Titanic's fatual collision

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[mvsmith]

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

Yes, it is common practice to pack the only drawings of a ship aboard her when sending her off on her maiden voyage! I may criticize H & W for their design methods, but I never said they were stupid.
In your fixation over Titanic, you might not have noticed that two sister ships were built, or abuilding.

Assertions like that cause me to wonder how much rational thought people apply to what they may read on see in movies.

[Winnetou]

That is correct, but the brittanic was still sicnifficant diffrent then the Titanic, especcially in the design of the watertight bulkheads (it was built after the Titanic). And the titanic had some changes too. We can know a lot from those ships but the actual drawings of the titanic where lost with the ship. Thomas andrews brought them with him on board.

or how do you explain that is is still up to today not certain hoe some of the rooms looked like on the titanic?

[mvsmith]

This discussion is getting silly. Has it not occurred to you to ask how the modified drawings for the other sisters were generated?

[Winnetou]

Yes there where from the drawings of the Olympic, they did exist. But there where some changes whitch changed the weight of the ship. I am talking about those changes. the general drawings where there yes. My argument is that you cannot research those things properly unless you know the actual weight and things of the ship. The weight of the ship changed becouse of those changes. And many drawings where lost. that is a fact.

Look, Titanic was designed to stay afloat with a 4 compartement breach,  simple as that. I don't beleve they can prove it would sink with that. They just don't have enough data for that.

[mvsmith]

Here is an excerpt from a note on the making of Titanic:
Harland and Wolff, the RMS Titanic's builders, opened their private archives to the crew, sharing blueprints that were thought lost. For the ship's interiors, production designer Peter Lamont's team looked for artifacts from the era, though the newness of the ship meant every prop had to be made from scratch. Twentieth Century Fox acquired forty acres of waterfront south of Playas de Rosarito, and building of a new studio began on May 31 1996. A seventeen-million gallon tank was built for the exterior of the reconstructed ship, providing 270 degrees of ocean view. The ship was built to full scale, but Lamont removed redundant sections on the superstructure and forward well deck for the ship to fit in the tank, with the remaining sections filled with digital models. The lifeboats and funnels were shrunk by ten percent. The boat deck and A-deck were working sets, but the rest of the ship was just steel plating.

----
How can you know what data was available to the naval architects that ran the analysis?
How can you know how thorough or accurate the H&W design process was? There are other areas—failure to provide a crack stop on the vertical expansion joint—where they were not on the ball.

[RMS Gigantic]

I have several plans that I can thank H&W and the TRMA for

[TerryRussell]

Hi Wiinnetou.

If I had to risk my life based on anyone's techncal knowledge, I'd get on Mvsmith's ship. Of all the people on this forum he is one of the few who are capable of truly understanding and being fluent with vessel hydrodynamics. I can number the others on the fingers of one hand.

If he says it sinks, then it sinks. If he says it floats, it floats. 

[mvsmith]

I have several plans that I can thank H&W and the TRMA for

Over the past four decades, I’ve always found the H&W archivists to be extremely helpful—at least to those with professional credentials.
When deluged with requests from the merely curious, I’m not surprised that all the plans “went down with the ship”.

[Winnetou]

You got help mvsmith :-) I think i need to do a bit more research on this subject. And i will so we can get back on topic. Lets see, what was it again?

[mvsmith]

A “fatual collision”, whatever that is.

[RMS Gigantic]

Fatal + Factual = Fatual?

[Beau Brown]

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

I think your name just became an oxymoron, my friend.

Like mentioned, Ismay was ENTIRELY innocent. He did absolutely nothing wrong. If you want to read the real story, then do read the rest of my post.

At the time of the collision, Ismay knew that he had to get all of the people off as soon as humanly possible to avoid the worst possible outcome of the situation. Ismay helped to load AND lower lifeboats 3, 5, 7 & 9 on the starboard side of the ship. Bruce was very anxious to get as many people off as possible. Knowing what little time was left, Ismay went to a lifeboat a started shouting "lower away! Lower away!" Officer Lowe who was loading the lifeboat at the time didn't recognize Ismay at first, and admonished him by saying, "if you'll get the Hell out of the way, we can get on with the job." Ismay, of course, walked away and let Lowe and the other officers do their job. However, this shows just how important getting people off the ship was to him.

