Titanic's fatual collision

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[TerryRussell]

The point that comes out time and time again in theseTitanic discussions is that it a fallacy to judge the actions taken almost a century ago from the viewpoint of rules that are based on the lessons learnt from such ancient incidents.

[RMS Gigantic]

Exactly! It's like saying they should have listened to the International Ice Patrol!

[Winnetou]

The ice patrol is founded after the disaster with the Titanic yes, however, They had some kind of icepatrol trough other ships that where spotting the ice and Captain Smith recieved some off those messages. He knew there was ice ahaed, and he could have been better informed. I do not thing the icepatrol would have made mutch diffrence if it was founded before the Titanic.

I disagree RMS Gigantic. It was cold that night and the eyes of the lookouts would have teared. The conditions where far from ideal. Now, they won't sound the alarm with evrey little sighting. They had to be sure. So when they saw something thy look carefully about what they see. There you have a loss of a few seconds. With benoculars they where able to grab that when they see something and saw that there was an iceberg. a few seconds less. Now the Titanic bareley hit the iceberg so those seconds could have made a diffrence. But yet again. They COULD have. I don't say they would. They where of little help, but it could be enough. But that we'll never know.

[mvsmith]

Gigantic is correct in that binoculars, if used by the lookouts, would probably have delayed the spotting of the berg. This is not a case where an object at a distance is revealed by the magnification of the binocs.

The night was dark, with only starlight.

The sea was calm, so no bright surf line was generated on the berg.

The berg had recently flipped; it presented a dark blue ice face rather than the usual white.
The lookout noticed the berg only by the void it created in the stars low on the horizon.

Binoculars would, because of the narrow field of view, probably have made it impossible to notice the void. The lookout would have lost the horizon reference.

A few seconds, or tens of seconds, would probably have made no difference in the outcome. If her bow missed the berg, her after section would surely have hit.

[Winnetou]

You forget that the titanic could stay afloat with a 4 compartment breach anywhere on the ship. Hitting the berg on the stern would not have neccecary fatel injured the Titanic. But again; this is all speculation. We do not know if the benoculars would have saved the Titanic. What i do know is that the safety of a ship should not depend on some benoculars. There where more things that could have saved her.

[RMS Gigantic]

You forget that the titanic could stay afloat with a 4 compartment breach anywhere on the ship. Hitting the berg on the stern would not have neccecary fatel injured the Titanic. But again; this is all speculation. We do not know if the benoculars would have saved the Titanic. What i do know is that the safety of a ship should not depend on some benoculars. There where more things that could have saved her.

But a hit at the stern would probably have left her with no starboard side propeller blades, as those blades were designed to give out before it took out something more important!

[Winnetou]

Well, but the passengers would be save. seems to me that that is more important then if the ship could sale or not

[Nathan|C]

But a hit at the stern would probably have left her with no starboard side propeller blades, as those blades were designed to give out before it took out something more important!

How is that possible when the deck hangs further over than the Propellor blade (see image)

[thassos]

I have tried to keep out of this discussion but, maybe unwisely, I put forward my thoughts:

The captain accepted his responsibility by staying on the bridge until the ship went down.  There were other responsibilities which were not accepted by the perpetrators but were at least partly involved in the loss of life.

1.  The acceptance of "best" rivets in place of "best best" in the construction of the hull - this meant that many of the rivets "popped" and negated the watertight compartments theory so a hit on the stern might well have still been fatal.
2.  The pressure put on the captain by the company's representative to keep up to speed. (Captain could have ignored this - with difficulty)
3.  The behaviour of the radio operators - ultimately the captain's responsibilty even though they were actually employed by Marconi?
4.  The shortage of lifeboats because "it would spoil the overall lines of the ship and detract from the claim that the ship was unsinkable"  - this was not on the grounds of cost; an extra smoke stack was added just to improve the look of the vessel.
5.  The inefficient loading of the lifeboats (note that the wretched company representative managed to get into a boat)
6.  The locking of gates ensuring that lower class passengers did not interfere with the saving of their "betters" (presumably this was company policy?)

