on compartments that can be repaired to prevent progressive flooding. Solid flooding refers to a compartment that is completely filled from deck to overhead. To be able to flood solidly, a compartment must be vented. Venting can take place through an air escape, an open scuttle or a ventilation fitting, or fragment holes in the overhead. Solid flooding has no other effect than to add weight at the center of gravity of the ship. PARTIAL. —Compartments that are only partially flooded because their outboard bulk- heads contain small holes, cracks, loose rivets, broken seams, or splinter holes allow progressive flooding to take place. If nothing is done about these holes, the ship will take on more and more water. The ship will lose buoyancy and list or trim stability. Partial flooding refers to a condition in which an intact compartment is not completely flooded. An “intact compartment” means that the deck on which the water rests and the bulkheads that surround it remain watertight. If the boundaries remain intact, water will neither run into nor out of the flooded compartment as the ship rolls. The final result of partial flooding is usually a decided loss in overall stability. Establishing Flooding Boundaries Flooding boundaries are the bulkheads and decks restricting the partially flooded area from the flooding boundary. If partially flooded compartments become completely flooded, the flooding boundaries may not hold. There may be hidden cracks or leaky stuffing tubes or the bulkheads may not be able to withstand the pressure put on them. In other words, just because a flooding boundary seems safe one minute is no sign that it will be safe the next. Therefore, repair party personnel should keep on reinspecting and should make sure the boundary holds (even so far as to add shoring if bulkhead  or overhead strength is in question). Holding What You Have Many ships have been sunk during battle action, but very few of them have gone down as a direct result of initial damage. Most of them have gone down hours later as a result of pro- gressive flooding, fire, collapsing bulkheads, increased free surface, and human errors. Had flooding and fire boundaries been established when and where it was possible to do so and the damage confined to its original area, even though the area was large, many of those ships would still be afloat and fit to fight. The moral is HOLD WHAT YOU HAVE; DO EVERYTHING POSSI- BLE TO PREVENT PROGRESSIVE FLOODING AND BURNING. It is natural to attack the obvious damage while completely ignoring hidden damage that may sink the ship. Hours are often wasted trying to patch large or multiple holes in compartments that are already flooded. Smaller holes through interior bulkheads (holes which are causing progressive flooding) are overlooked. In many cases, plugging those interior holes first would be far better in order to HOLD WHAT YOU HAVE. Holes in Underwater Hull Large holes in the underwater hull, such as those caused by torpedoes, contact mines, or near- miss bombs, cannot be repaired by a ship in battle. A dry dock is required for such repairs. Large sections of hull plating are destroyed, flooding is complete and extensive, and the amount of wreckage is tremendous. As you investigate the damage, you may come to a bulkhead that has only small holes in it, such as cracked plates or seams, warped hatches, leaky stuffing tubes, or holes made by blast or by flying debris. Such leaks should be treated as small holes in the underwater hull. By plugging those holes, you can localize flooding and preserve buoyancy. If you remove the water from the compartments you made watertight, you can begin to minimize the damage. For example, plugging leaks in bulkheads of a boiler room and clearing the space of water would help minimize damage. Small holes in the underwater hull often result from near-miss bombs or from violent explosions in some other part of the ship. For ex- ample, a torpedo explosion forward may damage shell plating on the quarters and cause cracks. Cracks may also result from stresses produced by steaming at high speeds in heavy seas. Two factors that make repairing underwater holes rather difficult are water pressure and accessibility. Rate of Flooding It makes no difference whether the hole is made by a shell, a torpedo, a bomb splinter, a defective gasket, or an unpacked stuffing tube; if one side of the hole is submerged, water will flow through it. The amount of water that comes into a ship through the hole or flows from one compartment to the next varies directly with the area of the hole and the square root of its depth. Table 7-5 is a chart for determining the flow of water through holes in gallons per minute. 7-14