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Message |
    
miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 78
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 6:59 am: | 
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I have always thought about what the Titanic looked liked as a wreck in 1912. We have seen all the great paintings and photo's of how she looks now. But it would be interesting to see a detailed depiction of how she looked 92 years ago. How did the Grand Staircase area look ? Most I understand broke away but still...
I'd also be interested to see how she looked at an in-between stage. Maybe 1930's,1940's,1950's when she would have been much more intact but still very much a ghostly wreck.
Anyway I'd be Fascinated to see a series of paintings or even models like this.
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Sahand Miraminy
Member
Username: deathoftitanic
Post Number: 234
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 4:03 pm: |
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Hey Miles!
I thought I was the only one to wonder this! Imagine all the public rooms right after the sinking. It would be really neat seeing the beautiful rooms under water. Sometimes I also think about the thousands and thousands of light bulbs imploding while she was making her trip to the bottom when the water pressure became more intense.
All The Best, Sahand
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miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 81
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 5:52 pm: |
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Well I imagine most of us want to see something, which is recognisable from the Titanic when we see footage or pictures of the wreck other than other than rust. That is why the Ghosts Of the Abyss footage was good. It showed us better pictures of the Titanic’s interior than we had seen before. But still it is often hard to make things out. That’s why I wonder what the Titanic would have looked liked 50/60 years ago. She still would have been a ghostly wreck but more intact. The further you go back the more intact she would become. It would fascinating to see photo realistic picture’s showing how the Titanic might have looked at various stages of decay.
Talking about light bulbs exploding when the Titanic finally went under author Athur C Clarke (he is also very interested in the Titanic) talks about the air pockets that could have survived once the ship was fully submerged. In one of his books he mentions air pockets surviving in the Titanic refrigerators. I wonder if this would have been possible. Could some people have survived in the ship in some sort of air pocket once she had submerged? |
Bryan R. Carroll
Member
Username: brcarroll
Post Number: 11
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 6:26 pm: |
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Theoretically, maybe for some short distance down. There is another thread somewhere that speaks to the characteristics of air pockets as the sea's pressure increases with depth- I neglected to bookmark it. Essentially, the air pockets become smaller and more compressed as the depth increases, until the air is forced into the water. A poster named 'Yuri' wrote on another thread, an account of what one could expect trapped in such an air pocket during the fall.
If Titanic's refrigerators were anything like what we know today, they'd likely have imploded at a couple of hundred feet.
There is only one way that I could (even theoretically) imagine (temporarily) surviving the trip- the 'Thank God for Southby' scenario. In Cussler's 'Raise the Titanic', a character seals himself into a vault on board, shortly before the plunge.
I have no idea how well a sealed bank-vault would hold up under the pressure, and of course, I have never heard of anybody ever doing this, outside of literary fiction. |
Wesley Burton
Member
Username: 1812
Post Number: 24
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 8:54 pm: |
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I doubt a vault of that era could withstand the pressure. Even vaults today would have to be very strong to survive. And I would personally rather have the thing implode than suffocate.
I have been thinking about the same thing for a while. I was even wondering what the ship may have looked like had they found her in 1980. I would love to see paintings of the ship of what she may have looked like 60 years agoe. Or thereabouts. |
Mike Bull
Member
Username: slipway
Post Number: 320
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, May 7, 2004 - 5:51 pm: |
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I've often wondered what she looked like on the bottom initially too, once the all silt had settled.