Ismay escaped the ship on Collapsible C, which was on the starboard side. Chief Officer Wilde was in charge, and was assisted by Ismay and a Mr. Carter. With no other people on the deck, Ismay and Carter were both ordered into the boat by Wilde himself. He apparently sat in the lifeboat with his back to Titanic; he did not want to see the end.

When he arrived on the Carpathia, he was sent to the doctor's office to be treated (at the time he was a complete wreck and traumatized). When Ismay found out that there were still women on the ship when he escaped to safety, he was devastated and collapsed. He stayed there for the rest of the voyage, not eating any solids. Knowing that his secretary and butler were also missing, it made matters far worse for him.

According to Officer Lightoller, Ismay kept on repeating that he should have gone down with the ship, knowing that some women didn't make it to safety.

When Ismay returned to England, he made sure that all of the widows received an annuity for life.

As for the whole stupid rumor, it was mainly started by two first class women who had lost their husbands in the disaster.

In result, Ismay was entirely innocent and did nothing wrong whatsoever. I personally find it sad that a person who dubs himself a Titanic "expert" doesn't know this. If you're basing your facts from James Cameron's pitiful excuse for a movie about Titanic, then I advise you get out some books now.

Oh, and good luck on that custom mission.

-BB

[TerryRussell]

Hi Beau Brown.

Welcome to the Forum.

It's good to see a well reasoned post here on the subject of Titanic.

Out of interest could I ask if you could identify your sources of that information? It would be useful for the "experts" here to be able to improve their level of knowledge and not have to rely on emotional outburts instead of actual facts.

Thanks!

[Beau Brown]

Hi Beau Brown.

Welcome to the Forum.

It's good to see a well reasoned post here on the subject of Titanic.

Out of interest could I ask if you could identify your sources of that information? It would be useful for the "experts" here to be able to improve their level of knowledge and not have to rely on emotional outburts instead of actual facts.

Thanks!

Hello there!

Thank you for the welcome; this is certainly a nice community of fellow ship enthusiasts.

As for my sources, I actually acquired this information from the Ismay Family Website, where the family has acquired vast historical information about their past family members. They are very interested in researching the history of their family (seeing that it's so well known), and they provide great information about Mr. Ismay and his conduct on board the ship, which can be seen in this article.

The information on that page was gathered by several witnesses who happened to experience Mr. Ismay's conduct that evening.

Thanks for the warm welcome!
-BB

[TerryRussell]

Excellent!

The serious members of the forum will always be grateful for links to sources of information. They may disagree with the source or the conclusion, but then we can have an objective discussion based on researched information, rather than a subjective argument as to whether Ismay was a jerk or not. 

Many thanks.

[Beau Brown]

Not a problem.

I also had some doubt that people would believe the source, seeing that they could possibly consider it biased, seeing that it is from a family member. But from what I've read, it's entirely legitimate.

[TerryRussell]

Don't worry.

I am not one of those who will get involved in discussions about the legitimacy of the information or the conclusions based upon it. I don't really have much interest in Titanic. (Sorry). I just try to keep the peace in areas where I know people get very emotional. 

[Winnetou]

The best picture you get from something or someone is to have many sources. Evreyone write's from their own vieuw. This is one part of a vieuw of Ismay. Of course there is still some things to tell of the mistakes ismay made but, what there was told of him by Beau Brown is treu. Ismay did a lot during the crash and if he didn't jumped into a lifeboat he woud do one thing and that is the he only added his name to the list of victims. There is no evidence against that or against the story of Beau Brown. When you look in the deleted scenes of the movie you see a scene where ismay got on board of the Carpathia. I think that scene illustrates very good the condision Ismay was in. The Titanic disaster costs ismay, allthough he was found not guilty by the inquiry of the disaster, evreything. His career and his reputation.

The way the Titanic hit the iceberg was very unlikeley in those day's If Ismay, and evreyone involved, had known what we know today i am sure things would be diffrent. I think that is one of the things that keeps us fasinated by the Titanic.

