Arild brought up the topic of watertight bulkheads with his question about conduits to carry unplanned wiring. It seems that every improvement has it's unintended consequence. The Diesel Duck 462 has 3 watertight bulkheads. The collision bulkhead which separates the anchor chain compartment from the forward compartment, the forward compartment which follows the collision compartment and another watertight compartment consisting of the master cabin. In the event of a collision and the bow is crushed, as long as it does not breach the integrity of the small compartment formed by the bulkhead forming the back of the anchor chain locker then the rest of the boat is safe from water intrusion. Even if this compartment is compromised the compartment forming the forward stateroom is still watertight as it has it's own bulkhead and watertight door. The master cabin is watertight with it's own sealed bulkhead and watertight door. These compartments work in 2 different ways to safe guard the boat. Each compartment forms either a space which can be flooded without necessarily allowing water into any other part of the boat, or the compartment can provide a sealed space which will trap air and provide floatation. This is REAL ship tactics and only needs the application of some grey matter to provide a professional level of usefulness. In short a table of flooding parameters can be constructed that will allow you to know with some precision how much flooding of one or more compartments will result in turning turtle or in sinking. A model can be constructed that will allow simulating these conditions. Such a miniature model can be simulated with a computer program, from which the calculations can be done and the predictions made. I have not carried these calculations out, but my educated guess is that the DD462 will stay afloat with the central part of the boat flooded, as long as the 2 major compartments are not. The one issue which is not taken into account in this estimate is the amount of fuel and water in the tanks which are located next to the outer hull in the bottom and sides of the boat. Mike Capt. Mike Maurice Tualatin(Portland), Oregon