96 years under the sea

[Penelope_Grey]

Just thought I would add that it was today 96 years ago the RMS Titanic sank claiming just about 1500 lives.

A definate tragic naval disaster that could have been so easily averted with enough lifeboats.

[kurtz]

Originally Posted by Penelope_Grey

A definate tragic naval disaster that could have been so easily averted with enough lifeboats.

and if the doco's are to be believed less compromise on materials and ship building practices.

[August]

Well said, except "naval" is a military word. I think you meant to say "maritime".

[Tchocky]

Weird, was down by Harland & Wolff just last week.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Penelope_Grey

Just thought I would add that it was today 96 years ago the RMS Titanic sank claiming just about 1500 lives.

A definate tragic naval disaster that could have been so easily averted with enough lifeboats.

If they had closed the water tight bulkheads as designed she might have kept afloat. Tragic to say the least for a beautiful liner not to mention the people onboard.

[Brag]

The bulkheads apparently did not go all the way up to the main deck. the ship did not have real watertight compartments.

[AVGWarhawk]

At the time of her construction, the Titanic was the largest ship ever built. She was nearly 900 feet long, stood 25 stories high, and weighed an incredible 46,000 tons [Division, 1997]. With turn-of-the-century design and technology, including sixteen major watertight compartments in her lower section that could easily be sealed off in the event of a punctured hull, the Titanic was deemed an unsinkable ship. According to her builders, even in the worst possible accident at sea, two ships colliding, the Titanic would stay afloat for two to three days, which would provide enough time for nearby ships to help [Gannon, 1995].


Yes, the bulkhead did not go to the top but she had watertight technology.

[Trex]

RMS Titanic met all relevent British safety and design requirements of the day, including the number of lifeboats and in construction. Most of the compartment bulkheads stopped 3 metres above the waterline, which was felt to be quite enough in case of collision as the ship would stay afloat with the first four compartments flooded, all that was felt likely in case of a collision. They also had built in a double bottom in case of grounding. Given the technology of the day, she was pretty good. What killed her was that one-in-a-million chance. Instead of hitting the iceberg straight on, she just grazed it, opening five comparments to the sea.

There were, incidentally, some truly watertight compartments low in the hull, but these were too limited in size to save her.

[STEED]

It's the same old story...............

Rushed in to service to make a fast buck.

[HunterICX]

A sad story indeed, It always fashinated me that that beautifull liner sunk on her maiden voyage....Calling it unsinkable is giving the sign to Nature to test her out, and yep many mistakes have been made.

HunterICX

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Trex

What killed her was that one-in-a-million chance. Instead of hitting the iceberg straight on, she just grazed it, opening five comparments to the sea.

Agreed. I've also read that the reaction of captain and crew were the exact opposite of what they should have been. If they had reversed engines and struck the iceberg head-on they would have smashed the bow and cause a lot of injuries, but almost certainly would have stayed afloat.

Conversely, if they had thrown the rudder hard over but left the engines at full speed there is a reasonable chance they would have missed the berg altogether. Ships actually turn tighter the faster they're moving.

As you say, a one-in-a-million chance.

[Platapus]

Good catch on the anniversary.

I don't know if more lifeboats would have done much.

The crew and passengers did not use all the lifeboats they had.

By the time the passengers really understood the situation, the pitch of the ship may have prevented the extra lifeboats from being launched.

The Triple Davits installed on her sister did not operate very well in "unusual" attitudes.

A tragic accident.

Ignoring hindsight viewpoint, I think the crew did the best they could with the information they had.

[Etienne]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Agreed. I've also read that the reaction of captain and crew were the exact opposite of what they should have been.

It's probably the way they were trained to react. It's the way I've been trained to react, anyway - It would result in lesser damage if colliding with a ship, I think.

The whole height of the watertight bulkheads thing is one thing I've never fully understood (I'm not an architect). The last time I was on a passenger vessel, as far as I can remember, the bulkheads only extended to deck 1... About, what, a meter above the waterline. But then, she was double hulled, and had dry tanks (Tanks that are kept empty to provide extra flottation)

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

At the time of her construction, the Titanic was the largest ship ever built. She was nearly 900 feet long, stood 25 stories high, and weighed an incredible 46,000 tons [Division, 1997].

(Pedantic mode activate)

Titanic had a Gross Registery Tonnage of 46328 tonnes; GRT is an administrative measure of the non-exempted enclosed space of a ship. It isn't a unit of mass. She displaced (IE, weighed) 52 310 tons, but I don't know what draft that is at.

(Pedantic mode stand-by)

[Subnuts]

Originally Posted by STEED

It's the same old story...............

Rushed in to service to make a fast buck.

If that was true of the Titanic, it was true of every other passenger liner of the time. Inadequate watertight subdivision and not enough lifeboats certainly weren't problems unique to the Titanic. Also, between 1873 and 1912 only four people had died in accidents involving North Atlantic liners, so it's not hard to imagine that folks had become complacent.

[FIREWALL]

One man with no experience built the Ark.

Many men with alot of experience built the Titanic.

But I guess Noah never ran the Ark into a Iceberg. :p