When Titanic was build we where in the center of the industrial revelution. You could travel arround the world in matter of day's and the first people had even managed to fly!!! This ship was bigger then anything else and the ppl actually thought that they had conquerd nature. Nothing could defeat them. Not to mention that Titanic had the worlds famoust ppl on board. What could possibly go wrong!!!!

When Titanic sank it was the end of an era. They found out that it wasn't going so well and things could still go wrong. Afterwards we got 2 world wars and the stock crash of '29 That is a period we humans learned that we could never stand on top of evreything and that we need to think the unthinkeble. That is in my opinion the biggest lesson we should learn from the Titanic.

I am fascinated by the Titanic and i have read and saw many things about her and her passengers. I do not consider myself an expert but i do think that i know enough to get involved in these kind of discussions. However. I do not know evreything and i do make mistaked or say things that is not intirly correct. I ask forgiveness for that. After all, these kind of discussions give us the oppertunity to learn from eatch other an an oppertunity to get a complete picture of what happend that night.

A night we should remember.

[RMS Gigantic]

I really dislike the 1997 movie because it ruins the reputation of William McMaster Murdoch and Joseph Bruce Ismay, then goes on to give a nearly permanent identity crisis to Joseph Dawson.

[mvsmith]

My favorite quotation about the Titanic is from Robert Ballard—locator of her wreck:
“It hit an iceberg and it sank. Get over it.”

There is, of course, more to it: Why did she sink in two hours and forty minutes, when she should have floated for nearly twice that time?
Testimony from crew members and passengers indicates that the collision seemed to be only a glancing blow. Sub-bottom profiling of the damage to the starboard bow area indicated a few separate holes rather the “long gash” of myth. Interestingly, a scan of the port side showed similar damage. This would indicate that some of the damage occurred when the bow section hit the bottom at about 35 mph and buried itself in the mud.

Study of the metal edges of the bow and stern section and of the two sections of double bottom in recent years shows that Titanic broke up on the surface when her stern was elevated only slightly more than thirteen degrees. Sections of her bottom fell away and her midsection flooded quickly.
Documents from the archives of Harland & Wolff show that the upper echelons of H&W and White Star suspected that in 1912. The archives also show that H&W knew, before Titanic left for New York, that she was not as strong as they had intended.
 
During Olympic’s trials, Andrews had noticed that her shell plates were panting, and that cracks were forming around windows, portholes, and other stress points. Hull plating on Olympic and Britannic was doubled up in some areas, but not on Titanic.
Enclosing the promenade deck on Titanic was a last-minute attempt to strengthen her, not for looks or passenger convenience.

Andrews had specified a thickness of 1-1/4” for the hull plates, but Ismay, acting for White Star, insisted that it be reduced to 1”, along with a reduction in the number of rivets, in order to reduce her weight.

Poor design, inferior steel and wrought iron in plates and rivets, and a decision to send a ship suspected of being weak on a transatlantic voyage, doomed 1504 people to death.

[Winnetou]

At first to RMS Gigantic, It seems to me that identety crisis isn't that bad. It was from the beginning clear that Rose and Jack and their closest friends and famely where fictional. And besides that. How many ppl would have heard of Joseph Dawson if the film was never made. In the matther of Murdoch and Ismay, they have done their best to protrai them closest to what happend. But from that night we have to go from the eyewitness accounts from a small group of people. We can never know what exactley happend, who was a hero and who was the opposite. Should they therefor leave that out of a movie is a matter of opinion.

On the breakingpoint where mvsmith talks about is in fact a very intersting theory whitch i believe comes closer to the truth then what the film portraits. How it really happend, we never know, but it is intresting. The following movie explains that theory a bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsVx6jn7qVs

The closing of the promenade deck was alsow for the passengers. When the Olympic was in bad weather ppl couldn't use it becouse of the spray of the sea.

