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David G. Brown
Member
Username: brown
Post Number: 2244
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 3:14 am: | 
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Sam's comments on the ship disappearing at 2:20 a.m. could have come from my writings up until a few weeks ago. I'm not sure of my hypothesis. However, I am convinced that the extended period of shouting would not have been possible for people in the water.
The stopped timepieces are good indicators only of when their owners got wet, not when the ship disappeared. From what I recall, the majority of those timepieces came from people who can be placed forward on the bow section when they went into the drink. That was certainly true of Gracie, Weikman, and Thayer. The stopped timepieces are significant, but we cannot be sure they aren't telling us more about the vagaries of chance than when the ship disappeared.
And, the descriptions of what the ship looked like are subject to both the muddling of human memories as well as the interpretation of the researcher.
So, I don't think the case of a 2:20 disappearance is as open and shut as Sam indicates. But, I can't blame anyone for going with conventional wisdom on this aspect of the tragedy. For me, I'm not sure -- but I am skeptical.
-- David G. Brown |
Samuel Halpern
Member
Username: cmdrsam
Post Number: 2381
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 6:11 pm: |
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I'll put my money on those who there and saw it disappear.
Mrs. Marian Longstreth Thayer (First Class Passenger) The after part of the ship then reared in the air, with the stern upwards, until it assumed an almost vertical position. It seemed to remain stationary in this position for many seconds (perhaps twenty), then suddenly dove straight down out of sight. It was 2.20 a.m. when the Titanic disappeared, according to a wrist watch worn by one of the passengers in my boat. [Marian Thayer was in boat No. 4.]
Miss Daisy Minahan (First Class Passenger) The Titanic was fast sinking. After she went down the cries were horrible. This was at 2:20 a.m. by a man's watch who stood next to me. [Daisy Minahan was in boat No. 15.]
Mr. Hugh Woolner (First Class Passenger) She sank finally at 2.22 am. [Woolner made it into Collapsible boat No. D.]
Mr. Lawrence Beesley (Second Class Passenger) A watch in our boat gave the time as 2:30 A.M. [Lawrence Beesley was in boat No. 13.]
Reginald Lee (Lookout) There was a lady there had a watch, and after the ship went down she told me that her watch said half-past two. [Reginald Lee was in boat No. 13 with Lawrence Beesley.]
Annie Robinson (Stewardess) Well, I looked at my watch when the ship went down and it was twenty minutes to two. That was by altered time when we were in the boat, and I do not think we were in the boat more than three-quarters of an hour. [Annie Robinson was in boat No. 11.]
Herbert Pitman (Third Officer) 2.20 exactly, ship's time. I took my watch out at the time she disappeared, and I said, It is 2.20, and the passengers around me heard it
2.20 a. m., the 15th of April. [Pitman was in boat No. 5.]
Sam Halpern
TITANICOLOGY
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Michael Cundiff
Member
Username: robin
Post Number: 913
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 8:50 pm: |
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SAM spoke..."I'll put my money on those who (were) there and saw it disappear".
I can only agree with your opinion. As you become a participant/eyewitness of a traumatic event, such an event becomes embedded in your mind...possibly for the remainder of your life.
IMHO, I feel that Jack Thayer's drawing rendered aboard Carpathia bears more credence than we allow him today...hell, who knows maybe the downward pressure of a bottom-up break actually revealed the flooded forepeak *point* for a brief moment. And Joughlin, your the last individual to depart the doomed stern section in mid-NA ocean, and your confused about the final moment? Albeit he may have been intoxicated, the adrenaline rush would have supersceded his state of mind.
(SAM, you skipped the word were...;-)
Michael Cundiff
NV, USA |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 26164
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 12:57 am: |
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>>such an event becomes embedded in your mind...possibly for the remainder of your life.<<
But not necesserily accurately. That's not to say that any of these people were lying as in this instance, I don't think they were. I think they were brutally honest, but we have to allow for the possibility of confusion, vantage points and stark terror.
