RMS Titanic sinking

[Captain Seafort]

If it passed through it, why was only one side damaged?

As I said before - the full impact was taken on the starboard bow plates due to the angle of entry, and the passage of the ship through the ice opened up a channel, preventing the ice striking either the port side or the starboard side aft of the sixth compartment

Why do reports exist of ice littering the deck of the titanic?

Again, as I said before, it was flipped onto the deck as bits of the pack broke under the impact and were partially dragged under the ship. Indeed, under the common theory of the ship striking a submerged tongue of ice, then how did the ice get aboard? The surfaced portion of the berg would have been a substantial distance from the ship's side.

Why was an iceberg with the paint scheme of the titanic photographed?

Here is a link to the photo, showing the red smear: link.

The red smear being the darker spot on the right prong of the berg? In that case I'm not sure what do make of it. I will therefore drop the argument over what exactly was on that berg. The main force of the argument was always on the Titanic's reaction to the impact, and these arguments over red smudges are merely an attempt to tidy up loose ends.

[Captain Seafort]

Push the ship away from the berg. Have you ever been on a ferry landing at dock? I have, several hundred times, and each time it's just a collision, one damped by rubber bumpers but a collision nonetheless, and oftentimes you're substantially recoilled to port or starboard or aft depending on where you hit and at what angle. Remember that the penetration into the hull was something that's best measured in inches.

Very well. However, how many of these observations you mention involved the ship travelling at full speed with the rudder hard over? While I understand your point that there would be substantial recoil, this would be imparted at the point of impact - the starboard bow. In the meantime the rudder was still hard over and the stern was still coming round to starboard. I don't see how the slight impact on the bow would be sufficient to keep the stern clear.

Not necessarily. The direction of velocity of the iceberg's drift is also crucial, and again, I have seen a four thousand tonne object recoil by a couple dozen feet--I've been on it when it happened--after striking a solid fixed object. And note that such an impact entails no damage whatsoever. Also the ship's velocity will be substantially less than before. She is slowing down, she is losing velocity from turning, and then she will lose more from the impact. She will both recoil and no longer be contributing nearly as much energy into later impacts, should they occur.

In other words she would have repeatedly struck the berg - just not hard enough to do damage. Very well. In that case consider the argument conceded.

And finally, does he ever provide a satisfactory explanation for why this supposed floating sheet of pack ice didn't hamper the handling of the lifeboats in the water? Because under those conditions its drift would not be at a very great speed whatsoever.

Not much - simply that the ship went straight through the pack and out the other side, so she was well clear by the time the boats started launching.

[Thanas]

What are your qualifications to judge this occurrence? And please start quoting from the book so that we can have a look at the arguments ourselves.

[Captain Seafort]

What are your qualifications to judge this occurrence?

Three-quarters of bugger all. The reason I'm arguing it is based on my assumption that an experienced ice pilot like Collins is qualified to judge what happened.

In any event, as I said above, based on my exchange with the Duchess regarding the likely reactions of a ship hitting an iceberg, I concede the argument.

[Thanas]

What are your qualifications to judge this occurrence?

Three-quarters of bugger all. The reason I'm arguing it is based on my assumption that an experienced ice pilot like Collins is qualified to judge what happened.

In any event, as I said above, based on my exchange with the Duchess regarding the likely reactions of a ship hitting an iceberg, I concede the argument.

Which part, though - the part where you deny the Titanic hit an iceberg at all or the part where you argue about the likely outcome of a head-on collision.

That said, I would still like to read the excerpts from the book, out of intellectual curiosity alone.

[Isolder74]

No matter how qualified you think your source is, that does not change the fact that on the following day NO pack ice was reported.

As the debris on the surface was incapable of drifting on the conditions of that night, if the ship had struck pack ice and 'plowed' through it then rescue ships would have had to have pushed through it to reach the site especialy the California which would have been on the other side. Multiple small icebergs were reported but pack ice was not.

[Captain Seafort]

Which part, though - the part where you deny the Titanic hit an iceberg at all or the part where you argue about the likely outcome of a head-on collision.