For the hull strength and the rivits strength is not that surprising. They where indeed not as strong as modern day ship. They came close to the strength of ships of that period. But Titanic and Olympic where a lot bigger so you get other forces working on the ship. And, of course, the tecniecs they had back then is not the same as modern day ships. Is that a reason to say that the ship was poreley designed? For that period no. Of course they could have been better with tecniecs of those day's, but these where the first ships in their class. We people can't do evreything right the first things we make. And may i add that the Olympic sailed till 1929!!! That is a lifetime for a ship. Titanic was doomed when she hit an iceberg in a way no one imagined in those day's. What do you think ppl would say over a hundred years over ships today. The same, poor designed. Simply becouse they have better tecniecs. Saying Titanic had a poor design simply becouse of what we know today is not fair.

And on the matter of Bruce ismay i would like to know where you got that information from. - Never mind that. I looked it up and you right. It is done becouse of the weight and reduction of the fuel costs. If else they couldn't get a profit out of it. This is actually something they would deside to with the knowlage they have today. It is very commen compagnies today make that kind of desision which reduses safety to make more mony. We could make things safer but would make things unafortable. And they thought Titanic was practicly unsinkeble

Oh, and about that doubled up, With the olympic they did that after the titanic sank. Becouse something happend they thought that could never happen, meaning the damage the iceberg created.

[mvsmith]

How much imagination does it take to envision a ship hitting an iceberg? It had happened before. In case you missed the point, H&W knew she was weaker than expected. They let her sail anyway.

The information on Ismay’s and H&W’s actions comes from internal company documents in the H&W archives that became available after the new manager appointed by Fred Olsen treated the archivist so badly that he presented them to a group of investigators at Woods Hole.
We who were privy to that information had agreed to refrain from publicizing it until a book on the findings hit the stores.

The bogus reason given for enclosing the promenade deck was part of the massive cover-up by H&W and White Star. That included the addition of a crack stop to the expansion joints on O and B which was only discovered through a dive on HMHS Britannic.
I don’t fault Ismay for his actions during or after the disaster, but as White Star’s CEO he was partly responsible for Titanic being a deathtrap.

[Mad_Fred]

Poor design, inferior steel and wrought iron in plates and rivets, and a decision to send a ship suspected of being weak on a transatlantic voyage, doomed 1504 people to death.

That's all there is to it.. you cannot really compare it to modern days, Winnetou, they had what they had, and you have to compare it to that time and her peers. 

They made mistakes.. and they knew it. They were aware of the shortcommings before her maiden voyage. And thus it was poorly designed.. That's the very defenition of it. Design flaws resulting in bad quality. Also partially because of the raw material of course, which they cannot really help, unless they knew.

As I said before, just because they didn't have what WE have today, doesn't mean it was a good job, it's not like they didn't build ships before. Scale alone does not make the process unique. Those guys were just as smart as we are today, it's not like they were just winging it. But sometimes people make mistakes. And here, some were made. 

I really think, had she not hit the berg, and just done her job for a few years, she would have been scrapped 'before her time', and no one here would give her any second thought. Just an average - but once record breaking - ship, that didn't come out very good unfortunatly. And as records are broken all the time, she'd have been forgotten to all but the sailing enthusiasts.

And as far as I know, it wasn't the first time they ever saw an iceberg.. nor was it the first time a ship ever hit one.
There was a Canadian ship, I think the 'Islander', that sunk in 1900 or 1901 after hitting one that tore a big hole in her forward port quarter. And if memory serves me, there was also another case in the late 1800's, but I don't recall the details. So they could have known about the potential dangers, if they had wanted.

We can't just go around callng a ship a great design, because she 'might have done pretty good if she hadn't sunk'. That berg probably would have sunk 95% of ships in those days, had they been so carelessly 'driven into it'. So that's really a 'freak occurance' indeed. Granted. But that has no bearing on the actual quality of the design either.

So yeah, I really think that she would not have had a long service life, had she never sunk. And that's just based on what - as mvsmith said - they allready found out themselves, when she was built and when trials were done on her sister, and so on. They themselves allready found out about some of the flaws, before they went and make money with it despite needed changes. (I agree on that, money often rules out safety, and always has.)

I don't have any interest on any of the people that are involved, so who has done what, and who is to blame for what, I can't say anything about that. Although there seem to be just as many versions of the stories as there were human lives lost that night. (with 2 or 3 believable versions that I usually go for) 


Fred

[Winnetou]

"How much imagination does it take to envision a ship hitting an iceberg? It had happened before."

