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Ocean Towing Vessel
what exactly is the burmuta triangle?
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a geographical area in the Atlantic Ocean which has been made infamous for the many people, aircraft, and surface vessels noted to have disappeared within its bounds. Many of these disappearances involve a level of mystery which are often popularly explained by a variety of theories beyond human error or acts of nature, often involving the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings. An abundance of documentation for most incidents suggests that the Bermuda Triangle is a mere legend built upon half-truths and tall tales from individuals who sailed the area, then later embellished on by professional writers.
The Triangle area
The boundaries of the Triangle vary with the author; some stating its shape is akin to a trapezium covering the Florida Straits, the Bahamas, and the entire Caribbean island area east to the Azores; others add to it the Gulf of Mexico. The more familiar, triangular boundary in most written works has as its points Miami, Florida, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the incidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.
The area is one of the most heavily-sailed shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas and Europe, as well as the Caribbean islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft (boats and aircraft) regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands.
The Gulf Stream ocean current flows through the Triangle after leaving the Gulf of Mexico; its current of five to six knots may have played a part in a number of disappearances. Sudden storms can and do appear, and in the summer to late fall the occasional hurricane strikes the area. The combination of heavy maritime traffic and tempestuous weather makes it inevitable that vessels could founder in storms and be lost without a trace — especially before improved telecommunications, radar and satellite technology arrived late in the 20th century.
The "Graveyard of the Atlantic"
Although another title of the Triangle, the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" is in fact two places: the area of continental shelf near Sable Island, Canada, and just off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Of the two, Sable Island is nowhere near the Triangle, but it did claim one alleged Triangle victim: the steamship Raifuku Maru (a more famous case would be the recent loss of the Andrea Gail). Both places are known for the intensity that a severe storm brings to the area, especially in the winter months, with the relatively-shallow water making the waves worse than they would be in the deep ocean. The most famous victim of a Cape Hatteras gale was not a Triangle vanishing: the American Civil War ironclad USS Monitor went down in a severe gale while under tow to Charleston, South Carolina on December 31, 1862. A number of alleged Triangle incidents have included this area.
Natural explanations
Methane hydrates
An explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates on the continental shelves. A white paper was published in 1981 by the United States Geological Survey about the appearance of hydrates in the Blake Ridge area, off the southeastern United States coast.[4] Periodic methane eruptions may produce regions of frothy water that are no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning.
Laboratory experiments carried out in the Monash University in Australia have proven that bubbles can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water [7]; any wreckage consequently rising to the surface would be rapidly dispersed by the gulf stream.
Methane also has the ability to cause a piston engine to stall when released into the atmosphere even at an atmospheric concentration as low as 1%.
Compass variations
Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle incidents; it is possible that people operating boats and aircraft looked at a compass that they felt was not pointing north, veered course to adjust, and got lost quickly. The North Magnetic Pole is not the North Pole; rather it is the north end of the earth's magnetic field, and as such it is the natural end where the needle of a compass points. The North Magnetic Pole also wanders. In 1996 a Canadian expedition certified its location by magnetometer and theodolite at 78°35.7′N 104°11.9′W; in 2005 its position was 82.7° N 114.4° W, to the west of Ellesmere Island.
The direction in which a compass needle points is known as magnetic north. In general, this is not exactly the direction of the North Magnetic Pole (or of any other consistent location). Instead, the compass aligns itself to the local geomagnetic field, which varies in a complex manner over the Earth's surface, as well as over time. The angular difference between magnetic north and true north (defined in reference to the Geographic North Pole), at any particular location on the Earth's surface, is called the magnetic declination. Most map coordinate systems are based on true north, and magnetic declination is often shown on map legends so that the direction of true north can be determined from north as indicated by a compass.
Magnetic declination has been measured in many countries, including the U.S. The line of zero declination in the U.S. runs from the North Magnetic Pole through Lake Superior and across the western panhandle of Florida. Along this line, true north is the same as magnetic north. West of the line of zero declination, a compass will give a reading that is east of true north. Conversely, east of the line of zero declination, a compass reading will be west of true north. Since the North Magnetic Pole has been wandering toward the northwest, some twenty or more years ago the line of zero declination went through the Triangle, giving sailors and airmen a compass reading of true north instead of magnetic north. Not knowing the difference could easily result in a false compass reading, and ultimately a vanishing due to getting lost.
Hurricanes
Hurricanes are extremely powerful storms which are spawned in the Atlantic near the equator, and have historically been responsible for thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars in damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of a destructive hurricane. In 1988, Hurricane Gilbert, one of the most powerful hurricanes in history, set back Jamaica's economy by three years. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle.
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream is an ocean current which flows out of the Gulf of Mexico, then north through the Florida Straits on into the North Atlantic. In essence, it is a river within an ocean, and like a river, it can and does carry floating objects with it. A small plane making a water landing, or a boat having engine trouble will be carried away from its reported position by the current, as has happened to the cabin cruiser Witchcraft on December 22, 1967, when it reported engine trouble near the Miami buoy marker one mile from shore, but was not there when a Coast Guard cutter arrived.
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