The Board of Trade inquiry seems to have been very superficial and much of the evidence only came to light much later.

[Winnetou]

and there are mutch more you can name what coses the great loss of life. And Nathan, the iceberg is mostley bigger under water then above.

[mvsmith]

The assertion that Titanic could stay afloat with “any four compartments flooded” is untrue, and ridiculous. Massive flooding of the boiler rooms, for instance, could have blown her apart.

[Winnetou]

i am sorry, but the Titanic was designed that way. I am sure they had calculated that. And then again. They could let out the steam you would get when the water rushes in. And then again, why didn't they expload in boilerroom no6? the water rushed in there. That the ship would explode is a myth.

[RMS Gigantic]

Titanic could stay afloat with the first 4, any large 2, or any small 4 compartments flooded, not any 4.

[mvsmith]

The fact that Titanic went down would tend to disprove the assertion that she could survive a 4-compartment breach.
That the designers carefully designed her is also disproved by history.

[RMS Gigantic]

Mvsmith, the ship sank because the first FIVE compartments flooded. She could stay afloat with the first FOUR.

Also remember this: she was built to be a passenger ship, not a warship.

[Winnetou]

It was a 5 compartment breach that sank the Titanic. The front peak, firts three cargo holds and boiler room no6.

The Titanic was carfully designed. It was better designed then most ships back then. The only thing is that they don't took into a count the way the titanic was hit. The thing the where not carfully about was the number of lifeboats. And yes, after Titanic the put some new design features, whitch are better, but that does not mean it was not carfully designed.

[Mad_Fred]

Most of what you guys say are just assumptions..

It was not designed better than most ships of those days.. That's not really proven anywhere in what I have read.. In fact I think it's the opposite, when she was finished, she was allready somewhat outdated.

Everything is 'carefully designed' btw, designers are not just slapping some lines on a piece of paper and let the workers start welding.. But carefull doesn't mean good. 

It might have even sunk if one compartment was flooded, it all depends on how fast, how much, and where.. And if there might be some secondary effects to worsen the matter, like exploding boilers, and that 's no myth, there are cases in which this has happened. Just because it didn't on the Titanic, doesn't make it impossible... And no one knows for sure what would happen if it were only 4, that's pure speculation, to say that she could no doubt take 4 flooded compartments. She might well not have. 'Designed to' is not '100% guaranteed to'.

Even the real experts constantly debate each other about a lot of this stuff, and there's just about as much conflicting evidence than there is coroborating evidence on many of these invalualbe bits of knowledge that the rivet counters always throw around.. How can the wanna be experts know for sure if the real experts, the ones that actually did fieldwork and wrote the stuff you guys get your knowledge from, can't even agree, I wonder... 

Fact is, I reckon 80% of the bold remarks about the so called 'greatest ship ever' are just nostalgic remarks, not realistic ones, and things get a bit over rated in that context, most of the times. And a lot of the bold assumptions about what the ship could do or handle, did not see the light untill AFTER the disaster.. To spice up things, no doubt.. after all, disasters sell... Stories to sell to papers.. books to be written.. money to be made. Even back then, they were not afraid to turn tragedy into fortune..

I't was just a badly designed, badly outfitted, badly run ship that had a terrible accident, ending in disaster. Nothing special or unique in the history of sea travel, apart from the tragedy. And there have been much worse tragedies at sea, in war time for example.. but they don't turn those into these mythical, romantic stories, it seems..

And no.. I don't hate the Titanic.. I love her looks, she's a beautiful ship, I'm glad she's in the game for all those who adore her.. I enjoyed walking around on it to get a feel for the scale and all and enjoyed spending a few hours sailing her.. but other than that.. it's nothing special to me. Had she not sunk, you guys would possibly not even know about her today. So how special can that be?   


Fred

[RMS Gigantic]

There are even ships that sank that few know of!

