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Author Topic: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.  (Read 37205 times)

The long Build

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #25 on: May 12, 2008, 07:37:08 pm »

Re the U tube video , this was the established thought on the way in which it broke up ,
it is now reckoned that the ship actually took water further in nearer the boilers which is backed up by testimony that engineers saw water comming through from under the plates in the boiler room , or at least more centrally . But Basically the ship went into a slight v shape which cracked open the hull in that area , this also apparently is what caused  the upper area of the decks to be crushed inwards and not ripped apart , this caused one of the splits in the hull , the ship then leveled out and then started to buckle as  per the u tube video but this created a second rip in the hull which in turn created  effectively 2 splits so 3 areas of wreakage. The area of hull found had sections of the stabilisers on both the starboard and port side showing it was a complete section.

As far as I am aware no engineers survived so it was only here-say that the water coming in was true or not,  however a picture by a  surviver showing the ship sinking was dismissed as Artistic licence at the time, however his picture is now also being given more credibility.

When I watched the video It was quite interesting as it basically re wrote the way she sank.  I have the dvd somewhere and will try to find it and post further details..
I find the whole story about the Titanic a fascinating Topic and have done since I was about 12 and far before James Cameron's film came out, although I did like the Idea in the film "Raise The Titanic"

At the end of the day we will probably never really know what really happened  , but it keeps the story alive.

Larry
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: One idea.....
« Reply #26 on: May 12, 2008, 07:41:21 pm »

There remains to this day split opinions on how to deal with a scavenge fire.  If the fire is hot enough admitting steam smothering can flash off, break down into hydrogen and oxygen and significantly feed the fire.  How do you know whether it is hot enough?  I hope I never have to make the decision!
Have you read the report on the hydrogen fire that "Bulwark" had? To tell the truth, I cannot remember exactly which carrier it was...may even have been "Hermes"....but I did see the huge "clinker" that was recovered. Horrifying. Better than anything a car crusher could do.

Bryan,  Have a look at the atached souvenier from one of my very early trips to sea.  Although it looks like a stalagmite it is in fact the remains of superheater tubes from an exhaust gas boiler fire.  The curved section at the bottom is where the molten metal fell over the steam sootblowing lance at the bottom of the superheater.  I pulled this piece out from the side door just after we opened it and have kept it ever since.  You can only imagine the temperatures required to reduce boiler tubes to liquid metal like this.

By the way there is no allowance for shell plating annual reduction, only a percentage allowance for absolute reduction.  I can't tell you the details because it varies from one part of the hull to another and it may well vary between classification societies but there certainly is not an annual allowance.
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The long Build

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #27 on: May 12, 2008, 07:49:33 pm »

Here is a link to the film I watched.

It better shows what i try to describe , but you clearly see the large area of the bottom of the hull breaking away.

Goto to Breakup

www.titanic2006.com
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Colin Bishop

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #28 on: May 12, 2008, 08:27:01 pm »

Quote
The area of hull found had sections of the stabilisers

Titanic was not fitted with stabilisers, they hadn't been invented. Do you mean bilge keels?
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The long Build

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #29 on: May 12, 2008, 08:39:05 pm »

yes
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polaris

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #30 on: May 14, 2008, 07:28:33 pm »


Dear All,

One of the problems about who did what on the Bridge before the iceberg was hit, is that everybody wanted to miss it! - mind you a natural instinct for us all really... whether car, ship, or anything else. In those days hitting things with ships was frowned upon and considered 'bad form' - partic. on a maiden voyage - (and anyone involved would most probably never get any significant sea job again), so, even though hitting it head on would have been a better solution, it's a case of damned if you did and damned if you didn't.

If all engines were indeed placed full astern, it was not the best move, but, however, it is understandable. There were so many parameters with this event, and indeed the voyage as a whole obviously.

