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To: corkoman

I have sailed from Panama to Guam, and Guam to California. It does not surprise me at all that a 150’ ship could drift that far unnoticed. Imagine a wall in a big room. Put a pin hole in the wall. That is the area of the horizon on the Pacific that you can see from your own vessel.

Unless your current “pinhole” literally rubs up agains another “pinhole” on that wall, the two “pinholes” will never be aware of one another, even if they passed within 1/8” of each other.

It’s almost impossible to comprehend the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. Ships are no more than the micro-dot at the center of the pinhole. The pinhole is the entire horizon to horizon span they can see. The rest is invisible, which is about 99.9999999999999% of a damn large area. Even patrol aircraft can only see a tiny bit of it from the cockpit.

From 30,000 feet, a passing jetliner will completely miss and not notice a drifting 150 footer. It’s not transmitting a distress signal, so there is nothing about it that will catch the eye of a random pilot, if any pilot ever even saw the ship. And nobody was searching for the ship, so patrol aircraft are a moot point.

Until it came into coastal waters, with the much greater number of local vessels, it was unlikely to ever be spotted, and might have circled the Pacific for decades.


4 posted on 03/27/2012 7:53:13 PM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Travis McGee
It’s almost impossible to comprehend the vastness of the Pacific Ocean

Right. Sailed across Pacific several times. Rarely see lights of passing ship at night even in shipping lane.

7 posted on 03/27/2012 8:25:29 PM PDT by tommix2 (,)
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