Titanic's fatual collision

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[RMS Canada]

You are right about that, Nathan.
(I hate it when that happens!)
The Idea that the Titanic would have survived had she hit the berg square on the bow was first floated by Bruce Ismay during the US inquiry as a way of placing the blame on the bridge. Titanic might have survived, but few of her passengers and crew would have.

Arithmetic problem: Take the distance from the bow to whichever bulkhead you choose to remain intact. That is the distance in which Titanic had to stop from 21.5 knots. You might add a few feet for crushing of the ice. From the stopping distance and the speed you can calculate how many Gs of deceleration were involved. From that you can estimate what things—like the engines—may have come loose and gone crashing into other things—like people.
The people, tableware, etc. keep on moving at 21.5 knots until they hit something solid. That would be real hard on the china.
Even if your favorite WT bulkhead survived, most likely plates would have buckled along the sides. She would probably have sunk anyway.
Did I mention the fires and steam resulting from the engines going through the boiler rooms?
Marty

Oh, please don't remind me of Mr. Ismay.  I do not like him because of what he did.

[IRI5HJ4CK]

Oh, please don't remind me of Mr. Ismay.  I do not like him because of what he did.

How can you judge somebody by their actions? I bet if you were an officer on that bridge at that time during the incident you would be wetting yourself wondering what you should do.....Don't judge people that you have never met.

[RMS Canada]

Moved to General Discussions, which is where it belongs. Please ytry to post in the corrrect thread. The ShipSimulator 2008 area is almost never appropriate.

General Discussions is suitable for things to do with Ship Simulator and Small Talk is supposed to be for other things about ship-related topics.

Thanks.

Where is small talk?

[RMS Canada]

How can you judge somebody by their actions? I bet if you were an officer on that bridge at that time during the incident you would be wetting yourself wondering what you should do.....Don't judge people that you have never met.

Ismay is a jerk!  I bet he lied at the inquiry!

[IRI5HJ4CK]

Ismay is a jerk!  I bet he lied at the inquiry!

There you go again, you don't even know if he did and now you could be accusing a man that is innocent, again, you "Bet" he lied at the inquiry, but you don't know.....if you give me evidence then i will believe you.

[mvsmith]

One should not bandy the word “jerk” about so freely. After all, it could be applied to one who calls himself “The Titanic Expert” but does not seem to know squat.

[IRI5HJ4CK]

It could be applied to one who calls himself “The Titanic Expert” but does not seem to know squat.

Yes, i've found that to be quite honest.....

[Nathan|C]

Titanic expert, you have just broken the record for most multiple posts. Please try to edit one post if you want to add something.

By the way, in my eyes Ismay did nothing wrong - It was the Captains decision to go ahead full, and i really don't understand anyone who says he should of stayed on the ship - i highly doubt the c/o of P&O would stay aboard his sinking ferry.

[TerryRussell]

Then which sections can I post?

It's pretty obvious from most of the titles, I think.

But for clarity:

1. Technical Support questions may ONLY go in the relevant Technical Support area, except for technical support questions about the demo version. These are the ONLY posts that should go in the Ship Simulator 2008 section.

2. Media is for things to do with photos, videos and so on.

3. Missions is for things to do with missions (yes, really!), including Custom Missions.

4. You should ONLY post in the vessel design sections if you are part of an "official" design team, and then ONLY about vessels for Ship Simulator.

5. Multiplayer is for things to do with multiplayer (suprised huh?)

6. General Discussions is for things to do with Ship Simulator not covered elsewhere.

7. Small Talk is for other things that have some relevance to Ship Simulator, e.g. releated maritime discussions and so on. It isn't really for discussions about people's mobile phones, and so on. But we are reasonably tolerant about other things creeping in so long as some self-control is exercised by posters in that area.

The other useful thing to know is how to use that search button. There must be dozens of other "I worship some sunken ship that I only know of from a novel about an imaginary set of people sailing on it, that became a Hollywood theatre event" threads around...

[mvsmith]

I agree, Nathan, that Ismay was a tragic figure betrayed by the technology in which he had such faith. As head of White Star he was shaken by a feeling of responsibility for the deaths and at the same time felt a duty to the company, and to J.P. Morgan, to defend its interests.

He may have acted less than heroically, but he had no duty to go down with the ship—that’s what he hired Smith for.
The public was looking for a villain, and he was the only good candidate left alive.

If it were not for the vision of Ismay, and Pirie, we would not have any Olympic class ships to argue about.

How much, if at all, he pressured Smith to put the pedal to the metal is not known, but if he did, the onus was entirely on Smith to resist the pressure.

[RMS Gigantic]

RMS Gigantic will laugh when he see's this topic.....

That I did

[Gloat]

The exisiting Titanic threads could make a new board for heavens sake... As if VSTEP has nothing else to do

[RMS Gigantic]

We need a new board for Titanic! Someone contact Wout!

[dustytrails]

if i may just mention for the record that in  the case of ice bergs, 1/3 of them are visible above the water line while the remainder are below the water line and are invisble or so they seem.and to this end i'm afraid that only partialy that she sank.p.s ...by the way just for info's sake today in our local brisbane newspaper, the last and sole survivor of the titanic has auctioned off some of her effects,letters etc and the suitcase which was on loan to her from the people of relief effort of the era.

