Deep water
In keeping with the nautical theme of yesterday's post about ballast...
Last year I watched a fascinating (but very sad) documentary recounting the life and death of Donald Crowhurst and the first ever non-stop round-the-world solo yacht race.
Ballast
The Vasa was a Swedish warship built 1626-1628. It was designed to be the most powerful ship in the Swedish Navy and was richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself. Upon completion the Vasa was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world.
However, the boat was dangerously unstable due to too much weight in the upper structure of the hull and insufficient ballast to compensate. This was mostly due to the weight of the ornate trappings and the cannons made of brass.
The well to Hell
Catchy title.
Geologists working somewhere in remote Siberia had drilled a hole some 14.4 kilometers deep when the drill-bit suddenly began to rotate wildly. The project manager was quoted as saying they decided that the center of the earth was hollow. Supposedly, the geologists measured temperatures of over 2000 degrees in the deep hole. They lowered super sensitive microphones to the bottom of the well, and to their horror they heard the sounds of thousands, perhaps millions, of suffering souls screaming.