • And there's the acceleration needed to match the fluid flow-rate, but that causes problems before 'falling off' is an issue. Imagine suddenly finding yourself going hundreds (thousands?) of knots sternwards in still water. Probably what it'd feel like, before even getting to the tilt (by which time, any ship that had survived is probably now close to water-speed).
• "Second even if they managed to make it through without falling, many of the passangers would abtain extreme injuries and/or likely fall off the ship all together (unlike rollercoasters the passengers aren't strapped down)" - If you experience negative Gs in a rollercoaster, it's not a true loop (just an awkward inversion). You should normally always stay at positive Gs, albeit at somewhere within 0<Gs<1 (which feels like negative, but is just short of weightlessness). Being strapped in is still important, but mostly for forces lateral to "local down" for where you are on the ride.
  • ...or, of course, if the ride malfunctions and leaves you stationary and inverted. Which happens, but that's not at all intended in most situations. There'd be no way an 'otherwise normal' flume-loop would do that, though refering back to the need of your ship to experience initial acceleration before it even hits the loop (and final deceleration once it exits it).
• "Third, because of the way the loop's designed, several hundreds (if not thousands) of tons of water is being launched onto the top of the cruise ship at a high speed. Needless to say, this would not only likely capsize the ship, but would also flatten any passenger on the deck." - The sudden undersea current is going to be a problem, but it's not going to be directed over the ship (save completely over the ship, in the loop far above).
  • What you'll have is the turbulent local sea conditions. There'd be a 'standing wave-trough' in front of the point the jet of water is shown to emerge, itself probably a catastrophic problem for a ship, even an ocean-going one built in expectation of occasionally meeting rogue waves) and all the problems involved in traversing such rough seas. If your vessel can survive that (without spinning sideways and hitting the flume-trough, or breaking its back due to the extremely uneven and changing buoyancy along its length) then it's probably going to survive the much smaller amount of water that splashes 'over' its upper superstructure, compared to whatever relative mastrom of flow there will be passing under/against its (nominally) below-waterline hull.

I don't know how much 'reality' Randall has invested in this premise (I presume little, given the lack of pressure-trough in the 'still' water just short of the jet-emergence, nor any distortion in the sea surface wherever the jet originally sucked its water in from), but a lot of the issues of the looping-the-loop "What if" train will be the prime factors, plus maintaining general control (in river navigation, going downstream, between bridge piers, you really have to power your vessel forward, faster than the river itself, or risk losing yaw discipline on your craft). All the rest is icing on the cake of improbability. 172.70.85.241 22:23, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

• • It's a comic drawing after all, it's meant to illustrate the concept but leave the actual reality to our imagination. Conceptually it seems obvious to me that if the ship actually makes it through the loop, it exits fairly smoothly (class 2 or class 3 white water rafting).162.158.146.52