The heating of coal in bunkers is well known, and is caused by numerous things. As to the Titanic, this theory has been known for a long while, and was brought to the fore at the Enquiry. The adding of water to such a fire can indeed make things far worse, leading to a gas explosion of significant proportions. The bunker in effect becoming a very large example of a gas producer. This theory had led to an inspection of as much hull as was possible, with the view to seeing if there were tell tale indicators of hull rupturing in the vicinity of the bunkers by a gas explosion. They did find indicators - a TV prog. that I taped quite a while ago but I will see if I can find it again!

As to rivets etc., well, I agree with what someone else on here said, that any modern ship of similar size, belting a similar sized immovable object in the same way would go the same way. As to old iron and steel versus modern iron & steel, there is good argument that the 'old' was better in quite a few ways/uses. I have an 1880's 5' long 'jumper' (a hand bar rock drilling tool for slate quarries), I have never been able to damage it despite lot's of heavy use - and it doesn't seem to rust either! It bends only slightly under very heavy load (and I mean heavy), but it always returns to straight. It has a lovely ring, and the chances of getting anything of similar quality today of the same dia. is very remote.

An interesting subject all in all.

Regards, Bernard
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Martin [Admin]

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #31 on: May 14, 2008, 07:33:53 pm »

Have there been many documented case of coal bunker 'heating' or fires?
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Bryan Young

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #32 on: May 14, 2008, 07:55:28 pm »

Have there been many documented case of coal bunker 'heating' or fires?
I expect there is a heck of a lot of documentation on colliers in particular having cargo fires, and subsequent water dousing just either blew the hatch covers off or shattered the ship. When I was a pre-sea cadet the subject was well and truly drummed into us...but alas, that was 1956 and the drumming has muted. But I will quote from my ancient Nicholls Seamanship :- Keep the surface area well ventilated by taking off some of the hatch boards when weather permits. Also, the temperature in different parts of the hold should be taken daily and entered into the log. If it exceeds 77*F there is a risk of the coal being on fire.
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polaris

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #33 on: May 15, 2008, 01:32:45 pm »


Dear Martin,
 
In general, heating (&/or spontaneous combustion), is prone in anything organic; viz., grain, hay, straw, muck heaps, and even sawdust and the like if in sufficient quantity - we all know that even a small compost heap can heat up to surprising temps.. Moisture content triggering/causing decomposition being the prime cause with the latter, but with coal the sulphur content (iron pyrites), is a factor, and quite a bit depends on coal size as well of course. In coal mines, what are called 'gob fires' can start by themselves (this is areas of backfilling, and areas allowed to collapse behind the face), and in many cases in the past the only way to stop them was to flood the mine sufficient to cover that particular seam. India has some major underground seam fires that have been burning out of control for more than 20 yrs.! - they are constantly working on ways/methods of putting them out since huge amounts of coal are being wasted as the fires have spread to the seams themselves - little of which are in any was accessible. A little off Topic, but gives gnrl. background,
 
As to your question re documented cases (whether gnrl. Industrial storage or shipping), it doesn't happen very often these days, so little is heard about them. Occasionally there are colliery tip 'fires', but these are quite quickly dealt with by digging them out. The Blue Bell Railway had a slight prob. with this a few years ago when one of their embankments that had been built out of ash and waste coal took to smoldering. There are not many embankments built out of breeze today as many were used up during the late 60's and during the 70's for breeze blocks and the like - and since for road ballast.

Getting back to Titanic, I think the bunker in question held a couple of hundred tons, so no small quantity. Not sure what the screen size would have been for her boiler feed, but must have been three inch. down to 1" or so? Assuming this the 'packing' would have been quite 'tight', and the weight on the burning/smoldering zone would have allowed for quite a bit of compaction/concentration. I would not like to have been involved with emptying such a bunker!

Must get back to what I am supposed to be doing!