Mike
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monica ahll
Member
Username: monica
Post Number: 364
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 1:49 pm: |
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A grim subject to speculate upon. I've read somewhere that implosion would have caused instantaneous death when it happened, but I can't help thinking ghastly things would have happened first to eyes, nose, ears etc. So I would still much rather have been on deck and gone into the freezing briny, much as I hate cold water (I don't even like the Med, has to be the Caribbean before I plunge in happily). Mind you, with my lack of subcutaneous insulation, I'd have had cardiac arrest the moment I hit the water - hydrocution, I think it's called. One of the few interesting and reliable facts documented by friend Gardiner....d'you know, in the UK there are people who break the ice (if any nowadays) on a lake in Hyde Park and go for a swim on Boxing Day - I expect you have similar lunatics in the States. |
miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 85
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 2:19 pm: |
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But if people were trapped inside the Titanic as she went under ( and there must have been quite a few ) surly they would have died before the ghastly things you say would have happened. But the question is would there have been compartments in the Titanic where people would have survived once she went under.... Even if it were for a very short period ? Is this more than likely ? |
monica ahll
Member
Username: monica
Post Number: 366
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 5:19 pm: |
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That's what we're discussing - air pockets in which people might have survived. Doesn't bear thinking about. |
miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 88
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 5:28 pm: |
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Why dose it not bear thinking about ? I only got the idea from Athur C Clarke, he's also very interested in the Titanic. I met him a few times in Sri Lanka ( he lived near me at the time in Kandy ) and he thought it was possible. |
miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 89
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 5:31 pm: |
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He also writes about it in one of his books but I can not remember which one. |
Paul Rogers
Member
Username: progers
Post Number: 371
Registered: 11-2000
| | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 9:47 pm: |
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Hi Monica!
quote:Mind you, with my lack of subcutaneous insulation, I'd have had cardiac arrest the moment I hit the water - hydrocution, I think it's called.
With my overabundance of subcutaneous insulation, I'd have survived for hours! I was sunbathing on the beach last Summer and a group of kids tried to roll me back into the sea... |
David F. Smith
Member
Username: davidinhartford
Post Number: 176
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 12:10 am: |
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How about the reverse? We see fish swimming around the ship at that depth. If the pressure would implode a vault down there, then wouldn't these fish explode if brought up to the surface where the was no such pressure on them? A silly thought yes, but it makes you wonder if the same fish could survive swimming near the surface.
As for being trapped in an air pocket when the ship went under, the lights would have been out after the stern separated and the room turned on end making for a very scary, albeit short ride.
David |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 8604
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 3:18 am: |
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>>Why dose it not bear thinking about ?<<
For some, I'm sure that thinking about something like this would be a wellspring for nightmares. The practical reality is however that the pressure would have collapsed just about anything sort of a very sturdy bank vault with extremely thick walls as soon as the stern section reached about 600 feet or so. Assuming anybody was still alive in any of the effected spaces, the creaking and groaning of metal under the increasing pressure meant that they would have known it was coming befor the space caved in.
Sweet dreams. 
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 96
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 12:48 pm: |
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Yeah I can see why some people would not want to think about this.
But imagine being trapped inside once she had gone under ? I suppose these people would not have had much idea what was going on. But they would have surly felt movement of the ship moving very quickly down into the sea.
Also I understand the reason why the stern was so deformed was because of all the air inside trying to get out, so there must have been such compartments with air inside where people could have lasted a short period submerged in a sunken Titanic as she made her way to the bottom. |
Alicia Coors
Member
Username: snowbunny
Post Number: 150
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 10:09 pm: |
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There was no air inside the stern "trying to get out." Any air in spaces open to the sea would have been compressed to ambient pressure every step of the way, and any sealed spaces would have contained air at sea-level pressure until they imploded.
In any event, those within the ship wouldn't have felt the pressure increasing, because they would all have drowned within a dozen or two feet of the surface.
The human body is not crushed by pressure at depth - the current free diving record is 170 meters, well over 500 feet. |
monica ahll
Member
Username: monica
Post Number: 368
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 10:54 pm: |
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Well, I hope you're right Alicia. I don't like to think of people with eardrums popping or very much worse etc., but I'm still not so sure. Re the ambient pressure, that's the answer to the fish question above, isn't it? Deep sea fish don't 'explode' if brought to the surface because the pressure inside them equals the pressure outside. Many deepsea fish surface at night (as Inger can testify via her dive boat odessy's...)? |
Inger Sheil
Moderator
Username: isheil
Post Number: 2622
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2004 - 2:10 am: |
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quote:Deep sea fish don't 'explode' if brought to the surface because the pressure inside them equals the pressure outside. Many deepsea fish surface at night (as Inger can testify via her dive boat odessy's...)?
Depends on what we define as 'deep sea', but some marine animals do traverse quite a range of depth. I've seen photos of an oarfish near the surface, taken by divers, although usually they'd only be seen there if sick or dying. This one was still alive. The Chambered Nautilus is capable of migrating from depths of 450m to within 90m or less of the surface. Gas in their chambered shell enables them to maintain a neutral bouyancy and accounts for their remarkable range. Because they came up at night, dive boats adopted the practice of setting traps for them overnight, then releasing them during the day so divers could photograph them in daylight conditions. Unfortunately, so I heard recently, the return trip to the depths at that time of day left them open to greater danger, and the practice is now discouraged. Marine mammals, such as sperm whales and Weddell seals, can dive to remarkable depths.
