help with plot for mystery

[cayucos]

Hello. I'm new to the forum, and a non-expert trying to learn about topics for a mystery I'm writing. Hope someone can tell me if this is plausible:

Drilling equipment on the seafloor either malfunctions or is sabotaged in a way that shoots a stream of water mixed with seafloor sand upward. The "jetstream" sprays the hull of a boat passing above, causing spalling-like damage and embedding bits of sand into the hull material. Kind of like cavitation damage...

Thanks for any and all suggestions/comments!

 

[Robbabob]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Any drilling I've seen takes place from on top the water. Spray or jet stream is going to take place under the rig, so there would not be any passing boat that gets pitted from it.

If you are writing a fiction, then anything is possible.

 

[Bondo]

Re: help with plot for mystery

The "jetstream" sprays the hull of a boat passing above, causing spalling-like damage and embedding bits of sand into the hull material. Kind of like cavitation damage...

Ayuh,... Sounds like pure Fiction to me....

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Thanks for replies.

Yeah, it's fiction but not science-fiction.

I'm not wedded to drilling as the cause. What I need in the plot is a way to have a boat hull slightly damaged, with some seafloor soil/sand embedded. Something causing cavitation that might pick up soil/sand.

 

[Robbabob]

Re: help with plot for mystery

I'm not wedded to drilling as the cause. What I need in the plot is a way to have a boat hull slightly damaged, with some seafloor soil/sand embedded. Something causing cavitation that might pick up soil/sand.

Plenty of "known" sand bars cause damage all the time. Even by ships that "know what they're doing" equipped with high-tech instruments. Some times it's just a bump, other times you're stuck or sunk.

That can be your possible element for sand/debris lodging into a hull.

Good luck!

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Thanks Robbabob. Good idea but won't work for my plot. My fault because I didn't give enough info:

Thing is, the boat is in deeper water. I need some mechanism for seafloor material to get "hosed up" to the surface and pit the boat hull. That's why I'd thought of some kind of drilling.

 

[sasto]

Re: help with plot for mystery

methane gas releasing from ocean floor?

 

[Fireman431]

Re: help with plot for mystery

How about a fault in the ocean floor which "burps". I t happes all of the time, but I'm not sure the pressure would be enough to embed sand into a hull.

However, you could use a group of salvage divers with the seawater 'vacuum' which expels water & sand/gravel from the distal end of the vacuum, quite a good distance from the work site.

 

[rogerwa]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Underwater volcano eruption.. Let me know when the royalties will begn to show up..

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Hey, thanks to all who are weighing in. This plot is trying to kill me; I really appreciate the help.

>>methane gas releasing from ocean floor?<<
I'd actually thought of this--although there are some apocalyptic scenarios about methane eruptions that I don't want to go near. still, if I could keep the gas releases non-apocalyptic, might work. That is, IF the methane bubbles could somehow bring along bits of seafloor soil/sand. So, bubbles hit boat, cause cavitation, and that battering of the hull embeds the sand? If this is believable, I like it. Is it believable?

>>How about a fault in the ocean floor which "burps". I t happes all of the time, but I'm not sure the pressure would be enough to embed sand into a hull.<<
This is similar to the methane leak, yes? Burping other kinds of gases as well? But yeah, the pressure issue is what I wonder about.

>> However, you could use a group of salvage divers with the seawater 'vacuum' which expels water & sand/gravel from the distal end of the vacuum, quite a good distance from the work site.<<
Hmmm. Can't use divers, plot-wise. Possible to have some sort of equipment, mounted on the seafloor, automatically operating with such a seawater vacuum? Interesting.

>>Underwater volcano eruption.. <<
Great idea, but then I'd have to work the plot around the volcano and I've already used a volcano in another book.

>>Let me know when the royalties will begn to show up..<<
I like the way you think.

 

[CheapboatKev]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Arrrrghhh...

What century might this tale you be spinning take place?....



If I happened to be writing a novel and needed transference of some ocean debri or sand like particles embedded into the hull of a vessel in deep water...
I would think that barnacles ground into a hull would give the sedimentary impression of sand and ocean floor debri..

