Episode 78: 'The Elizabeth Affair, Part 2'

[@thenotoriousjip3944]

You make nz history epic

[@kiwicodger]

Our history is epic, just trying to tell it like it was as opposed to the somewhat dry and factual stuff that has come down to

[@rogerevans7119]

Love the attention to detail and logistics, particularly the details of the ship and the crowding. The cunning and patience of Te Rauparaha in his determination to carry out utu and the way he played his cards with the captains in the long game can only elicit admiration. . You make a dry historical account living and real.

[@bjh05]

Love your videos Kiwi Codge ❤

[@rb13211]

Love your content, i am from akaroa and learned of this story. Awsome detail

[@kino81]

Nice work matua

[@kiwicodger]

You're fast off the blocks Kino , ;)

[@andrewgifford8703]

Hi Kiwi Codge A fellow engineer here. I am loving your videos. Thanks for all your efforts. I grew up in Wanganui. On the side of the road in Putiki there is a plaque stating that in 1829 Te Rauparaha came to town and killed 400 locals. Your recent video covered Te Rauparaha in 1829 with no mention of a day out in Wanganui. Have you read anything about this incident ?

[@kiwicodger]

Good to see another engineer, glad your enjoying the videos. Te Rauparaha had a couple of goes at Putiki Pa, there was one around the time that Te Pehi was killed, so that is the one on the plaque. There are many battles that will not get a mention. In Ron Crosby's book, The Musket Wars, there is said to be around 600(? or is it 6000?) battles/skirmishes, the Maori population took a real hit during this time, so I am only covering those that were strategic...

[@vwxyz0002]

Wonderful graphics, KC. Your cross-sections of the vessel leads to a great understanding of layout and facilities. Ballasting (or the ability to ballast) on any vessel is critical. As an engineer I assume you would have studied in physics the effect of "righting arms" a force which endeavours to return an object to a vertical position. With ships the righting arm is a measure of the distance between the ship's centre of gravity (always changing due to cargo load/ballasting) and the fixed metacentre which is set during the ship's original construction (commonly referred to as the GM). A positive measure will create a positive righting arm if the ship heels over and this is even more critical when, with a sailing ship, you must also consider the tipping force of wind against sails and natural rolling in a seaway. Sailing vessels would use pig iron as a weight just above the keel to lower the centre of gravity to increase the GM and thus the force of the righting arm. As ships evolved and sails were discontinued, seawater ballast is pumped into "double bottom" tanks to achieve the same result as pig iron. Getting the right GM is important as (1) too small - the vessel will be sluggish in returning upright and may even become unstable, (b) too great - the righting force is too strong and can throw the crew and cargo around as well as possibly damaging the structure of the vessel. I have raised the foregoing to lead into a comment about all the warriors being on deck. I guess they were all well muscled and assume would have weighed at least 85 kgs each - a total of over 10 metric tonnes. On a small vessel that level of weight would be a factor that the master would have to consider particularly if the warriors were free to move around too much and all congregated on one side and adverse weather was expected. No computers or calculators in those days and slide rules were only starting to come into general use. All stability calculations would be "long hand" arithmetic. Keep up the great job you are doing. It really brings history alive.

[@kiwicodger]

Great comment Onslow you ole sea dog. When studying this stuff we referred to the metacentre as the centre of bouyancy. Your comments re the height of the metacentre above the centre of gravity are particularly interesting. The Captains of the period were truly astonishing in all the knowledge they required to keep thing safe and operating well. Their apprenticeship must have been long and rigorous. When I see modern cruise ships I am staggered that their metacentre is above their centre of gravity, but there you go. Great stuff!