Regards, Bernard
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farrow

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #34 on: May 19, 2008, 06:02:02 pm »

There has already been an in depth programme on this subject, where they actually recovered a piece of the Titanic shell plating. The plate was analysed and given a sheer test. The plate was found to be metallurgy incorrect for cold waters and very brittle in comparasion to modern steel produced for cold areas. In fact the original plate sheered immediately while the newer plate bent.
The accepted theory is now the forward area  below the waterline and crucially the collision bulkhead all failed on contact.
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Martin [Admin]

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #35 on: November 03, 2008, 09:00:34 pm »

The Unsinkable Titanic.

    Channel 4 -     Mon, Nov 03 2008 - 21:00

    Drama-documentary which argues that a complicated sequence of events - rather than just an iceberg - sealed the0
    fate of the Titanic in 1912. Drawing from eyewitness testimonies and the latest research, the film contends that a
    series of misjudgments, human errors and misfortunes contributed to the demise of the seemingly unsinkable liner.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #36 on: November 03, 2008, 10:30:52 pm »

Another c**p contribution to the Titanic saga. Pathetic!
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gingyer

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #37 on: November 03, 2008, 11:24:38 pm »

Another c**p contribution to the Titanic saga. Pathetic!

Thats it colin don't sit on the fence :-))

I never saw it but I get fed up with all the theories about the sinking and what happened.
IT sank..................end of story
any lessons learned..........Yes all ship have enough lifeboats for those on board

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Martin [Admin]

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #38 on: November 04, 2008, 07:56:56 am »


Part of the program was that the builders used wrought iron rivets in steel plating instead of steel....
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banjo

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #39 on: November 04, 2008, 08:46:33 am »

 O0

Am I naive?

I thought that the programme was a clear exposition of the chain of events which led to the calamity; and also to the drowning of the sister of my Grandmother.

Whatever conclusions one can draw from evidence, dramatically produced for TV, is an individual thing.   I have firmly believed, all my life, that it was criminal negligence by the ship builders, owners and crew.  The time past since the event no way lessens that blame.

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BarryM

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #40 on: November 04, 2008, 09:01:21 am »

If Titanic was of such a sub-standard construction, how come her sisters and other vessels produced by H&W at the same time did not meet an early fate? (Ignoring those who were wartime losses.)

Barry M
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Colin Bishop

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #41 on: November 04, 2008, 09:37:44 am »

Her sister ship Olympic, built at the same time and in the same way, lasted to 1935 and became known as "Old Reliable". During her career she rammed and sunk both a U boat and the Nantucket lightship and survived a collision with HMS Hawke.

I don't really think it mattered very much what the rivets were made of, if a ship displacing around 52,000 tons hits an iceberg of 300,000 tons plus and the point of contact is a steel plate around one inch thick something is going to give. The weakest point on a riveted hull will always be the seam between two plates if only because there are a lot of holes drilled very closely together.

The programme was poorly made and the "special effects" risible. If my memory of the official documentation serves me correctly, quite a bit of it was incorrect. Also, where was Thomas Andrews? He actually designed the ship and went down with her. There was nothing new in the programme and it was inaccurate as well. 0/10 Channel 4.

Colin
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das boot

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #42 on: November 04, 2008, 08:50:06 pm »

I'll have a look later on when I pops me clogs...it's been a long term ambition of mine when I have to attend that appointment with the Grim Reaper to be buried at sea at the spot where Titanic went down.
I've been putting money away each week since I was a mere sprog and first started work, my solicitor has a copy of my burial wishes and he holds the money I've been saving...if it's at all possible then that's where I shall be going.

I have a large collection of Titanic memoribilia stored away, and also I have the keel made for a 'sinking' model of her, that's how I got into submarines, trying to make a model of her that I could hit an iceberg, sink the ship, then raise her later on. I did build an iceberg (radio controlled, just in case I missed it..)it's in storage with my memoibilia bits and pieces. The proposed Titanic model would have been 14' 4" oal...Bernie Wood nearly had kittens when he saw it.