A floating whale carcass floating just below the surface just might happen to have a few barnacles, and as your captain ran across it in the pitch black mud of the night sky, with barely a sliver of moonlight reaching the always distant horizon...Yeah, I can see that happening...

 

[shrew]

Re: help with plot for mystery

The most believable way to transfer the ocean floor onto a hull would be a grounding. the next would be sandblasting from a salvage dive team. Despite many many claims to the contrary from a large number of boaters who've run aground, the sea floor doesn't just jump up and hit a boat.

I assume the fiction involves something being IN the sand which ultimately introduces the antagonist of the plot. Does it need to be in the sand? Could it be obtained from a patch of floating kelp or seaweed?

How about this? Fishing trawler (Cod, Pollock, Haddock)run nets across the ocean floor. They they haul the nets. What about a passing boat that runs over a draggers nets at night. The net could have been dragged across the ocean floor and the transference occurred when a boat is fouled in the net. you get the drama of the nighttime fouling in the net out at sea, then whatever the heck your plot has in store as the story unfolds.

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Arrrrghhh...

What century might this tale you be spinning take place?....



If I happened to be writing a novel and needed transference of some ocean debri or sand like particles embedded into the hull of a vessel in deep water...
I would think that barnacles ground into a hull would give the sedimentary impression of sand and ocean floor debri..

A floating whale carcass floating just below the surface just might happen to have a few barnacles, and as your captain ran across it in the pitch black mud of the night sky, with barely a sliver of moonlight reaching the always distant horizon...Yeah, I can see that happening...

Current day, but arrrrgh applies.

Barnacles on a whale is very clever, and I might just try to work that in somewhere.

I'd best explain my plot need a bit more (was trying not to bore you all with TMI). There is an experiment, sited on the seafloor, and the bad guy sabotages the experiment, and certain mayhem ensues. Part of that mayhem is some mechanism that shoots water/gas/something to the surface and--most important--this mechanism must transport bits of seafloor sand to become embedded in the hull.

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

The most believable way to transfer the ocean floor onto a hull would be a grounding. the next would be sandblasting from a salvage dive team. Despite many many claims to the contrary from a large number of boaters who've run aground, the sea floor doesn't just jump up and hit a boat.

I assume the fiction involves something being IN the sand which ultimately introduces the antagonist of the plot. Does it need to be in the sand? Could it be obtained from a patch of floating kelp or seaweed?

How about this? Fishing trawler (Cod, Pollock, Haddock)run nets across the ocean floor. They they haul the nets. What about a passing boat that runs over a draggers nets at night. The net could have been dragged across the ocean floor and the transference occurred when a boat is fouled in the net. you get the drama of the nighttime fouling in the net out at sea, then whatever the heck your plot has in store as the story unfolds.

Kelp and fishing net: again, great ideas, which I very well may incorporate.

Thing is, my protagonist is a geologist who must track the sand (embedded in the hull) to find a specific underwater site.

Repeating what I posted above: I'd best explain my plot need a bit more (was trying not to bore you all with TMI). There is an experiment, sited on the seafloor, and the bad guy sabotages the experiment, and certain mayhem ensues. Part of that mayhem is some mechanism that shoots water/gas/something to the surface and--most important--this mechanism must transport bits of seafloor sand to become embedded in the hull.

Again, thanks to everyone for jumping in with ideas.

 

[sasto]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Your traveling south in the gulf stream..current running 4kts against you... 14 foot swells from the southeast pounding your quarter port bow...45 ton vessel with 2 1200hp diesels running 24kts @ 2400rpm. Large Rays mating down deep @ 900' stirring up the ocean bottom. The whole boat sand and salt blasted... Been there........Wore the wax off the boat.

