Dry Dock.

This is coolbert:

Well, this is so apropos. Was just speaking about this subject. And came across the Al Nofi CIC entry quite by accident. Thanks to Professor Al:

Al Nofi's CIC Issue #408, December 20th, 2012

"On 8 August 1944, the floating dock in which the British battleship Valiant was resting at Trincomalee, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka], collapsed, damaging the ship’s two inner screws and one of her rudders so severely that, although she eventually made it back to Britain, she never returned to active service and was sold for scrap in 1948."

HMS Valiant while in floating dry dock suffering damage that put the ship out of the war [World War Two].

HMS Valiant a Queen Elizabeth class battleship that saw yeoman service and duty during both World Wars finally finished by an accident while in dry dock the career of the vessel ended.

From the World War Two wiki entry for Valiant:

"Floating dry docks and the ships that they hold are raised through increased buoyancy gained when sea-water ballast is pumped out of ballast tanks. In Valiant's case, the sequence in which tanks were being emptied was inappropriate for the ship's weight distribution which was exacerbated by a full munitions load. As a result, the dry dock was over-stressed at its ends, broke its back and sank."

The phenomenon of damage as incurred by warships while in dry dock and NOT at sea strange but true. And goes against intuition as well I would think. And NOT a phenomenon strictly confined to the Russians or Americans. British too!

coolbert.