Yeah, it did. But not in the way the Titanic hit it. Ripping open 5 compartment. That is even rare up to today. With most accidents 2 or 3 compartments where damaged and Titanic could even stay afloat with 4!! (what they knew back then!!) That is why she was called by her builders; "practicly unsinkable" But now there where 5 compartments damaged. And that is rare even till today. So they didn't take that in account.

"The bogus reason given for enclosing the promenade deck was part of the massive cover-up by H&W and White Star. That included the addition of a crack "

Nonsense, when they talked about a cover up I hardley believe them and if it would. How mutch would it strengeth the ship and why didn't they ajusted that on the olympic while they where ajusting her after the disaster with the Titanic.

They made a great ship, even a bit better then the olympic. And i am talking about the time befor the disaster. If the disaster never happend she would have served her time just like the Olympic did. In fact, the Olimpic whas even called "the old relaible". Up to the disaster the Titanic was a great ship and FOR THAT PERIOD well designed.

However. As with EVREY design there are events happening where we have to revieuw things. And that is what happend with the titanic. Olypmpic had a major rebuild costing thousends of dollars and the building of the brittanic was stopped to ajust the original design. From then on the design would not have been great. And if we would have build a ship today with the same design it would have been a poor design. I agree on that. But that is is becouse we learned more and we know more. Don't accuse the designers for doing a poor job couse they didn't.

And for Mad_Fred. What i am trying to say is just that. We cannot judge the design on what we know today, couse then evrey design in hystory was poor. We have to look at what they knew in the period it was build. If they look back at our desings over a hundred years it would be poor too.

[Mad_Fred]

You completely missed my point and you still look at it from the 'now versus then' perspective, mate. 

Look at it from a 'then only' perspective. And then, compared to what we know was wrong - from their own accounts at that time even - and compared to other ships of the era, she was a poorly designed ship, amongst better designs in her time.

Easy as that. Not a great ship, not destined for great things at all.. But sadly though, she did become a ship of 'legend'.  Which has everything to do with the loss of life, and nothing with her quality as a vessel. But Titanic 'buffs' seem to be unable to look at those things seperatly.

So I'm not talking 'any old design is poor compared to what we have/know nowadays' I am talking  'she was poor THEN, among her peers'. Don't take modern times into account at all, that was my point. In fact, I even think the opposite is true, they used to make some things in the 'old days', that we can hardly do better these days. Old is not bad by default, to me.. On the contrary.

They knew themselves that they made mistakes, and that the ship was not as safe as it was 'designed' to be. They recorded it even, and how can their own records be nonesense, and someone's unsubstantiated thoughts be factual?

It has nothing to do with the iceberg or the disaster. That's after the fact. Some measures were taken to right some of the wrongs (design flaws, POOR desing) but nothing could have prevented the iceberg taking her down, the way she was sailed at that moment. And again, that event has NOTHING to do with the design being poor to begin with. One does not exclude the other. Had she not sunk, it would have been obvious within years.. Or did all great ships of that time have that same, inadequate steel? I suspect not.

Oh, and the incident with the Islander was pretty similar, in general terms. Something like it HAD happened, more than once too even. The details about holes and compartments is just talk after the fact and does not change the fact that they could have known there could be icebergs in those regions, and they could have known what those could do, as ships had sunk before. It was not as if no one had ever thought about icebergs before, as some make it seem. That's simply not true.

And to say that they didn't take it into account as she was 'unsinkable' anyway (like some do), then I can only say that the unsinkable myth came into life after the disaster.

Also as said before, that 4 compartment idea, that is not backed up by any fact. The water rushed in so quick, that it soon reached levels that could not be blocked anyway. If their design was poor on some area's, then I don't put much faith into the 'thought' that 4 flooded compartments would keep her afloat. It might, it might not. No way to tell that for sure, they didn't KNOW that, they ASSUMED that.. they didn't go and flood her to find out...

You almost make it sound as if EVERY ship then had similar problems, since they were all doing 'new stuff', but that's not what I was saying at all. Some were better than others, and that's always the case, in any era. And Titanic was just not as good as other ships. Not good, not great. Average and flawed at best. 

Fred