Marine biologists collecting at depths of, say, 200 feet take a needle to pierce the swim bladder of specimens they collect in order to avoid the problems associated with gas expansion.
Free divers do indeed make it to remarkable depths, but there are physical adaptations and effects that take place during their dives. Among the many things that happen to the human body under pressure, the spleen compresses and releases extra blood cells which assists trained divers, and the lungs compress. Current theory on shallow water blackout - one of the biggest problems facing freedivers - suggests that the problem arises when re-expanding lungs 'suck' oxygen from the diver's blood. |
Christine Geyer
Member
Username: christinegeyer
Post Number: 377
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2004 - 11:25 am: |
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I think the imagination of a dozen people, mysteriously having survived the sinking and spooking around the sunken wreck in an air pocket sounds like a story for a creepy movie.
From what I understand, if a human body is imperilled great depths the air filled spaces in compressible areas of the human body like lungs, middle ears, sinuses, nasal passages, stomach and intestines shrink so much that the blood leaves the capillaries to fill in the spaces. The record in free diving lies at about 120 metres depth (= 393,7 feet). If that's the limit a human body can go I wouldn't want to imagine how it would crush these organs it in 2.5 miles depth. I'd say there's no chance that anybody trapped inside the ship would've reached the bottom alive.
Regards
Christine
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miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 101
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2004 - 11:36 am: |
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Yes I agree Christine. No way would they have survived until the Titanic reached the bottom, but even a surviving just a few feet below the surface trapped in the ship would be pretty awful... And that is what I am wondering. Is it more than likely even if it were just for a small period of time would some people have experienced this - even if it were for just 3/4 minutes. |
Christine Geyer
Member
Username: christinegeyer
Post Number: 379
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2004 - 1:35 pm: |
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I'd imagine those enclosed in the ship experienced those final moments like a trauma. Loosing the ground under their feet, the ingress of the water, furniture and/or instruments breaking loose and assailing onto them... It must've been hell. I doubt they had much time and given the circumstances that's probably the best that could happen to those poor souls.
Regards
Christine |
Inger Sheil
Moderator
Username: isheil
Post Number: 2625
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 3:10 am: |
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G'day Christine! How goes my favourite Bailey's lifter?
quote:I think the imagination of a dozen people, mysteriously having survived the sinking and spooking around the sunken wreck in an air pocket sounds like a story for a creepy movie.
Already been done, hasn't it? Not with the Titanic, but a fictional vessel in a miniseries? I still have unwelcome flashes of it when I'm diving wrecks and I look in portals. Can't help but recall the scene that has a diver look in a portal, only to be suddenly met by a face looking out! As ridiculously, laughably far-fetched as the scenario was, there was something terribly eerie about it. Something similar was shown in an episode of Seaquest DSV, tied in with a ghost story. Of course you had to look past the plot devices such as the 'innovative' cover funnels that enabled them to make the ship air tight...it took suspension of disbelief to new heights, and that's before you even get to the supernatural elements. Still, that last scene with the ship lit up on the bottom of the sea had its own creepiness. Some (smaller) wrecks in tropical waters are illuminated from within at night by bioluminescent 'flashlight' fish. I've never seen it, but have heard descriptions from those that have.
You're not far off with your description of what happens to the body's cavities at depth. Barotrauma - pressure related injuries - are one of the first lessons taught to a scuba diver. Failure to equalise your ears and sudden pressure changes can result in injuries even at comparatively shallow depths - shore divers are warned that even large waves going overhead in shallow depths can cause inner ear barotrauma. Of course, the situation isn't quite the same as it is for free divers or those sucked down in a shipwreck, as divers are breathing compressed air at the ambient air pressure, which then expands if trapped (say in lungs, sinus cavities etc) as the diver re-ascends. However, most people would be familiar with the effects of pressure on the ear if they dive into deep water - it is necessary for free-divers as well as other divers to constantly equalise the pressure in their ears. Failure to do so results in at least discomfort, and at worst inner-ear 'squeeze' and finally a rupture. Discomfort may be alleviated temporarily as the blood fills the cavity and achieves equalisation.
