Mythbusters busted

The Mythbusters Mythtanic conclusion (busting so-called "myth" of people being sucked down when ships sink) is wrong, but I haven't yet found anyone else on their site giving the correct reason why. It isn't the danger of gas bubbles or the angle of sinking or the number of pieces a broken ship sinks in that sucks people down. I love the Mythbusters show, you guys are very clever, but you don't seem to be familiar with displacement, a concept any naval architect must know inside & out. I'm no architect of any kind, but here's the thing:

People are sucked under by sinking ships because all large ships built in the last 100 years or so have been built with several separate water tight compartments to limit flooding in case of a leak & therefore reduce the risk of sinking. That's why Titanic was believed to be unsinkable. Unfortunately for her passengers & crew, sub-standard rivets or whatever allowed a few too many compartments to be flooded. Several compartments remained watertight, but not enough to keep Titanic on the surface. When she sank, the weight of the flooded compartments dragged the (not so whole) ship, airtight compartments and all, down to the bottom. This is what happens when any large ship sinks due to hull damage. People are sucked down with the ship because the airtight compartments (being dragged under by the weight of the flooded compartments) displace water. When the airtight compartments pass below, the water they displaced rushes back in to the space previously occupied by the airtight compartments. Think about it, if you force sealed, empty 1 gallon milk jug under the surface of a pool, it will be a different experience than if you turn that jug into swiss cheeese and let water flood into every part of it's interior.

The Mythtanic had no large, if any, airtight compartments intact when she sank, so of course there was no suction. If you do sink anything large with a barely insufficient amount of airtight compartments on board, you will find suction very unlike the results of the entirely incorrect Mythtanic test. I dare you to ask any ship captain, Naval officer, Coast Guard officer or Naval architect to see what they think of this.

Dale Gladstone
New York City