Thomas R Jefferys wrote:

Ranma looked down to realize that another was about to happen.  The
force of the water's blast was carrying her out of the ring - and to
defeat.  She tried to swim against the force of the water, but it was a
useless gesture - Ranma vaguely remembered lessons from her physics
class.  You couldn't lift yourself off the ground, and you couldn't swim
up a waterfall.  The same principle - no leverage.

       Didn't know physics allowed a stream of water big enough
to allow a person to swim in to gush out of a simple fire hose.  ^_^

<snipping Wyrm's excellent diatribe...> 
(Oh yes, it's *Bernoulli's* Principle. I don't think he'll mind though,
as he's dead.)

There are two types of fire hoses: (or actually, nozzles)
The all-purpose nozzle, which has three settings as actuated by a
operating handle (known as the 'bail')

1) Off: No water flow (obviously)
2) High velocity fog: A powerful 'fan' of high velocity water droplets,
used to actually fight the fire by smothering and cooling. As it's a
spray, there is no way Ranma could actually *swim* through it. (It's
mostly air, to allow steam from the water hitting the fire to smother
the flames.)
3) Solid stream: Like the term, it's a solid stream of water, about an
inch in diameter at the nozzle and expanding to about two or three
inches in the stream. Used to break up burning materials and to overhaul
a fire. Obviously this isn't big enough either.

The other nozzle type is called the vari-nozzle. It has a 'bail', but
this is solely for the purpose of starting and securing water flow. It
has three settings on an adjustable nozzle, that the firefighter sets by
twisting the end of the nozzle.

1) High velocity fog: same as above.
2) Solid stream: same as above.
3) Low velocity fog: A much wider fan of fine water droplets. Used to
cool firefighters by spraying the 'attack' hose team in a two hose fire
fighting team, to cool flammable materials (and explosives), and to
'knock down' the flames in order to allow men to approach the fire.
Obviously this won't work either.

In the manga it looks like Akane has the all-purpose nozzle, and while
it looks like a 2 1/2" hose, the nozzle dictates the shape of the flow
stream, and that is what counts as far as Ranma's ability to swim
through it.

Then again, it's a *manga.* (Or a fanfic.) The characters shouldn't be
able to do a tenth of the things they do, but we love it (and them)
anyway. I won't fault R.T. for not knowing about fire-fighting/damage
control stuff, and certainly not the fanfic author.

J. Austin Wilde
-- 
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