96 years under the sea

[iambecomelife]

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. 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.

Interesting.

At "Encyclopedia Titanica", someone posted another theory about those last few seconds before the collision. The lookouts in the crow's nest may have initially seen the berg at a distance, but it was not on a collision course. Then the bridge crewmembers, who did not have as good a view, gradually adjusted the course to avoid some pack ice, inadvertently steering towards the much more dangerous solid iceberg. By the time the lookouts realized what was going on they were too close to evade. The traditional portrayal with the iceberg suddenly appearing out of the darkness may not be accurate.

Whatever happened, I guess it doesn't matter - Titanic's days are done.

[Trex]

It’s important to keep in mind that nobody cut any corners in designing or building the Titanic. Harland and Wolff were one of the best shipyards in the world. She took two years to design and three to build and she had every technological advantage that could be thought of. To all extents and purposes, Titanic was a five-star hotel with props, renowned for her decor and luxury. (Perhaps ironically, she even had a swimming pool.) Titanic met the every regulation and standard for a passenger liner in terms of safety. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind at the time that she was, for all practical purposes, unsinkable. That they were wrong is a tragedy, not negligence.

Another thing we need to consider is that all design is a compromise. We do it today; our bridges and such are built to withstand a ‘hundred-year storm’. In other words, we build to a reasonable level of strength based on our expectations of likely problems, not worst-case.

[bookworm_020]

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]. 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.

IF she had the same as this ship she wouldn't have sunk. She had a gash riped in her side that was longer than the Titanic, but didn't even take on water!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern

[Etienne]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

At "Encyclopedia Titanica", someone posted another theory about those last few seconds before the collision. The lookouts in the crow's nest may have initially seen the berg at a distance, but it was not on a collision course. Then the bridge crewmembers, who did not have as good a view, gradually adjusted the course to avoid some pack ice, inadvertently steering towards the much more dangerous solid iceberg. By the time the lookouts realized what was going on they were too close to evade. The traditional portrayal with the iceberg suddenly appearing out of the darkness may not be accurate.

For that theory to be true, the lookouts would have to be incompetent idiots.

When you're on lookout, your job is to report every. single. thing. you. see. Especially in an ice zone. You don't do collision bearings, you don't think, you report. Even if you're pretty sure it's just a star near the horizon, and there's only a tiny bit of a chance that it's a ship's light - but really, you're pretty sure it's a star, I mean, look at it, twinkling and all - YOU REPORT IT. Let the OOW decide if it's dangerous. If I had a lookout tell me he didn't report something "Because it wasn't on a collision bearing", I'd go up his left side and down his right side. Seriously. Then I'd tell the captain, and the captain'd tear him a new one as well. That's how stupid that would be.

Things do appear out of nowhere at sea. Sort of. People are human - They look away, they get distracted, and SURPRISE! There's a tanker! (Usually, the surprise happens far enough out that nobody gets hurt or even excited) Plus, you're not alway looking exactly in the right direction, so something that was out of visual range the last time you looked might "suddenly" be visible by the time you look again.

These guys were up in a mast, on the north Atlantic, in April, with the ship doing something like 20 kts. They were not having a fun time, and they might not have been a peak efficiency. Try to keep your eyes open for hours in that kind of situation. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have gone "Bah, that's not important enough to report."

[Penelope_Grey]

I imagine you all know of the "conspiracy theory" that the Titanic and the Olympic were switched... and the "Titanic" deliberately sunk?

[I-25]

I had my Titanic thread first u.u

[Etienne]

Originally Posted by Penelope_Grey

I imagine you all know of the "conspiracy theory" that the Titanic and the Olympic were switched... and the "Titanic" deliberately sunk?

I like the one about the cursed mummy better. It's more likely, too.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Etienne

I like the one about the cursed mummy better. It's more likely, too.

Or even the bomber on the moon

I always thought she sunk on the 15th and not the 14th

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

I always thought she sunk on the 15th and not the 14th

She hit the iceburg on the evening of the 14th and sank in the early hours of the 15th of April

[Etienne]

Originally Posted by bookworm_020

She hit the iceburg on the evening of the 14th and sank in the early hours of the 15th of April

Because on a ship, as we all know, nothing ever happens at a civilized hour.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by bookworm_020

She hit the iceburg on the evening of the 14th and sank in the early hours of the 15th of April

So she did sink on the 15th

[Captain Vlad]

Originally Posted by Etienne

These guys were up in a mast, on the north Atlantic, in April, with the ship doing something like 20 kts. They were not having a fun time, and they might not have been a peak efficiency.

They also didn't have binoculars and it was a dead-calm night, which made the iceberg much harder to spot.

The Titanic was a ship built to the standards of her time...actually greater than the standards of her time. That she sank was probably the result of a thouand little things that all spun the wrong way for her. It happens, and it sucks. I understand that human nature is to blame the company, blame the captain, blame someone, but it wasn't a case where some gross action caused the disaster. So why all the 'these fellows were the bad guys!' stuff?

I like the one about the cursed mummy better.

Even better, the paragraph I just posted supports the cursed mummy theory.

[Etienne]

Originally Posted by Captain Vlad

They also didn't have binoculars and it was a dead-calm night, which made the iceberg much harder to spot.

The Titanic was a ship built to the standards of her time...actually greater than the standards of her time. That she sank was probably the result of a thouand little things that all spun the wrong way for her. It happens, and it sucks. I understand that human nature is to blame the company, blame the captain, blame someone, but it wasn't a case where some gross action caused the disaster. So why all the 'these fellows were the bad guys!' stuff?

Binoculars wouldn't have helped much. You don't use them to scan much, especially on a night like that - You get too disoriented when you can't see the horizon.

And it wasn't a combination of little things - It was a big piece of ice. People can't just accept that sometimes, ****-ups happen, and need to make up long, complicated story appropriating blame to multiple parties for silly reasons.

[Trex]

Originally Posted by Etienne

And it wasn't a combination of little things - It was a big piece of ice. People can't just accept that sometimes, ****-ups happen, and need to make up long, complicated story appropriating blame to multiple parties for silly reasons.

I do not think he was trying to say that little things sank her. That would obviously be wrong. But any safety expert will tell you than any accident results from a chain of events. Given that there was that ice in their path, there were a lot of 'little things' that led to 1,500 people dying. Just a few as 'for instances':

• the metalurgy, while up to current standards, led to brittle steel, especially in cold water. Normally, this would not have made a difference - many ships after all used the same type of steel without any problems. Under the particular circumstances of her grazing the iceberg at that angle however, it helped cause a disaster.
• the number of lifeboats, while meeting the legal requirements, could not hold all the people. THis was made worse by passengers (lured by the 'unsinkable' label) refusing to leave the ship and get into the boats in the middle of the night, so that many lifeboats left partially empty.
• Titanic tried to miss the iceberg and thus suffered a far more serious injury. By all accounts, she could have remained afloart after a head-on collision.
• The bulkheads, while meeting the legal requirements and while capable of keeping her afloat after most conditions, were not designed to deal with a long side injury.
• The limited visibility helped contribute to the accident by reducing the reaction time.
• For some strange reason, a warning about large ice on her path was never passed on by the radio room

There are many others, but it can be seen that all of them contributed to the disaster on 14 April. Had any one of these, small in themselves, not happened or been changed or happened in a different way, then the odds are that either the accident would not have happened or, if it did, it would have been far less serious. In that sense, while the iceberg definitely sank her, Capt Vlad was correct.

[Captain Vlad]

I do not think he was trying to say that little things sank her. That would obviously be wrong. But any safety expert will tell you than any accident results from a chain of events.

Indeed.