The iceberg vs pack ice argument. I was basing that on the assertion that the length of the ship abaft the pivot point would have come round hard enough to rip open the entire hull. While the Duchess' arguments have not convinced me that the midships and aft hull could have avoided the berg, she has certainly convinced me that any damage inflicted by those impacts would probably have been superficial.

I'm not sure which arguments about a head-on collision you're referring to. My understanding was that it was generally agreed that a head-on collision, be it with a berg or a pack, would have been survivable (or at least more survivable than teh damage sustained.

That said, I would still like to read the excerpts from the book, out of intellectual curiosity alone.

Sure. The key bit about the ship's behaviour before and during the collision is as follows:

After a vessel, moving ahead at a speed of 37 feet per second, with a hard-to-port rudder that is kept at hard-to-port, has run her starboard bow onto any object, let alone an iceberg, it is physically impossible for that vessel to brush her starboard side along that object. To do so would defy the hydrodynamic reactions of a vessel under way.

A conventional ship steaming ahead steers somewhat similarly to a bus driving in reverse. An appropriate analogy, then, to the Titanic's hydrodynamic reaction at the time of impact is the physical reaction of a bus that has been driving in reverse for 40 kilometres an hour, its steering wheel turned completely to the right, when the left corner of its rear fender strikes against a solid, immoveable object. If the bus's speed is maintained and its steering wheel is kept hard to the right, the whole side of the bus, from the point of impact to the other end, will be completely destructed. For the side of the bus to simply brush against the object and escape wholesale damage is impossible.

A vessel turns or pivots about its pivot point, a point on its axis whose position and mobility are important to ship handling. The pivot point is not fixed, but when the vessel is steaming through deep water at full speed, the pivot point is about a quarter of the ship's length from the bow (in the vicinity of the bridge area on the Titanic). All of this is crucial to note when attempting to swing away from a dangerous object.

Rounding an object "close aboard" requires precise judgement and adaptability. To avoid or to minimise contact damage should an iceberg, for example, be encountered unexpectedly at close quarters, the rudder must be put hard over away from the iceberg. The engine speed must be increased, if not already at full speed ahead. The instant the bow clears or hits the iceberg, the rudder must be put hard over the other way and the engine speed maintained. This is vital in preventing the hull abaft the pivot point from striking the iceberg.

There is no evidence that First Officer Murdoch executed the last manoeuvres, and with only 37 seconds of time, from the giving of the orders to the moment of impact, there would have been no time to carry out his order to go full speed astern. In other words, there was nothing mitigate the force of the impact.

An iceberg 55 to 60 feet above the water extends 150 to 180 feet below the water - a sheer mass of the hardest glacial ice. If the Titanic, travelling at full speed ahead, had hit an iceberg, the force of the impact would have been equal to a momentum of 52,310 tons displacement moving at 37 feet per second. The kinetic energy of the impact would have been enormous. A major part of this energy would have been absorbed almost instantly by the destruction of the ship's hull. The starboard bow contact would have caused a pronounced sheer to port. This, coupled, with the thrust of three propellers at full speed ahead against a hard-to-port rudder, would have caused the whole starboard side of the hull and superstructure to be crushed against the iceberg, while the ship continued to move at full speed ahead. Certainly the hull and possibly the superstructure on the starboard side would have been rent. In all probability the ship would have flooded, capsized and sunk within minutes.

[Ziggy Stardust]

After a vessel, moving ahead at a speed of 37 feet per second, with a hard-to-port rudder that is kept at hard-to-port, has run her starboard bow onto any object, let alone an iceberg, it is physically impossible for that vessel to brush her starboard side along that object.

Wait ...did you misquote this? Because this is in direct contradiction to the rest of the excerpt, where he is saying that it is physically impossible for the ship to AVOID brushing her starboard side along that object.