RMS Campania, a Cunard liner that sank in 1908, for instance.

I know of her because she is the most likely candidate for Jason DeDonno to model after completing Titanic.

The reason Titanic is so well known is that the circumstances of her demise are so rare, they sound more like a myth or legend! And that's just what the wreck is: material proof of a famous legend.

[Winnetou]

May i note that evreything i said about the design of the ship is of the knowlage of those days. When you design something you design it for then known things. Titanic was designed to stay afloat with a 4 compartment breatch. That is why the bulkhead doors could close automaticly. That is a fact.

Titanic took a few years to build so about the fact that there was newer equipment when she was finished......... duh........

After the ship was sunk there came new lights about how the titanic was build and how it could be better. Why else should they rebuild the olympic for millions of dollars??

But untill she did she was carefully designed and she was revelutionary. But the way she hit the iceberg is still rare till even today!!!

Now, there has been some faults in her design. But that is treu with evrey new design on anything.

[RMS Gigantic]

Indeed. Let's fire 10 or so torpedoes into QM2's side and see what happens

--Later--

I DIDN'T MEAN IT! I DIDN'T MEAN IT! I WASN'T SAYING TO ACTUALLY DO IT, IT WAS ONLY TO PROVE A POINT! PLEASE DON'T TAKE ME TO COURT, CUNARD! PLEASE DON'T!

[Mad_Fred]

Yup Winnetou, that's what I meant.

It is a fact that she was designed like that, to be able to take 4 flooded compartments.. but it's not a fact that she could actually do it too, that's what I mean. But that is what is being presented as factual, often. And that would be speculation. A lot of vehicles, structures, etc, are designed to withstand certain catastrophies, but they don't always do so in reality.

And well.. with hindsight, and it always is, it turns out it's not a great design perhaps. And of course you design stuff with the knowledge of the day. But when you look back, they made some mistakes. Not having that knowledge back then, does not chance the facts. Lack of knowledge can lead to bad design, even though at the time it might seem like the best thing around.

Carefull designing, and revolutionairy features, do not equal her being good, or even the greatest, as some keep saying. A lot of revolutionairy inventions fail miserably, but we would not have made any progress as the human race, without massive faillures along the way.

It's a rare accident indeed, though far from it being myth or legend (check the dictionary RMS! hehe), and that's also what I meant. It's a REAL event, yet some see it as some legendary thing. And that's what I think is silly, to be treating it like some 'magical, mythical' thing, and to go and claim stuff that can only ever assumed to be so, in the best of cases.

Nothing less, nothing more..

Fred.

[Winnetou]

most things are assumings. But we assume on facts. The Titanic was designed to stay afloat with four rooms breatched so we assume that she would stay afloat if it did happen. If we couldn't do that we should trough away a lot of things we know today. It is just not realistic to think of those things too couse nothing would be possible. We can't take in account evreything and so they couldn't with the design eigther. If they did the costs would be so high that it would be impossible to build the ship.

Ships today are ten times (if not more) safer then Titanic. But that does not mean that ppl don't die on disasters. They do even today. One mistake they made with Titanic is that they went beyond that point and they werent.

Saying the way you do will say that nothing is good and in a sense it is treu. However. I think good is relative. We call Titanic a good ship not becouse it could not sink but becouse they did a good job on designing her. Evrey ship can sink and the fact that they do today proofs that.

[mvsmith]

Actually, an ultrasound survey of the starboard bow area—which is buried in mud—shows that six compartments were breached, although the damage to the two boiler rooms was slight.

However, modern stability analysis has shown that the flooding of just the first four compartments would have put the bow down sufficiently for water to overtop the WT bulked between 4 and 5, because that bulkhead extended only up to E deck. Flooding of boiler rooms would have happened even if they had not been breached by the berg.

[Winnetou]

How can they do a good stability test when all the original drawings where lost on the maiden voyage of the ship?

[RMS Gigantic]

mvsmith, there were 6 slits covering 120 sq feet across the first 5 compartments, according to the scan.