Hi Maciek.
The VIICs are well known to have a quick divingtime and have a remarkable Kingston flood openings, but having openings in excess of 3 square meters in a pipe under the casing, I would believe, is too much. It would require a ventdiameter of nearly 2 meters almost the size of the conningtower across. I guess the crosssection area described in the diagram refer to the 4 Kingston valves eg. floodarea of seawater into the bottom of the saddletank . That would be approximately 4x 0,8 square meters which, looking at the 4 square Kingston openings, seems to be correct. Down below I have posted sketches showing the various components relation to the diameter of the pressurehull 4,7 meter. The distance between the frames is app. 0,5 m .
In the area of this ventpipe the max. height between the casing deck and pressurehull is, I guess, 0,70 m. If you compare the vent pipepipe drawing for fwd. ballastanks port and stb. plate 28 with the drawn frame hight app 15 cm, you would end up with a pipediameter of approximately 250 max 300mm, easily fitted under the casing deck and probably not too far away from the biggest pipe shown on the wreck. The bend on the end of the pipe could be where the pipe would have entered the saddletank.
Tore