Gene shook his head. “No. There’s a small gash on the starboard side, but it’s too high and too far forward to cause the stern to sink so quickly.”
“So, where’s the damage to the stern?” Tom asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Have you sent a diver to investigate?”
Gene said, “Sure. Of course.”
“And what did they find?”
“Nothing. There’s a thick combination of mud and sludge in these waters. Right now, several feet of the stern are buried in the muddy bottom of the Elbe River.”
“But you’re certain there’s a gash down there?” Sam persisted.
“Yes. How else would the stern sink so quickly?”
Sam said, “I don’t know. But Tom and I will find out soon enough.”
“What are you going to do if you can’t see it from the outside of the hull?”
“The only thing left for us. We’ll have to have a look at it from inside.”
“The hull is split into sixteen watertight compartments. You might need to search all of them?”
Sam smiled. “That’s all right. I have a simpler way to find the leak.”
“Really. Where?”
“Through the duct keel.”
Chapter Eleven
Sam laid a set of engineering schematics for the Buckholtz across the navigation table.
Pointing to the keel, he said to Tom, “A more recent addition to the modern cargo ship is the addition of a set of double-bottom tanks, which provide a second watertight shell that runs the entire length of the ship. In this case, the double-bottoms hold fuel, ballast water, and fresh water. Between the two shells is a hollow keel called a duct keel.”
Gene smiled. “That’s right. If we can’t find the leak from the outside, you should be able to find it by going through the duct keel. It’s going to be hard as all hell to get to, and you couldn’t pay me enough to follow you down there. That area’s damned tight, and if you have even a hint of claustrophobia, it’s bad. With the flooding, it’s a nightmare.
Tom ran his eyes across the schematics and smiled. “You sure can pick them, Sam.”
“We’ve been in worse.” Sam shrugged. “Besides, a nice narrow tunnel like that, running the length of the hull is far safer. Almost impossible to get lost in such a tight space.”
Gene laughed. “You two can keep your jobs.”
Sam said, “All right. Your company owns this ship, so what can you tell us about her layout that might help us locate the opening?”
Gene started off, slow, like a university lecturer, breaking everything down to its simplest form. “The Buckholtz is classed as a Very Large Container Ship, meaning that it holds more than 10,000 TEU — that’s twenty-foot equivalent units, by the way.”
Sam and Tom nodded in unison.
Gene continued. “Her hull, similar to bulk carriers and general cargo ships throughout the world, is built around a strong keel, set upon a complex arrangement of steel plates and rigid beams for strength. Resembling ribs and fastened at right-angles to the keel are the ship's frames. The ship's main deck, the metal platework that covers the top of the hull framework, is supported by beams that are attached to the tops of the frames and run the full breadth of the ship. The beams not only support the deck, but along with the deck, frames, and transverse bulkheads, strengthen and reinforce the shell.”
“In other words, she’s a standard piece of naval architecture for her class,” Sam said. “Do you know where the access port is for the duct keel?”
“At the bottom of the engine room, which is directly below us here. It houses the main engines and auxiliary machinery for the fresh water and sewage systems, electrical generators, fire pumps, and air conditioners. It’s also entirely under water at the moment.”
Sam nodded. “Okay. So how do we reach it?”
“It’s accessible either by taking the lift behind that green door straight down — when it isn’t flooded — or by following the stairs over there.”
Sam glanced at the internal stairwell. “Well, that makes it easy enough.”
“Anything else?” Gene asked.
“What about this secret shipping container?” Sam asked. “Where’s it located? I suppose we should have a look at it while we’re down there.”
“You won’t find it by going through the duct keel, but it should be relatively easy to access heading forward of the engine room, into the main cargo bay. There are a series of internal passageways and gangways that you can take to reach it.”
“Do you have a map of those?”
“Sure.” Gene rolled up the first set of schematics and unfurled a second set. “The Buckholtz, like most container ships, uses a system of three dimensions in its cargo plans to describe the position of a container aboard the ship.”
Sam said, “Go on.”
“The first coordinate is the bay which starts at the front of the ship and increases aft. The second coordinate is the tier, numbered from the bottom of the cargo hold. The third coordinate is the row. Rows on the starboard side are given odd numbers, and those on the port side are given even numbers.”
“Right,” Sam acknowledged. “And the rows nearest the centerline are given low numbers, and the numbers increase for slots further from the centerline.”
Gene scrutinized his face, trying to determine how he’d come up with the answer. “That’s right. I was about to ask how you knew, but then remembered, that your father owns Global Shipping. You must have spent plenty of time exploring container ships as a kid, am I right?”
“Yeah, a fair bit of time.” Sam grinned as he recalled some of the trips. “During a crossing from Panama to Gibraltar my brother and I played some of the longest games of hide and seek in history, stretching through the entire length of the nearly 1400-foot cargo ship.”
“What a playground for a couple of kids, hey?” Gene returned his focus to the task at hand. “As you probably know, container ships only take on 20-foot, 40-foot, and 45-foot containers. The 45-footers only fit above deck. The 40-foot containers are the primary container size, making up about 90 % of all container shipping and since container shipping moves 90 % of the world's freight, over 80 % of the world's freight moves via 40-foot containers.”
“And what type of container are we looking for?” Sam asked.
Gene smiled, as though they’d achieved some monumental task. “It’s a custom built 60-foot container.”
Sam pictured the container. “So, it’s a 40, and 20 joined together?”
“Basically.”
“And where did you store something that shape?”
“At 10/14/08.”
Sam mentally pictured this. “That’s bay 10, about sixty feet forward of the bridge, row 14, that’s right up against the portside, and tier eight, that’s about forty feet below the waterline right now, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
Sam made a couple of notes on the digital notepad, and said, “All right, let’s go have a look.”
Chapter Twelve
At the last dry landing space within the Buckholtz’s internal stairwell at the sixth deck, Sam laid out the twin dive packs. The kits were set up for rapid deployment on short notice for cave rescues or overturned and flooded ship rescues. The supplies were far from extensive but would allow at least two dives before the Maria Helena arrived.
He unzipped the heavy lining and examined the tools of his trade.
Inside were two closed-circuit rebreather dive systems, a series of underwater tools, and two sea scooters. The packs were stocked with a variety of breathable gasses, including oxygen, helium, and nitrox. Today’s dive would be considered shallow in terms of pressurized depths, and so they would dive with a combination of oxygen and air via the rebreather system to maximize their available dive times.