[TerryRussell]

Sorry to disagree, but at about 0^oC (32^oF), only ¹/₁₀ of the iceberg is above water, if I read my coefficient of expansion of water tables correctly.

[sonarman]

It can't be that realistic though - the Titanic in Ship Simulator 2008 has too quick a ROT to replicate like the movie. Same with the engines. The telemotor issues a command, and the engine room responds very quickly  in the game - it would take a while, like in the movie.

The telemotor has nothing to do with the engine room, it is a hydraulic steering mechanism typically controlling a quadrant steam engine in the steering flat to turn the ship's rudder. One of the ship's I worked on the Paddle Steamer "Waverley" has the same system to this day, made by the same company that made the Titanic steering gear (Browns of Edinburgh). The transmission of helm commands by hydraulic means is actually very quick. The reason Titanic turned slowly is probably more to do with simple physics & ship construction i.e. the length of the hull vs the size of the rudder.

As to a telegraph which is the device used to transmit orders from bridge to engine room, an engineer will typically be at the controls in the engine room awaiting orders from the bridge and will push the engine control levers as soon as he receives said orders from the telegraph. The telegraph is not a hydraulic system but rather a simple mechanical system of pulleys rods and bicycle-like chains.  In this video of Waverley's engine you can see the engineer respond to bridge commands again very quickly

[mvsmith]

As sonarman points out, the engineer would answer the ring immediately while ordering his crew to stop the engines—which takes a while to accomplish. If he did not acknowledge until the engines were stopped, the bridge would wonder if there was anyone awake in the engine room.

[RMS Gigantic]

The iceberg that sank the Titanic was believed to be 65 feet tall above the water line, with 6/7 of its height underwater, according to what I have read.



As for the engine thing, with Titanic, if only the main engine telegraphs are used, the order is to be carried out in 15 minutes to a half hour. The order is to be acted out promptly if an emergency mid-ocean manuever is signaled (the main engine AND emergency telegraphs both give the signal)

[mvsmith]

Murdoch rang “full astern” and then “stop” to signal that it was an emergency maneuver.

[RMS Gigantic]

What he did was, as you can see in the movie (the movie gets this right) is move both the regular (with indicator on the back) and emergency (without indicator) engine telegraphs to full astern, as they have different corrosponding telegraphs in the engine room.

So when the engineer looked, he saw 4 telegraphs move back (the port and starboard commands were indicated on separate telegraphs in the engine room)

[TerryRussell]

That's somewhat semi-circular reasoning, isn't it? It's in the movie so it must be right. And it must be right because it's in the movie. Hmm.... doesn't work, sorry.

If the movie got anything right (and there is so much that it didn't), it was

(a) the fact that vessel was called Titanic
(b) it head-butted an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic

Everything else is likely to be a fiction. Remember, this was not a historical documentary. It was a love story written around the two facts above. Virtually everything else was adjusted or fabricated to meet the requirements of a Hollywood glossy fiction movie.

Don't assume anything is "a fact" because you saw it in this fictional movie. Do your research using documentary evidence from the time. And even then, remember that everyone writing that evidence is likely to have had a vested interest.

[mvsmith]

The reason for the “emergency” telegraphs is for backup in case the wire snaps on the regular telegraphs. They are not special telegraphs “for use in emergencies”.

What are now called “hand brakes” or “parking brakes” on autos, were once called “emergency brakes” because they were for use if the new-fangled hydraulics failed.
This does not mean that they should be the first choice for avoiding an imminent collision with a bridge abutment.

[RMS Gigantic]

That's somewhat semi-circular reasoning, isn't it? It's in the movie so it must be right. And it must be right because it's in the movie. Hmm.... doesn't work, sorry.

If the movie got anything right (and there is so much that it didn't), it was

(a) the fact that vessel was called Titanic
(b) it head-butted an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic

Everything else is likely to be a fiction. Remember, this was not a historical documentary. It was a love story written around the two facts above. Virtually everything else was adjusted or fabricated to meet the requirements of a Hollywood glossy fiction movie.

Don't assume anything is "a fact" because you saw it in this fictional movie. Do your research using documentary evidence from the time. And even then, remember that everyone writing that evidence is likely to have had a vested interest.

Terry.

I hate that movie.

I assume all things in that movie were wrong unless other research proves otherwise.

That was proven true in the TRMA article on Titanic's propulsion, if memory serves (http://titanic-model.com/articles/tech/TechFeatureAugust2005.htm).

Terry, remember who you're speaking to.

[RMS Gigantic]

Sorry for the double post, but it seems I may have misread something.

I'm fairly sure this passage from my link was the one I was referring to:

The boiler room telegraphs were used to announce, usually well in advance, what steaming conditions the engine room would be expecting within a relatively short period of time, say, within the next fifteen minutes to half hour. They weren't intended to be used like the engine order telegraphs, which were intended to communicate very specific orders which were intended to be carried out immediately.

So it seems I mixed up telegraghs.

Don't we all hate when we misread?

[captseaton]

If they had just collided head on, would that have made any difference?

If RMS Titanic had collided head-on with the iceberg, there was a very good chance the ship would have continued on to New York.

Now don't jump all over me for this, I know these are different ships from different eras, different build quality and different grades of steel....

That being said, here is a picture of the Stockholm after cutting open the side of the Andrea Dorea.