>>I feel that Jack Thayer's drawing rendered aboard Carpathia bears more credence than we allow him today...<<
Mmmmm...let's put this to bed once and for all: These are not Jack Theyer's drawings. This is Mr. Skidmore's interpretation of what he said Jack Theyer told him, all of which went through the usual mental filters and possible embellishments. Any misunderstandings on Jack's part over what he saw would have Mr. Skidmore's misunderstandings and added interpretations as well.
On some level, it may not be entirely possible to dismiss them, but they needed to be treated with extreme caution. One question we need to ask ourselves is if it's even possible that something like this could have happened and if so, we need to be able to establish what happened based on what the science can demonstrate is possible.
David mooted one possibility earlier when he suggested that what may have "Popped up" was not the prow of the vessel but the broken after end of the bow section.
In the dark of the night, how would anybody even know the difference?
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Will C. White
Member
Username: seastorywriter
Post Number: 255
Registered: 4-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 4:03 am: |
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I still have a problem with the bow boyency question. How can it be assumed that the bow was solidly flooded out in the tops of the forward holds? During the breakup, if the ship was indeed now in two parts, the air may very well act as a levelling agent and the bow may very well have come awash for a few moments prior to foundering. WILL |
Samuel Halpern
Member
Username: cmdrsam
Post Number: 2383
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 2:22 pm: |
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Hi Will.
When I referred to the bow being solidly flooded, I should have said 'almost' solidly flooded. There will always be places with some trapped air in it, some of which will bubble out as the angle of trim and heel changed. But the question is how much would have remained, and how would that affect the overall buoyancy of the submerged compartments of the bow?
We know from eyewitness descriptions that the entire forecastle was already underwater from about 2:05 AM when boat D was launched. Close to 2:15 AM, or thereabouts, the ship had assumed a down angle of about 10 degrees, and everything forward of the bridge was completely underwater. There were no sealed decks in any of the forward compartments to prevent air from escaping. Any air that was trapped would be in small isolated pockets. We are not talking about any significant volume here.
But for sake of argument, suppose there was enough air remaining in the forward holds to allow that part of the bow to resurface after the break. Then how was it possible for the bow to have been submerged underwater in the first place? What pulled the bow down so much that it caused the stern to come up far enough to expose the propellers of the ship before the break occurred?
The answer is the added weight of water that entered the forward compartments of the ship, or as Dave Brown likes to view it, the loss of buoyancy of the forward compartments of the ship.
At the time of the break, the rear end of the bow would have had more buoyancy than the flooded front end. What they call the center of buoyancy of the bow section would be more towards its aft end. The result would be a tendency of the aft end to rise a bit while the forward end submerged even deeper once the weight of the stern was longer supported. And that may explain what some eye witnesses tried to describe, including Jack Thayer in his written work.
Meanwhile, with the weight of the bow no longer pulling on the stern, the stern section would settle back giving the impression that it might stay afloat as several people described. But its forward end started to flood rapidly because of the loss of watertight integrity in the engine room compartments when the hull fractured. It would fill at its forward end which eventually caused the stern section to up end with its forward end submerged. See Marian Thayer's description in my post above.
Sam Halpern
TITANICOLOGY
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Michael Cundiff
Member
Username: robin
Post Number: 918
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 6:30 pm: |
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SAM said-"What pulled the bow down so much that it caused the stern to come up far enough to expose the propellors of the ship before the break occured?".
Very well said, I was implying that perhaps the downward pressure of the break/pinch, sort of like a scientist describing (surmizing) that by closing the void of space, may in effect create a wormhole. My idea of a downward force (gravity) exerting enough pressure to expose the forepeak...but I surmize that would be a mathematical uncertainty, given the weight differentials. Yes Michael, I am aware the drawing of Thayer was dictated to Skidmore, and as we all know, an eyewitness testimony of the stern making an about face was revealed in '85-'86. Perhaps the young Thayer's vision was so
affixed with the stern section, it was unknown what fore section he actually saw, and as you said may have therefore been assumed by the artist Skidmore.