The most radical change in pressure occurs within 10 metres of the surface. Above that we have one Atmosphere of pressure. At 10 metres that is 2 atmospheres, at 20 meters it's 3, etc etc. So within that first 10 metres, the pressure has doubled.
Those who were sucked down would have experienced noticeable discomfort in the ears primarily - it is necessary to equalise every few feet, and I doubt that they were doing this. However, as they would have been drowning or suffering debris related injuries, I doubt that this was paramount for them. |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 8621
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 6:01 am: |
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>>Already been done, hasn't it? Not with the Titanic, but a fictional vessel in a miniseries?<<
Perhaps you're referring to Goliath Awakes? I saw this flick at the Topeka gathering Erik Wood hosted a couple of years ago. We got a good chuckle out of it. 
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 106
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 10:27 am: |
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Yes that's the film. Typical 70's film. Like the one where the ship goes upside down and people have to escape. |
miles lehmann
Member
Username: miles_lehmann
Post Number: 107
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 12:29 pm: |
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Maybe it is possible that people could have been trapped inside the Titanic once she went under in an air pocket. But if they had surly it would have been very very short lived before the compartment they were in were fully flooded. I would think if this did happen ( dose anyone really think it would have ??? ) then it would have only been for about 3/4 minutes max - and they would not have had any comprehension of what was going on - and that the ship had gone under.
But maybe this whole idea is mad. The fact that the Titanic broke in 2 surly means that the likely hood of air pockets would be more unlikely as I imagine this would have caused her to flood rapidly with such a big hole. The Titanic breaking in two would make a huge hole for water to surly get in everywhere.
But having said that did Titanic’s stern not get so twisted and deformed because of escaping air on her way down – so maybe even with such a big hole from the break up she did not fully flood once submerged – hence all of this is likely.
One thing I do think - if anyone were inside the Titanic in an air pocket it would have been very short lived before that compartment were fully flooded and no way would it have got to the stage of eye balls popping.
I wonder what the realism of this is ?
. |
John Flood
Member
Username: j_flood
Post Number: 16
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 2:16 pm: |
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I don't think there was too many people below deck in the stern section, aft of the split. If there was I think(hope) they would have passed away quite quickly, I imagine the stern would have filled with water very rapidly.
All the Best,
John. |
Paul Lee
Member
Username: dpl
Post Number: 409
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 3:00 pm: |
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They would also have been somewhat crushed by the water pressure
Paul
--
http://www.paullee.com |
monica ahll
Member
Username: monica
Post Number: 374
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 5:08 pm: |
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Call me squeamish, but can we stop all this speculation about what it was like to die on Titanic? Having said that, I see from re-reading the thread that I was the one who actually started it. Sorry .....! |
Inger Sheil
Moderator
Username: isheil
Post Number: 2628
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Thursday, May 13, 2004 - 1:47 am: |
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What's that line from the Perfect Storm? When, after what could have been closure through a dream, the partner of one of the drowned fisherman gives a primal cry of "But what was the final moment? What was the final, final thing?" That need to know, to understand, haunts some loved ones for the rest of their lives. Fear of what that unknown end could have been can lead to hideous conjecture with which the survivor torment themselves. Others simply experience denial and refuse to contemplate it. Some fit in between the two extremes.
For those without that personal connection, however, there seem to be several impulses at work. We can be terribly conscious of a need not exhibit an intrusive, morbid fascination; the urge - or suspicion that we or others feel the impulse - to rubber neck seems repulsive. But at the same time, there is a need to 'bear witness'...to try to understand and acknowledge the pain and suffering of those who died that night. That is something I think many here are very conscious of not losing sight of in all our fascination with rivets, frocks, professions, social manners, drama and personalities.
I don't think it's your fault at all for bringing this up, Monica...the somehow compulsive need to know can exist uneasily with the contradictory feeling that it's either not appropriate or that the information (or speculation) is just too painful. |
Monica Hall
Moderator
Username: monica
Post Number: 932
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 8:31 pm: |
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Gone to Life on Board / The Night of the 14th, and re-titled "The experience of the wrecking" which is more appropriate to the major part of the thread. |
