In 1893 , Norwegian adventurer Fridtjof Nansen name what must have been a frightening phenomenon under the fate . His ship became immobilise in the Nordenskiöld Archipelago off Siberia , barely capable to move , yet its engines appeared to be working normally and he was n’t confronted by any known force . It ’s taken 127 year , but physicists think they at last have an answer to how this phenomenon operates . It ’s also potential a rare appearance changed the line of history .
Nansen was no doubt not the first to be ensnare in the style he described , but he did provide a detailed verbal description that was recorded and believed . The phenomenon where a boat can make no clearance without apparent grounds , now known as dead - water , has been have many times since .
From the starting time , Nansen recognized such entrapment occurred when a bed of fresh water sit above more piquant water , something coarse in fjords , particularly when cold meltwater from glaciers debilitate into the ocean . However , he did not understand why water layers create more puff than a well - mixed fluid .
Progress was made towards an account in 1904 , when Swedish physicist Vagn Walfrid Ekman reproduced it in the laboratory , show subsurface waves could occur at the dot where the piquant and refreshed weewee met . If these waves weaken the force play provided by the ship ’s propeller , they can bring it to a near complete halt .
InProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , a team at the Universite de Poitiers fence there are in reality two phenomena that can get dead - water supply : kinematic puff and dynamic resistance . They name the former after Nansen ( Nansen - wave making drag ) and the latter after Ekman ( Ekman waving - making pull ) .
The authors used a forget me drug to tow a mannequin ship in a ranked canal and film the wake it produced with high - resolution photographic camera . They report the Ekman waving - making drag is hyperbolise in enclose place , head past researcher ( who also used narrow canals ) to focus on it . However , in more capable waters the Nansen - wave making drag apace becomes dominant . While receipt more work is required to fully empathise the nature of the Nansen puff , the composition claim “ that we have solve a more than 1 - 100 secret with deference to the true nature of the dead - water effect . ”
Since its discovery , scientist and mariners have observed dead - water can occur wherever two layer of water system with unlike densities fail to immix . One suitable location is the Bay of Actium , Greece , where Mark Antony and Cleopatra ’s combined personnel press Octavian for control of the Roman world . Shakespeare , never the most reliable historiographer , attributed the outcome to a exit of nerve on Cleopatra ’s part , but the researchers reckon it is potential her ship got catch in bushed - water , rendering her ineffectual to get to Antony ’s aid .
