How the Black Rock Came To The Island?

beachblinkette · #1 10-04-2008, 12:07 AM

When sailing ships were made of wood, mariners could use a magnetic compass. When ships started to be built of metal, they had to use a compass housed in a wooden instrument called a binnacle. The binnacle had "corrector magnets and a quadrantal corrector" to compensate for the metal in the ship. Otherwise the ship's metal would make the compass useless.

So, the Black Rock was made of wood. It's metal-sensitive compass was no match for the magnetic qualities of the island. If the island skewed the compass on the the Black Rock, was the pilot helpless? Did he steer the ship toward the direction the compass was taking him? Is this how the ship wound up on our island in Lost? Just a thought.

Now there were other instruments to help a pilot know where he was on the earth's surface, but a plain compass would have been very confusing to mariners when faced with a super magnetic island. Ideas, comments?

gingergrant · #2 10-04-2008, 01:23 AM

[QUOTE=beachblinkette;101057] Did he steer the ship toward the direction the compass was taking him? Is this how the ship wound up on our island in Lost? Just a thought.

[QUOTE]

I think that if the captain steered toward the island, he must have gotten up quite a wind behind him to go so far inland before he stopped! yikes.

beachblinkette · #3 10-04-2008, 02:02 AM

You're right about that , Ginger! LOL! I'm guessing that there were other factors at work to have it inland like that. That MIGHT be accounted for with
some kind of drift, gale force winds, extremely high tide or it being moved somehow by the hostiles. It seemed more like a shell of a ship, I think. but you are right-that is a problem with this theory.

LostFreak21 · #4 10-04-2008, 01:49 PM

Maybe long ago they wanted to land on the Island because the Island had something on it they wanted. Once they were there they couldn't leave.

beachblinkette · #5 10-04-2008, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LostFreak21

Maybe long ago they wanted to land on the Island because the Island had something on it they wanted. Once they were there they couldn't leave.

That's a possibility as well, LostFreak. I'm also thinking that they needed a safe place to stay, so maybe they were able to live in the ship for a time-- as shelter and safety on an unknown island. IDK Just exactly how far inland IS the Black Rock? That might be important to know. If there were enough survivors, could they have used ropes, and a groove of some kind to pull the ship up on the land? Did Smokie jerk it around and it landed in the jungle there? Another IDK!