Michael Cundiff
NV, USA |
Will C. White
Member
Username: seastorywriter
Post Number: 256
Registered: 4-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 4:41 am: |
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Sam-The thing that would hold the bow under prior to breakup would be the keel and the other parts of the ship. The buoyancy of the stern is greater than that of the bow, but that does not mean that the bow is devoid of buoyancy. When the ship breaks up, the equation changes, and for a very short period you have two sections, one in essence not flooded, and one proximately equally flooded. Obviously, this condition does not long endure. I'd also like to inquire why you consider the tops of the holds non water tight, since the function of a hatch cover is to prevent seawater intrusion-I'd think they would be as close to airtight as they could get in 1912-just curious on that. WILL |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 26186
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 2:56 pm: |
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>>I'd also like to inquire why you consider the tops of the holds non water tight<<
Take a closer look at those things. They were weathertight and adaquate for keeping out rain and incidental spray but that was about it. Go down to the lower decks and you'll see that the hatch covers were little more then tarpaulins which may have been stretched over wooden frames. They were not designed for or even intended to act as watertight barriers for the purpose of containment or damage control.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Samuel Halpern
Member
Username: cmdrsam
Post Number: 2387
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 4:37 pm: |
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>>The thing that would hold the bow under prior to breakup would be the keel and the other parts of the ship. <<
I'm afraid not Will unless you mean the thing that would prevent the bow from sinking further. The bow wanted to go down, not up. Everything has buoyancy, even a given volume of water itself. The question is whether the volume has positive, negative or neutral buoyancy. The bow had negative buoyancy after it flooded, meaning the sum of all buoyant forces acting upward on it was less that the sum of all downward forces acting on it. It weighed more than the volume of water it tried to displace. It wanted to sink, that is why it went under water to begin with. It was the combined positive buoyant forces of the rest of the hull and the unsupported weight of the raised part of the stern section that counterbalanced the tendency of the bow to sink until the hull fractured.
Good answer Michael about the hatches. It should also be mentioned that several eyewitnesses, including 3/O Pitman, saw water coming up through the hatch covers about 20 minutes after the collision. They were far from being what you would call watertight, let alone airtight.
Sam Halpern
TITANICOLOGY
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David G. Brown
Member
Username: brown
Post Number: 2245
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 1:48 am: |
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Time...time...time. It is not just a matter of o'clock hour. Time can be measured in three different ways with regard to this discussion: 1.) o'clock time (hour); 2.) duration; and, 3.) chronology.
One admission at the outset: 1912 pocket timepieces lacked the accuracy of today's quartz movements. Most gained or lost within a minute or so a day. But, every watch and clock on the ship had to be reset at least once a day during the voyage. This resetting increased the likelihood that most timepieces ticked within a minute or so of one another.
Let's start with o'clock hour. Sam has presented an excellent grouping of recollected o'clock times for the sinking. They center around the generally-accepted 2:20 a.m. time. But, are they accurate enough for forensic examination of events during the breakup? Let's examine them.
The most curious is Annie Robinson. She claimed 2:20 a.m. but with an important codicil. She said her watch showed "altered time," but she did not specify how it was altered. We cannot compare the real reading of her timepiece with her correction to see if the math was done properly. So, her claim is inadequate to be useful in forensics. It must be considered an artifact of the Titanic story and not a hard fact.
The times quoted by Mrs. Thayer, Daisy Minahan, and Lawrence Beesley must also be questioned because they are not the personal experiences, but what courts of law call "hearsay." None of these people actually recorded their quoted o'clock times themselves. They all got the 2:20 a.m. from an unidentified second party. Without examination of those second party timepieces, we must to discount these time claims as more likely having been memories gained aboard Carpathia than first-hand experience in lifeboats. This confines these memories to the category of artifacts and prevents them from being hard fact for use in reconstructing the breakup.
Pitman, mentioned by Sam, is one of two officers who claimed to have read personal timepieces. Just out of curiosity, I acquired a modern pocket watch with a dial similar in visual characteristics to a 1912 gentleman's timepiece. It is virtually impossible to read the dial even in what I would call modern "city darkness," which is full of light pollution. At night in mid-ocean without a moon...I totally discount any claim of reading a personal timepiece unless it is accompanied by additional information about where the light to see the dial came from.
