Launching an oil tanker ship with airbags - GIF, videos, and photo

[Frank S]

Try as they might there will never be another Lucy and Ethel team.
Some things just worked like Abbot & Costello, Laurel and Hardee The Marx Bros' Lucy & Ethel to name a few. Not always just the comedy acts

[Jon]

Airbag ship launch fail.

[Paul Alciatore]

I don't think that failure had anything to do with the air bags. There is no way that thing could be stable. Only about 1/5th of it's main mass was below the water and the superstructure was above even that. How could it possibly have stayed upright? One wonders if the engine was even installed yet. There was an obvious, complete lack of ballast. Unless the bottom plate was 12" thick, the center of buoyancy was far, far below the center of mass. They weren't even close.

Physics works.

Airbag ship launch fail.

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[Frank S]

I don't think that failure had anything to do with the air bags. There is no way that thing could be stable. Only about 1/5th of it's main mass was below the water and the superstructure was above even that. How could it possibly have stayed upright? One wonders if the engine was even installed yet. There was an obvious, complete lack of ballast. Unless the bottom plate was 12" thick, the center of buoyancy was far, far below the center of mass. They weren't even close.

Physics works.

Agreed that vessel was launched way too green

[Ralphxyz]

and with a flat bottom no keel at all, strange.

[12bolts]

Bilge keels

[Scotsman Hosie]

Wouldn't want to be one of the poor dumb bast*rds having to ride it out.