Rich
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amdaylight

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #43 on: November 04, 2008, 09:39:49 pm »

What surprised me is there was no attempt at damage control other than closing the water tight doors. When I was going through school one of the classes was on damage control, and one thing they kept pounding into our heads was until the vessel goes under for the third time shove any thing you can find into any hole you can find that is admitting water. One of the programs that I have watched on the Titanic said that one of the builders engineers was able to look at the damage from the inside and came bake to the bridge and told them that she was going to sink. Even in Nelson's time the ships carpenter had plugs ready to shove in shot holes so this is not a new idea. Maybe this is the difference between a Naval crew and a Civilian crew. The other thing I am not sure about is, were the water tight compartments open at the top or were they closed? Some how I think I saw a computer animation showing the water cascading from one compartment to the next.

Andre
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Colin Bishop

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #44 on: November 04, 2008, 09:57:57 pm »

Yes, but the hull didn't have holes as such. The seams between the plates split well below the waterline (20 feet down or more) and the pressure would absolutely have precluded any attempts to stem the flow. Shot holes in Nelson's time tended to be "twixt wind and water", in other words along the waterline where the pressure was much less or only intermittent as the ship rolled. Also the holes tended to be round! This an entirely different situation. For deeper hull damage such as when grounding, the accepted damage control method was to "fother" the breach in the hull from the outside using a sail or something similar - not really a practical option for the Titanic!

The "builder's engineer" who assessed the damage was Thomas Andrews who was responsible for designing and building the ship.

Colin
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amdaylight

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #45 on: November 04, 2008, 10:33:46 pm »

Colin

We were showed how to take blankets and such and drive them in to cracks like shoving oakum into seams and I have friends that were bubble heads (served in subs) and they went through the same kind of school to do the same kind of thing at depth.

Andre
over yonder in Portland Oregon
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BarryM

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #46 on: November 04, 2008, 10:48:35 pm »

Andre,
Given the speed with which water was coming in, these were far more than cracks and a warehouse of duvets would not be enough.

Cheers,

Barry M
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pobolycwm

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #47 on: November 04, 2008, 11:04:40 pm »

i thought it sunk because of a ruddy great hole

didnt dirk pitt document his raising of the titanic in a classic book
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farrow

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #48 on: November 04, 2008, 11:07:00 pm »

There have been two very good programmes recently on this subject. One was recently the curse of the Titanic, which was about all three ships in the class. An basically they where compared to other large liners of the day, very old inefficient designed hulls(just jumboised version of sailing ship hulls), also the rivetting was different to other building yard practice, ie they used cold rivets made out of mild steel. Also there was a programme some time ago where they recovered a piece of her hull plating, which they analysed and stress tested. The plate was of the wrong material for cold water and easily sheered cleanly in the test where a modern piece of steel designed for cold water just buckled. At the end of the day she was a very badly designed vessel, badly built with inferior material and lacked the necessary safety requirements such as sufficient lifeboats. Her sistership the last built with enhanced safety features went down in 27minutes, where as Titanic took 2.5 to3 hours.
On Monday night there was a 1.5 hour programme investigating this event, I have yet to watch the it as I have recorded it, my wife watched the summing up and she said they where going on about her rivets.
But in those days a ship her size doing over20 knots hitting a bloody great iceberg would be enough to sink any ship and I expect even the QE2 would be a questionable survivor.
David
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Colin Bishop

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Re: One idea..... Why did the Titanic sink.
« Reply #49 on: November 04, 2008, 11:31:35 pm »

Trying to stop a leak 25 feet below the waterline would be like trying to stop a firehose by sticking a marble in it! Also, the location of the split in the hull meant that it was below water level within a few minutes in the affected compartments so the affected area would have been under several feet of ice cold water. Furthermore, I think that some of the split plates were in coal bunker areas and therefore inaccessible.

I think there were three main reasons for the sinking and loss of life.

A misjudgement was made in allowing the ship to steam at full speed through an icefield.
Incompetence in not providing the lookouts with binoculars
The Board of Trade was culpable in not updating the lifeboat provision regulations to reflect the rapidly increasing size of ships.

Colin
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