One o'clock time stands up to all of this. Boxhall claimed he had both a lamp and a timepiece. His o'clock time of the sinking was 2:20 a.m. So, in Boxhall's timing of the sinking we seem to have the hard fact we seek. But, nothing can be accepted at face value. Every detail must be checked for hidden errors.
We can check Boxhall's time against the stopped timepieces carried by other survivors and victims who found themselves in the water as the ship sank. The earliest such time was 1:27 a.m. on postal clerk March's stopped timepiece. March seems to have changed his timepiece to April 15th hours, which when converted to April 14th time equals 2:14 a.m. Halfway between is 1:50 a.m., which was the time in the crew's bridge hours shown on the stopped timepiece of ship's barber Weikman.
We know Weikman washed off when the front of the boat deck went under, so it is likely that is when March went in as well. The March/Weikman timepieces do not establish the time of sinking, but rather the moment when water came over the forward end of the boat deck at 2:14 a.m.
Of course, 2:14 a.m. was not the sinking. Rather, it was the moment when water came over the front of the boat deck. That event took place some minutes prior to when the taffrail disappeared. So, the March/Weikman stopped timepieces do not argue against Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. time of the sinking and may even support it.
Robert Norman's watch was found stopped at 2:20 a.m. on his body. This stopped timepiece seems to substantiate the Boxhall claim.
Trouble for Boxhall's claimed time of the sinking shows up on the stopped timepieces of Col. Gracie and Jack Thayer. Both showed 2:22 a.m. two minutes after Boxhall's time. Agreed, the accuracy of 1912 mechanical timepieces would allow for a minute or two difference, but there is more to this story. Both Thayer and Gracie got wet when water was only in way of funnel #2. Much of what is now the "bow section" and all of the "stern section" of the ship was still above water.
The disappearance of the ship was still some measurable duration in the future when the Gracie and Thayer timepieces stopped. Yet, these timepieces had continued ticking until after Boxhall's testimony had the ship already sunk.
More trouble for the Boxhall o'clock time of the sinking came from the stopped timepiece of Austin Partner which showed 2:25 a.m. This problem of Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. time being too early for the sinking is corroborated by Beesely's testimony that the ship disappeared at 2:30 a.m. This testimony is hearsay and not admissible as hard fact in this discussion, but it does raise curious possibilities.
Duration is something else to consider. The stopped timepieces coupled give a duration of 11 minutes measured from when March/Weikman were washed off the boat deck to when Austin Partner went into the ocean and his timepiece stopped. If Beesley's hearsay is considered, this duration rises to 16 minutes.
While Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. as the time of the sinking was close enough to be accurate for general conversation, it quite obviously not precisely correct. The fourth officer seems to have pegged the "disappearance" of the ship about one-third of the way into the duration of the whole event.
My suggestion is that he measured time for when the lights were extinguished and Titanic's dark shape merged into the dark night on a dark ocean. Looking at the artifact times, they support Boxhall's 2:20 a.m. reading. If the artifact times contain any authentic record of that night, it is probably not the time of the sinking, but the time when the ship went dark.
(Reminder: A white iceberg is not expected to be seen more than a quarter mile, or less than two of Titanic's shiplengths away on a moonless night. You certainly can not ask inexperienced observes to see a black hull on a dark night at any greater distance.)
So, the o'clock time data available indicates what would be expected that the breakup was not instantaneous, but occurred over a duration of many minutes. And this brings up the hardest aspect of time for humans to grasp. Our minds do not have built-in clocks by which to measure duration. Even trained radio announcers have difficulty estimating time spans as short as 30 or 60 seconds. Instead, they rely on digital clocks and stopwatches. One person's "just a second" is another's "it seemed a lifetime." Stress, cold, and other factors greatly influence our ability to estimate time.
Having shown that the facts do not contravene a supposition that the breakup began prior to 2:20 a.m. and continued for some duration after that moment, we now realize the importance of chronology: what happened first, second, etc. If events of the breakup occurred over time, then to understand those events we must put them in proper sequence.
