Dirk, Al, and Eva are standing on top of the building when they notice the solar treatment plant several miles way, next thing you know they are hiding themselves in the sand waiting for the train to pass them by.
Ok there is no way they can cover such a large distance on camels, reach the spot they do, bury themselves, all the while without being seen, and do so before the train passes them by in such a short amount of time.
Yeah...I thought the same thing. Then I wondered just how far off was the train when it was first spotted?
The only explanation would be that it wasn't the same train that was first seen...being that a lot of toxic waste was being brought in...so...many trains were likely showing up often. But...the movie implies that it is the same train that was originally spotted.
And I liked the movie as well.
Not only that, but if you work the numbers of how far Labbezanga is into the mainland of Africa by river, the idea that they reached it by the end of the first day as depicted, traveling at the leisurely pace shown (when they supposedly have only 72 hours and "not a nanosecond more") with enough time to poke around and get back is utterly ridiculous.
In a straight line, it is 720 miles from that town to the Niger Delta, meaning the circuitous route of the Niger is easily well over 1000 miles inland by river, and if they devoted 18 hours of the first 24 to travel, they'd have to be going a minimum average of 55 mph (and probably much faster) to possibly make it that far so fast, which is ridiculously swift for any boat on a well traveled river.
In fact, with a couple google searches, turns out their boat is a Hunton Gazelle 43 which has a cruising speed of 40 knots (about 46 mph) and a max speed of 47.5 knots (or just under 55 mph and requiring perfectly ideal conditions).
The idea that they could travel upriver at the speed necessary to compensate for their leisurely moments, shopping trips, and sumptuous dinner and still arrive at Labbezanga by the very next day is utter and total fantasy, and quite keeping with the notion that they possessed camels with wings or wheels.
Just imagine what T.E. Lawrence could've accomplished with such beasts...
"I like to watch" Chauncey Gardiner, 'Being There'
But this is Dirk Pitt he has freaky way of doing stuff that staggers the imagination. He Raised the Titanic don't forget.
There is more Gravy about you then the Grave. Scrooge.
I was wondering if the river is even navigable that far by any boat. The trivia says that boat was modified with a jet drive which would probably only require a draft of under 2 feet at slow speeds.
But I'm guessing that the Niger more than 100 miles past the delta isn't dredged or even well charted for hazards like rocks, shelves or major sandbars, let alone variable hazards like sunken logs. I would expect all kinds of trouble with a fiberglass hull in those kinds of river conditions.
I would think you might do OK with a jet drive and some kind of aluminum hull with stainless sheet steel reinforcement on the keel and bow but I would worry at least as much about navigable draft as safe draft. It's basically the southern Sahara desert, not a tropical river.
And their fuel consumption would be crazy. A planing hull jet drive on a 43' boat would suck an easy 12 gallons an hour at planing speed, probably more early in the trip when they'd be fighting a few knots of current.
Yeah I thought the same thing as well, but I'll give it a pass. Suspension of disbelief and all.
shareThere's way more then one plot hole. This movie is filled with them
shareAgree. For me, the first one was how did the Texas make it all the way across the Atlantic, given that it had only a few feet of freeboard? The Atlantic would have had to be nearly glass the entire trip across. The Texas was a riverboat, not even close to being capable of much time on an open ocean, let alone cross one. Any reasonable ocean waves it would have foundered and sunk like a stone. Then there was the bit of gunpowder being viable after 150 years when it would have become unstable long before. Etc., etc.
I was yelled at for being too technical, to take the story as is and go with it, just enjoy it. Once I did that it was a fun film.
Good job the film was set in a desert. It was the only way all the plot holes could be covered by sandstorms!
It's that man again!!
I see your point, unless they can teleport there was no way they was makin that train...
I guess I just thought it was a train that continuously went back & forth, and that jumped on it next time around...