A conventional ship steaming ahead steers somewhat similarly to a bus driving in reverse. An appropriate analogy, then, to the Titanic's hydrodynamic reaction at the time of impact is the physical reaction of a bus that has been driving in reverse for 40 kilometres an hour, its steering wheel turned completely to the right, when the left corner of its rear fender strikes against a solid, immoveable object. If the bus's speed is maintained and its steering wheel is kept hard to the right, the whole side of the bus, from the point of impact to the other end, will be completely destructed. For the side of the bus to simply brush against the object and escape wholesale damage is impossible.

If the object is immoveable. Is there any evidence that the iceberg is immoveable? Wouldn't the gigantic energy of the collision also force the iceberg to move?

An iceberg 55 to 60 feet above the water extends 150 to 180 feet below the water - a sheer mass of the hardest glacial ice.

Is it really possible to so reliably estimate the underwater dimensions of an iceberg? My impression is that it is highly variable. Between melting, chunks breaking off, and the iceberg "turning over," the dimensions over time are going to be highly dynamic. Hell, even more than the dimensions, we have the shape. If the side of the Titanic hit a jagged outcrop that also broke off with the initial collision, and the force caused both the ship and the berg to shift, then I can easily see how it avoided any significant damage to the rest of its length.

[Captain Seafort]

Wait ...did you misquote this? Because this is in direct contradiction to the rest of the excerpt, where he is saying that it is physically impossible for the ship to AVOID brushing her starboard side along that object.

What he's saying is that the ship won't brush along the berg - she'll smash into it and rip the entire starboard side open. The emphasis is on the nature of the contact, not the fact of it.

If the object is immoveable. Is there any evidence that the iceberg is immoveable? Wouldn't the gigantic energy of the collision also force the iceberg to move?

I assume he's treating the berg as relatively static due to the enormous drag of the underwater component.

Is it really possible to so reliably estimate the underwater dimensions of an iceberg? My impression is that it is highly variable. Between melting, chunks breaking off, and the iceberg "turning over," the dimensions over time are going to be highly dynamic. Hell, even more than the dimensions, we have the shape.

While the absolute dimensions will be variable, the relative dimensions will be pretty static - about 90 per cent of the berg will be below the water, which agrees pretty well with the numbers Collins states.

If the side of the Titanic hit a jagged outcrop that also broke off with the initial collision, and the force caused both the ship and the berg to shift, then I can easily see how it avoided any significant damage to the rest of its length.

Agreed, and that's what caused me to change my mind - a combination of the movement of the Titanic's bow away from the berg due to the impact, minor (and probably inconsequential) movement of the berg itself, loss of seaway due to the turn and the impact, and the minor nature of the original impact. I still don't see any way the ship could have avoided striking the berg along her starboard side, but I can see the initial impact taking enough of the sting that those subsequent impacts didn't pierce the hull (or, if they did, only went through the outer layer of the double bottom).

[Guardsman Bass]

The solution was simple, counter flood the stern and double bottom tanks. This was not done because counter flooding was not an idea anyone really trained to do at the time, and even in warships it was a novel concept. Counter flooding might not have have saved her from sinking outright, but it would have delayed sinking long enough for Carpathia to show up.

That's certainly part of it, although the Captain was also likely drying to keep the rest of the boiler and engine rooms as dry as possible in order to keep the power going.

[CaptHawkeye]

Mike said it somewhere else, but I think it's worth repeating that ultimately a disaster like Titanic was bound to happen. Private companies were operating in an enviornment where they answered to very few regulations. Like any other company, Cunard was just too concerned with making money then to seriously concern themselves with potential design flaws.

Though it's worth pointing out that a lot of the usual arguments like "not enough lifeboats" aren't well thought out. At the time, lifeboat requirements were based on a ship's tonnage, not the number of passengers and crew it had aboard. This meant that pretty much every major liner at the time was operating on much less than the necessary number of lifeboats that were needed. Titanic alone was not guilty of this. The Titanic actually had more than the legal minimum of lifeboats.

[Thanas]

Mike said it somewhere else, but I think it's worth repeating that ultimately a disaster like Titanic was bound to happen. Private companies were operating in an enviornment where they answered to very few regulations. Like any other company, Cunard was just too concerned with making money then to seriously concern themselves with potential design flaws.