Cause must always come before effect. It is possible to "prove" some event did not happen by simply affixing the wrong sequential position to it. Likewise, a non-existent event can be created in similar fashion.
How long did Titanic float after the initial breakup? The answer is unknowable. I threw out the suggestion of up to 20 minutes based on testimonies about the length of time the screaming continued in the dark, and upon the 16 minute span from March/Weikman to Beesley described above.
However, duration is the hardest part of time for humans to estimate. How long would even 30 seconds seem to a woman listening to her widowhood coming across the water? Do we really want to ponder this question?
-- David G. Brown |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 26187
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 2:58 am: |
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>>They were far from being what you would call watertight, let alone airtight.<<
Indeed. More like weathertight for anything up on deck and passenger/crew tight for any of the openings down below. That was really all that was regarded as necessery.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Will C. White
Member
Username: seastorywriter
Post Number: 257
Registered: 4-2007
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 3:58 am: |
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Let me see if I have this right, they were using wood frame canvas coated hatches in the spring on the open Atlantic? We dogged down tighter than that on my uncle's old fishing boat, and we were in port every night by dark. I'm having a hard time believing the hatches were that flimsy-sounds as if a set of big rollers could punch them in. WILL |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 26198
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 4:07 am: |
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The hatches out on deck weren't that flimsy. You can see photos of the ones they used out on the weatherdecks. It's just that they weren't the sort of heavy constructs that you were inclined to believe.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Michael Cundiff
Member
Username: robin
Post Number: 923
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 4:48 pm: |
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And, it it believed by some, that an unsecured forward hatch cover was detrimental in the loss of Edmund Fitzgerald, in that dispersed flooding became a deterant to her buoyance.
Michael Cundiff
NV, USA |
Michael Cundiff
Member
Username: robin
Post Number: 924
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 4:57 pm: |
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Michael S. said - "The hatches on deck weren't that flimsy".
And yes, the TITANIC wreck will attest to that, forward of the fore section, a section of laden debris, rests the forward hatch cover. In remarkably good condition, a testament to it's strength, considerig it's departure from the cargo hold. (SEE: "Ghosts of the Abyss").
Michael Cundiff
NV, USA |
Tad G. Fitch
Member
Username: tad_fitch
Post Number: 339
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 6:29 pm: |
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Hello David, how are you? I hope that you have been doing well.
You wrote:
"Pitman, mentioned by Sam, is one of two officers who claimed to have read personal timepieces. Just out of curiosity, I acquired a modern pocket watch with a dial similar in visual characteristics to a 1912 gentleman's timepiece. It is virtually impossible to read the dial even in what I would call modern "city darkness," which is full of light pollution. At night in mid-ocean without a moon...I totally discount any claim of reading a personal timepiece unless it is accompanied by additional information about where the light to see the dial came from."
David, I understand what you are saying here and agree that it would have been difficult to see details after the Titanic's lights went out, particularly with the only source of light being starlight.
However, I disagree that a person couldn't possibly read a watch or see details such as that. The survivor accounts indicate that it was possible for people to see details of what was going on in the lifeboats, recognize people in the water and in the lifeboats, etc. See the eyewitness accounts of those on Collapsible B, of those who struggled in the water, etc., for example.
In fact, there are passenger accounts which claim a personal timepiece was read as well. One lady mentioned the time of the sinking based on a watch contained in a pendant around her neck.
I will leave the discussion about whether the generally accepted time of the sinking is correct or not to you guys as that is a separate issue, but I do disagree with the notion that it would be impossible to read a watch at night. The eyewitnesses statements are in disagreement with that.
Kind regards,
Tad |
Samuel Halpern
Member
Username: cmdrsam
Post Number: 2391
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 9:46 pm: |
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Seeing in the dark:
15446. (Mr. Raymond Asquith.) Did you have the lamps taken up? - Yes. The Chief Officer told me to find the lamp trimmer. I did find him after a little trouble. I really forget where I found him. He was on the boat deck working amongst the men. I told him to take a couple of men down with him and fetch the lamps, and he was afterwards seen to bring the lamps along the deck and put them in the boats.
