February 10 – Plimsoll Day

nPostednon February 10, 2014

Todaynwe celebrate another good-guy of history on his birthday. SamuelnPlimsoll (1824 – 1898) had been a clerk and a manager of a brewery,nbut he wanted to start his own business. The business he chose,nselling coal in London, ended up failing, and Plimsoll was so poornthat he had to live in what we might call a “poorhouse” for anwhile.

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nHenworked to get out of poverty, but good luck played a part in hisnescape. He felt sympathy for the poor and downtrodden and, from thennon, he tried to make a real difference on behalf of others.

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nOnenproblem he noticed was that many British merchant ships werenunseaworthy, and the wealthy merchants risked their crews’ lives bynoverloading these unsafe vessels. n

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nYounmay wonder why merchants would risk having their very own ships sink,nwith their wares onboard—let alone the human working on the ships!nWell, the merchants over-insured their ships, so they were worth morento them if they sank than if they reached port. The merchants win,neither way.

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Runndown, over-insured, overloaded ships were often called “coffinnships”!

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nFewnpeople in England were trying to do anything to change these unsafenpractices. But Samuel Plimsoll was determined to try! He got himselfnelected as a Member of Parliament, and he dove into the problem,ntrying to get a bill passed to rein in the merchant ship owners’ngreed and to make shipping safer.

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nUnfortunately,na lot of MPs were themselves ship owners, guilty of the very samenpractices Plimsoll wanted to outlaw. Plimsoll had to work to informnthe public and to galvanize them into complaining to their lawmakers.nFinally, a Royal Commission was formed and a bill was introduced.nPlimsoll thought the bill wasn’t enough but better than nothing—andnhe was really upset when Prime Minister Disraeli announced that thenbill would be dropped.

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nSonupset that the called his fellow politicians villains, and he shooknhis fist in the Speaker’s face.

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nEventuallynPlimsoll apologized. Eventually Parliament passed a bill that atnleast gave lip-service to ensuring the safety of seamen. EventuallynParliament amended the bill to make real safety requirements.

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nOnenof the requirements is the painting of a line on the hull of the shipnto show the maximum height on the hull where the water can hit, fornbuoyancy and therefore ship safety. Can you see that, the more stuffnyou load onto the ship, the lower it will sit in the water? ThenPlimsoll Line (as it is called) shows the legal limit to which a shipnmay be loaded. n

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nBecausenwarm water is less dense than cold water, and fresh water is lessndense than seawater, some water types provide less buoyancy thannother water types. That’s why, on many ships, there are multiplenlines marked on the hull or elsewhere. n

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nOthernnames for the Plimsoll Line include the International Load Line andnwaterline.

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nBynthe way, other do-good projects Plimsoll worked on were improvingncattle-ships (with which animals were transported in horriblynovercrowded and disgusting conditions) and changing history textbooksnin America to be less bitter toward England.

nExperiment with water density!

nHere and here are some ideas to get you started.

nAlsonon this date:

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