I agree that avoiding should be the adopted action. Had the officer in charge slammed bow on, he would have been critiziced for not trying to avoid the berg. There is one more think that is overlooked: Titanic would have survived had it not been for a fire in a coal bunker, that weakened the bulkhead between the 1st and 2nd boiler room (from memory) and allowed the water to fill the one more compartment needed to ultimately doom her.
If I recall correctly, the fire was in the forward reserve coal bunker located in the fourth compartment from the bow, not in the coal bunkers between the 1st and second boiler rooms. This bunker was at the bottom of hold #2 and ran along the starboard side of the firemen's passage. It did intersect a portion of the bulkhead which bounded the forward boiler room in the fifth compartment, but only close to the center line of the ship. The fire itself was a smoldering fire and two men from each watch were assigned to keep an eye on it and keep the coal watered down so that it would not get out of hand. The damage from the iceberg extended several feet into the forward boiler room and it is probable that the bulkhead itself was damaged not by the fire but by the iceberg itself.
The former Harland & Wolf archivist Tom MucCluskie, author of several books on the Olimpic Class vessels concur in that the Titanic would have lasted at least long enough for the Carphatia to reach the site and save more people.
I think this is a red herring. Either the gentlemen has been missquoted or he is wrong. Thomas Andrews, who designed and built the ship and was on board to see first hand what the damage was, estimated she had only an hour to an hour and a half to live. That the ship lasted an hour longer than Andrews thought she would is a testament to the dedication and toil of the engineering staff who stayed at their posts to keep power on and the pumps working until the last possible moment, rather than an indictment of a weak design that failed and brought about a catastrophic sinking hours sooner than it should have.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
Hi Tommy. According to Garzke´s, the impact damaged heavily the three holds and the forward boiler room (6th), and lightly boiler room 5th. The water entering boiler room 5th could be dealed with with the pumps, so at first there were four compartments (three holds plus one boiler room) flooded, with what she could have remained afloat. At a point the bulkhead between boiler rooms 6th and 5th failed, allowing water in at a rate much higher than that which the pumps could manage, at this point she became doomed. Why did this bulkhead failed? According to the author, the sum of hydrostatic pressure plus the damage from the coal fire, which when inspected a few days into the voyage have shown signs of distortion.
Hi marcelo .
I think you have to define "Failed" . Watertightness was not an absolute as it is today with fully welded hulls ( like the boast "We actually DUST our bilges ! " )
nor was merchant ship subdivision as comprehensive as that in a warship of the time . You couldnt "pressure test" a Titanic comparment like you can a W T compartment today ,
( you put an air line into it , boost the pressure a bit above atmospheric and then watch the guage to see if there is an air leak -- if there is , then water can leak too and you have a problem )
because the W T Bulkheads in the main spaces were only a certain height in the hull and the deck over was not W T .
Weepy seams and rivets were a usual state of affairs , but what mattered was the ability of your bilge pumps to deal with the inflow .I would think that the bulkhead was merely DESIGNED to be " water tight " but as you couldn't test for that ( filling one big comparment full of water while it's neigbours are empty is a very good way of ripping your ship in half ) in reality it wept like a good'un , and that what you have is yet more "progressive flooding" , not a problem in isolation , but in this case adding to the overload on the pumps .
" Relax ! No-one else is going to be fool enough to be sailing about in this fog ."
Ah yes, my error. The compartments open to the sea were, forepeak, hold numbers 1, 2, and 3, and boiler room number 6; the damage extended two feet into boiler room number 5. The forepeak is considered a compartment of its own, so the first five were open to the sea and flooding out, while the sixth was taking on water but the pumps for a while were able to keep up with the inflow.
Broadly speaking, the eventual flooding out of boiler room 5 did not doom the Titanic, as she was already doomed with the first five compartments open to the sea.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
Hammy, the book says something like "the water was entering slowly and suddenly it started entering faster", so boiler room 5 had to be evacuated. I think they don´t know for sure what actually happened to the bulkhead.
Tommy, I think that the forepeak was not included in the forwardmost four compartments that could be flooded, I believe the book says that until the bulkhead failure the ship could remain afloat, I will dig into the book to confirm.
The issues of Titanic possibly surviving by hitting the iceberg head-on were previously discussed in another thread started by me some two years ago. The conclusion of that thread was the same as this one, namely the speed the Titanic was doing would have forced enough of the ship into the berg to sink it. Had Titanic been doing two or three knots slower when the berg was sighted, then survival by collision is more likely, or at least enable the ship to float longer than it actually did, possibly until Carpathia arrived.
I believe Marcelo that the story of the alleged coal fire in the bunker weakening the bulkhead has been debunked as another creation of the Titanic writers' industry.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
Robert, Garzke mentions witnesses telling the paint had been burned inside the bunker ´cause of the fire, and they applying oil to the exposed surfaces to avoid rusting.
I cannot recall the sources, but this was discussed at length and the conclusion seems to be that the claims were sufficiently exaggerated as to not materially affect the impact of the berg. Fire or no fire the ship sank.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
I haven't read Garzke's book on Titanic, but at least in others, the calculations have always included the forepeak as the first of the five flooded compartments when figuring if the ship could have survived or not.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
No one actually saw the extense of the damage itself, just the flooded comparments some minutes after the hit.
There is a statement here, in the thread, about Thomas Andrews himself giving Titanic "one hour or one and a half hours" to sink. I do recall it´s a plotline in Cameron´s movie so I´m wandering if it actually happened, him saying so. Because he died and those with him, with the exception of Bruce Ismay, also died.
Best regards,
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. Sir Winston Churchill
it would appear he did say so. Captain Smith had requested Andrews to take a look and assess the damage, and he and fifth officer Lowe made a quick tour of the damaged compartments. The ship's officers had in the mean time assembled on the bridge and were present when Andrews delivered his assessment that the damage to the Titanic was mortal and that it would be advisable to begin mustering the passengers to abandon ship. Of the assembled officers, Second Officer Lightoller, Fourth Officer Boxhall, and Fifth Officer Lowe, and Third Officer Pittman survived; Captain Smith, Chief Officer Wilde, First officer Murcdoch, and sixth officer Moody did not. It is probable that those who did not hear it directly probably were briefed by their seniors.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
Well, this afternoon at History Channel everything related to the expedition and results of it was exposed. As a matter of fact it became pretty conclusive which is not the usual way HC does things (leaving everything up in the air).
If that's acknowledged as serious then it seems that the "joint" theory will be the definitive thing.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. Sir Winston Churchill
