100 Years Ago.....

[kham]

Bruce Ismay; he didn't have a boat to himself, but he did take a seat in the last lifeboat to be launched. It is said that when the ship was breaking up, he turned his back on the sight. Whether or not that's true, what is , is that he was outcast from British society for the rest of his life. To save his own ass while other men were refusing seats, was a stigma that would never be shed.

The ship was the Californian; she was stopped for the night about what is now established to be about 8-10 miles to the NNW. Distress signals were not completely standardized in 1912, so the rockets throwing stars actually COULD have been fireworks, or company signals. The events reported by the watch of what they saw, and the times, correspond to what was happening aboard Titanic almost precisely. What damned her captain, was that he was informed about the sightings, but basically said dont worry about it and rolled over and went back to sleep. The real irony is that about 10 min before the collision, Californian's wireless operator messaged Titanic to tell him they were stopped in field ice. They were close enough that the signal was so loud as to hurt Titanic's operators ears; his reply , was "shut up, shut up, I am working Cape Race!" Californian's operator, shrugged, shut down and went to bed. They didn't have 24 hr radio watches then.

Titanic was already about 15 miles south of the established safe track at that time. You could argue they were taking some precautions. The problem was a milder than normal winter had calved more than average the number of bergs from Greenland, and there was more ice to be carried south in the current.

The boats she had were actually in excess of what the Board of Trade required, but the regulations were from over half a century prior, and never even considered a ship like Titanic. Andrews, the designer, had asked for more boats -- many more, but was overruled because it would 'clutter' the boat deck...

[DangerGirl]

There was recently a very good show on PBS called "Saving the Titanic," about the engineers, firemen, and electricians who volunteered to stay below decks as the ship took on water to keep a few boilers fired in order to run the generators that powered the lights and the lifeboat davits.

[kham]

Saw that one DG, was one of the better ones from last week. The history channel special was pretty good too, where they finally surveyed the entire wreck site including the debris field. One thing that caught my eye is that they STILL refuse some evidence of the breakup and sequence of events. If you are that married to your theory that you ignoring the laws of physics and how steel breaks, you need a room. Like maybe in the psych ward.

[rickyj]

Thanks for all the details...I never knew a lot of that stuff, because the 50's movie and 1997 movie ignored a lot of the details. The 50's version DID show the Califorian "ignoring" the Titanic's light-flashing signals (they showed some dude flashing a spotlight, like it was morse code or something), but the 1997 version didn't even that, nor did they ever bring up why there were only enough lifeboats for 1/2 of the people, or that the president grabbed a seat in the lifeboats, or who stayed behind to help.
So now they are like selling the boat or something? Is it belongings from inside the boat or actualy parts of the boat? I also heard they got human remains still down there as well. I wonder if they'd sell that...they whole boat should be lifted up and put in the Smithsonian and shouldnt be used to make bucks.

[Duncan Edwards]

...The real irony is that about 10 min before the collision, Californian's wireless operator messaged Titanic to tell him they were stopped in field ice. They were close enough that the signal was so loud as to hurt Titanic's operators ears; his reply , was "shut up, shut up, I am working Cape Race!" Californian's operator, shrugged, shut down and went to bed. They didn't have 24 hr radio watches then.

I started to chime in but I knew you would get it right Ken.

Titanic had the most powerful wireless transmitter afloat at the time and the proximity to the Californian nearly blew the operators earphones off. There was an equally powerful wireless in operation on the Olympic, Titanic's sister ship, which was about 500 miles away that night. The two sister ships were in regular contact that night and Olympic was boiling a wide wake to get there but was just too far away.

[Mynock]

Saw that one DG, was one of the better ones from last week. The history channel special was pretty good too, where they finally surveyed the entire wreck site including the debris field. One thing that caught my eye is that they STILL refuse some evidence of the breakup and sequence of events. If you are that married to your theory that you ignoring the laws of physics and how steel breaks, you need a room. Like maybe in the psych ward.

I don't buy that "death spiral" thing they were talking about at all. Even broken in half I can't see the stern spinning underwater with enough centrifical force to make it disinegrate. My bet still is the bottom and the keel held together long enough to drag the stern under while it was still full of air, causing it to implode.

[kham]

Spinning didn't make the stern section come unglued at the breakup point; that it was spinning in some fashion is without question, since the stern is oriented 180 degrees opposite to the heading of the bow. Implosion damage is very likely, in fact almost certain in some compartments of the stern. A combination of many factors is the likely answer. The separation point was either at or very near the surface. The one thing they never spent any time on (I suspect because it pinched some testicles) was that while they now recognize that Titanic broke at a much shallower angle (23 degrees) they still refuse to accept she broke at the bottom and the split worked up from there. The double bottom pieces show a clean break - and steel don't lie -- the upper decks were torn apart. It's amazing that some people STILL argue in the face of point-blank physical evidence

[Mynock]

In a perfect world yes, the bottom of the hull would have compressed and been crushed and the top would have been ripped apart, with the decks near the "middle" virtually untouched. That implies though that the designers knew what they were doing when designing a ship this large, which had never been done before. I think what happened here was that the double bottom and the keel were so over-engineered compared to the rest of the hull that they didn't crush, but searved as more of a hinge. They bent when the rest of the hull and superstructure broke, and the weight of the already flooded bow pulled the stern under while it was still full of air. Pop.
There's just nothing else,imho, that can explain the condition of the stern vs the condition of the bow. The front end while damaged from hitting the bottom is pretty much intact. The back end looks like it got raped by the worlds largest can opener.

[kham]

Actually, the 'missing middle' is one of the large sections of wreckage they found in a near-triangle of it and the 2 sections of double bottom, with it being the apex, out to the east

In all fairness to the builders, metalurgical analysis of 'the big piece' recovered a few years ago, as well as more recent experimenting with rivets and plates found that if anything, Titanic was massively over-engineered. She was built to the standards of the times. Not making watertight bulkheads all the way up to the main deck was a failure of imagination, if anything. Lusitania, which if anything had better watertight integrity, went down in 20 min AND rolled over. Hell, even Costa Concordia rolled over They just weren't supposed to drive her into an iceberg at 20 knots and open 5 compartments to the sea. After that, the rest was physics

[Duncan Edwards]

Hell, even Costa Concordia rolled over

Yes, but was Captain Smith drinking and making time with a hot chick when Titanic smacked the berg?