White Star.

And in contrast to White Star, Cunard actually had an excellent record.

[Captain Seafort]

Mike said it somewhere else, but I think it's worth repeating that ultimately a disaster like Titanic was bound to happen. Private companies were operating in an enviornment where they answered to very few regulations. Like any other company, Cunard was just too concerned with making money then to seriously concern themselves with potential design flaws.

Titanic was White Star Line, not Cunard

Though it's worth pointing out that a lot of the usual arguments like "not enough lifeboats" aren't well thought out. At the time, lifeboat requirements were based on a ship's tonnage, not the number of passengers and crew it had aboard. This meant that pretty much every major liner at the time was operating on much less than the necessary number of lifeboats that were needed. Titanic alone was not guilty of this. The Titanic actually had more than the legal minimum of lifeboats.

Indeed. She also had more than enough space on her davits to evacuate everyone aboard. The problem was that carrying those boats would have cluttered the boat deck, and leaving enough space for a Sunday afternoon stroll is obviously far more important than getting everyone off if the ship sinks.

[CaptHawkeye]

Whoops, my bad. Anyway, it's interesting to note that pretty much every ship related to, or involved in the Titanic disaster did not survive World War 1. Other than Olympic. Brittanic struck a mine, Carpathia and Californian were both torpedoed and sunk. World War 1 was not a friendly enviornment for shipping it seemed.

On the other hand, Olympic had a long, and impressive career during both peace time and the war.

[Captain Seafort]

On the other hand, Olympic had a long, and impressive career during both peace time and the war.

As did the ship the Olympic-class were intended to counter - Mauretania. Her sister didn't do quite so well unfortunately.

[Sea Skimmer]

That's certainly part of it, although the Captain was also likely drying to keep the rest of the boiler and engine rooms as dry as possible in order to keep the power going.

The ship had several compartments aft of the engine room that could have been flooded. If Titanic had enough pumping capacity able to pump into those compartments to make counterflooding really effective I don't know. However most ships of that time still used a 'main drain' system in which all compartments drained into one set of pipes. So it should have been possible to pump water out of the flooding bow and into the stern directly which is ideal.

On the other hand, Olympic had a long, and impressive career during both peace time and the war.

Didn't she ram a Royal Navy cruiser and tear off a shaft while doing so?

[Captain Seafort]

Didn't she ram a Royal Navy cruiser and tear off a shaft while doing so?

Technically she didn't ram Hawke - it was the other way round. In any event the result was two flooded compartments and unspecified damage to the starboard shaft. She also rammed and sank the Nantucket Lightship.

Then again, she survived WW1 and her career lasted a quarter of a century, so she didn't do too badly.

[Night_stalker]

@Thanas: yeah, Cunard's safety regs had no problem allowing 5 million rifle rounds, plus tons of shrapnel shells, PLUS guncotton onboard the Lusitania during it's final voyage. Note, I don't want to start a debate over the Lusitania's sinking. They also allowed the Lusitania to remain on the Royal Navy's auxilary merchent cruiser list, despite being told in I believe 1915 that they had no desire in her as a cruiser. I think they had no say in the cruiser listing however.

[Sea Skimmer]

They had no say. Ships were listed as auxiliaries based on the British government having subsidized construction. The RN however gave up on the fast liners very quickly as patrol ships, because they burned far too much coal. Service as troopers and hospital ships was much more worthwhile.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

[

Very well. However, how many of these observations you mention involved the ship travelling at full speed with the rudder hard over? While I understand your point that there would be substantial recoil, this would be imparted at the point of impact - the starboard bow. In the meantime the rudder was still hard over and the stern was still coming round to starboard. I don't see how the slight impact on the bow would be sufficient to keep the stern clear.

Cavitation. The ship will be abruptly slowed down by the impact and an abrupt change in speed against the inclination of the thrust from the screws, to speak informally, will cause an enormous amount of cavitation around the screws and rudder. Also what thrust there is will find it easier to pivot the ship along the iceberg. And remember that the force actually involved in the collision--it was just a glancing blow--will be far less than the total possible. The stern probably did hit the iceberg, but at a very low velocity from pivoting while forward progress was sharply checked, and in a different place that lacked an ice spur. That is speculation but I believe it reasonable.