 

[CheapboatKev]

Re: help with plot for mystery

From extremescience.com


A hydrothermal vent is a lot like an underwater geyser. Sea water seeps down into the cracks and fissures created by the spreading of the sea floor, sometimes as much as two or three miles into the earth?s crust. As the water comes into contact with the veins and channels of superheated, molten magma, the sea water is superheated. Then the hotter sea water rises to the surface back through the fissures, carrying with it minerals leached from the crustal rock below. The superheated seawater then spews out of the holes in the crust, rising quickly above the colder, denser waters of the deep ocean. As the hot seawater and the cold seawater meet, the minerals suspended in the hot water precipitate out (clump together and drop out) right at the vent opening. This causes an accumulation, or build up, of the minerals deposited by the mineral rich water into some fantastic and geologically unique formations that have come to be called chimneys. One giant smoker discovered in 1991 reached 15 stories high!



Sooooooo...
Since it is a fiction novel, and you must suspend belief albeit briefly on certain unlikely however could be plausable scenarios...Using the above facts I could imagine..

The deep TOP SECRET underwater location of this geyser where scientist where attempting harvest rare earth phosphers to solve the world's energy crisis..Either that or it was an Alien landing area a billion years ago..lol

And a sabatuer hired by MEGA X corporation to infiltrate this location, destroy the device and keep the World Spinning, greased by MEGA X...OR in the Alien scenario, to keep secret the fact that there is proof of ET's...

?

 

[Mike Robinson]

Re: help with plot for mystery

I can't think of any plausable way that bits of sand would get lodged in a hull from some sort of upwelling.

But how about sand clogging the sea strainers of the engine cooling system?

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

Your traveling south in the gulf stream..current running 4kts against you... 14 foot swells from the southeast pounding your quarter port bow...45 ton vessel with 2 1200hp diesels running 24kts @ 2400rpm. Large Rays mating down deep @ 900' stirring up the ocean bottom. The whole boat sand and salt blasted... Been there........Wore the wax off the boat.

Wow. Did you know what was happening at the time? Wow.

Okay, my boat is off central California. It's an anchovy fishing boat, and since the only kind of ocean boat I know well is a kayak, I'm just learning about boats. Is your boat bigger than an anchovy fishing boat? (I have my research cut out for me Don't have any rays in my story but I do have some jumbo squid. Wonder if they could be romancing down deep and stir up the bottom?

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

From extremescience.com
A hydrothermal vent is a lot like an underwater geyser. Sea water seeps down into the cracks and fissures created by the spreading of the sea floor, sometimes as much as two or three miles into the earth?s crust. As the water comes into contact with the veins and channels of superheated, molten magma, the sea water is superheated. Then the hotter sea water rises to the surface back through the fissures, carrying with it minerals leached from the crustal rock below. The superheated seawater then spews out of the holes in the crust, rising quickly above the colder, denser waters of the deep ocean. As the hot seawater and the cold seawater meet, the minerals suspended in the hot water precipitate out (clump together and drop out) right at the vent opening. This causes an accumulation, or build up, of the minerals deposited by the mineral rich water into some fantastic and geologically unique formations that have come to be called chimneys. One giant smoker discovered in 1991 reached 15 stories high!

Sooooooo...
Since it is a fiction novel, and you must suspend belief albeit briefly on certain unlikely however could be plausable scenarios...Using the above facts I could imagine..

The deep TOP SECRET underwater location of this geyser where scientist where attempting harvest rare earth phosphers to solve the world's energy crisis..Either that or it was an Alien landing area a billion years ago..lol

And a sabatuer hired by MEGA X corporation to infiltrate this location, destroy the device and keep the World Spinning, greased by MEGA X...OR in the Alien scenario, to keep secret the fact that there is proof of ET's...

?

Have done some reading about hydro vents, and yes, they are waaay cool. But I don't think there are any in the patch of ocean where my story takes place (off Central Calif).

But you do have an interesting hook there. Hmmmm. You a thriller writer?

 

[cayucos]

Re: help with plot for mystery

I can't think of any plausable way that bits of sand would get lodged in a hull from some sort of upwelling.

But how about sand clogging the sea strainers of the engine cooling system?

That might do it. But I still need a mechanism for the sand to get "hosed up" from the undersea site, to get clogged in the engine.

In essence, my geologist needs to see this boat--it's been adrift, now it's docked--and think what the hell happened out there? And then she needs to be able to analyze and track the sand.