In other words she would have repeatedly struck the berg - just not hard enough to do damage. Very well. In that case consider the argument conceded.

More or less.

Not much - simply that the ship went straight through the pack and out the other side, so she was well clear by the time the boats started launching.

That would have caused problems for Carpathia, then, as she steamed north 52 degrees west to reach the Titanic. And eccentric British captains looking to make a buck with dubious science are not new; Menzies commanded a submarine before writing 1421.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

If the Titanic, travelling at full speed ahead, had hit an iceberg, the force of the impact would have been equal to a momentum of 52,310 tons displacement moving at 37 feet per second. The kinetic energy of the impact would have been enormous. A major part of this energy would have been absorbed almost instantly by the destruction of the ship's hull.

I really, really dislike (and mistrust) this style of writing. He states the mass and the speed but is too lazy to work out the momentum. An enormous kinetic energy? With the mass and the speed, he can work that out too, but apparently he thinks 'enormous' is an adequate quantification of that energy. Just how much is a 'major part of this energy'? How does he justify his conclusion that a 'major part of this energy would have been absorbed almost instantly by the destruction of the ship's hull'?

Personally, this sounds like writing simply to make a buck off a pet theory. If he's serious, he really should go the extra length.

[Marcus Aurelius]

If the Titanic, travelling at full speed ahead, had hit an iceberg, the force of the impact would have been equal to a momentum of 52,310 tons displacement moving at 37 feet per second. The kinetic energy of the impact would have been enormous. A major part of this energy would have been absorbed almost instantly by the destruction of the ship's hull.

I really, really dislike (and mistrust) this style of writing. He states the mass and the speed but is too lazy to work out the momentum. An enormous kinetic energy? With the mass and the speed, he can work that out too, but apparently he thinks 'enormous' is an adequate quantification of that energy. Just how much is a 'major part of this energy'? How does he justify his conclusion that a 'major part of this energy would have been absorbed almost instantly by the destruction of the ship's hull'?

Personally, this sounds like writing simply to make a buck off a pet theory. If he's serious, he really should go the extra length.

Considering L M Collins; I haven't read his book, but I found this interesting quote from Samuel Halpern summarizing some of Collins' rather bizarre theories in Encyclopedia Titanica:

There has been much speculation over the years since the discovery of the wreck to explain these positions. Some of these explanations are quite imaginative, almost bordering on the absurd. In 2002, Captain L. Marmaduke Collins suggested that Boxhall’s CQD position was correct, but it was the submerged hulk of the Titanic, still holding some buoyancy from trapped air inside, that was carried by strong underwater currents until it came to rest several miles to the east from the CQD position. Capt. Collins also believes Titanic did not strike an iceberg, but instead struck a patch of pack ice. He also believes that the ship later broke in two while on the bottom of the Atlantic from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake centered about 100 miles from the wreck site on November 18, 1929.

Collins has also contributed a few articles to ET.

[CaptHawkeye]

That's ridiculous. He believes that a earthquake split the ship in two on the bottom and carried the stern hundreds of meters away from the bow? This guy is the RSA of the Titanic.

[Isolder74]

It's also too bad for him that the finding of the ships in two was something that actually confirmed eyewitness reports that the hearings had dismissed all those years before. This was only confirmed several times over with the finding of two sections of the underside hull between the sections of the ship. They show that the ships did indeed split apart during the process of sinking with little room to speculate.

The site itself shows that the bow settled to the bottom fairly gently while the stern hit hard when it reached the bottom further confirming that the ship had sunk in two separate sections. Debris from inside the vessel was scattered in a large area between the two sites which was how they were both located. The first bit that was confirmed from the wreck was a boiler.

[Night_stalker]

If the ship snapped in 2 on impact, then how is the wreckage split into 2 distinct parts? He forgot to answer that quiestion.