15447. Do you know how many lamps were put into how many boats? - No, I do not know.
17779. How many lamps did you bring up? - Fourteen.
17780. Were they all full of oil? - All full of oil.
17781. And properly trimmed? - All brought up alight. I lit them myself.
17782. Did you supply them yourself to a good many boats? - Yes.
17783. You did not put those 14 yourself, as I understand it, all into the boats? - No.
17784. But they were there for the use of the boats? - They were there for the use of the boats.
Mr. JONES. I got the collapsible boat on the port side ready. I got my own boat, No. 8, ready. An officer sent me for a lamp, and as I was going forward there was a man coming with two or there lamps in his hand. I went back again, and this No. 8 boat was there, all swung out, and there were about 35 ladies in it. I jumped in the boat.
Senator SMITH. Did you have a light on your boat?
Mr. HAINES. Yes, sir; I had a lamp there, a little pocket lamp.
Senator SMITH. Was the lamp lighted?
Mr. HAINES. Yes, sir.
Senator SMITH. Did you have any provisions on your boat?
Mr. HAINES. Yes, sir.
Senator SMITH. Did you have water?
Mr. HAINES. Yes, sir; biscuits and water, sir.
"But this was not our only hope of rescue: we watched
all the time the darkness lasted for steamers' lights, thinking there
might be a chance of other steamers coming near enough to see the
lights which some of our boats carried.But this was not our only hope of rescue: we watched
all the time the darkness lasted for steamers' lights, thinking there
might be a chance of other steamers coming near enough to see the
lights which some of our boats carried."
Regarding the ability to see the outline of the ship after the lights went out:
11512. Head downwards? - Head down, and that is the time when I saw her lights go out, all her lights. The next thing I saw was her poop. As she went down like that so her poop righted itself and I thought to myself, "The poop is going to float." It could not have been more than two or three minutes after that that her poop went up as straight as anything; there was a sound like steady thunder as you hear on an ordinary night at a distance, and soon she disappeared from view.
Mr. BULEY. Settled down; yes, sir. She went down as far as the afterfunnel, and then there was a little roar, as though the engines had rushed forward, and she snapped in two, and the bow part went down and the afterpart came up and staid up five minutes before it went down.
Senator FLETCHER. Was that perpendicular?
Mr. BULEY. It was horizontal at first, and then went down.
Senator FLETCHER. What do you mean by saying she snapped in two?
Mr. BULEY. She parted in two.
Senator FLETCHER. How do you know that?
Mr. BULEY. Because we could see the afterpart afloat, and there was no forepart to it. I think she must have parted where the bunkers were. She parted at the last, because the afterpart of her settled out of the water horizontally after the other part went down. First of all you could see her propellers and everything. Her rudder was clear out of the water. You could hear the rush of the machinery, and she parted in two, and the afterpart settled down again, and we thought the afterpart would float altogether.
Senator FLETCHER. The afterpart kind of righted up horizontally?
Mr. BULEY. She uprighted herself for about five minutes, and then tipped over and disappeared.
...
Senator FLETCHER. Were there lights on that half part?
Mr. BULEY. The lights were all out. The lights went out gradually before she disappeared.
Senator FLETCHER. Notwithstanding the darkness you could see the outline of the ship?
Mr. BULEY. Yes, sir; we could see the outline of the ship.
Sam Halpern
TITANICOLOGY
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Will C. White
Member
Username: seastorywriter
Post Number: 258
Registered: 4-2007
| | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 10:50 pm: |
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Michael C.-As to the "Big Fitz", I assume you mean the most forward of the hatches. As I recall those ore boats tended to work in the middle and loosen the hatch clamps. The last thing they needed was an overload in the center of the ship. As to Titanic's hatches, I'll check 'Abyss'-thanks. WILL |
Michael Cundiff
Member
Username: robin
Post Number: 932
Registered: 1-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 5:31 pm: |
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Correct Will, the most forward hatches, and it was an unsecured hatch as you mention. BTW, it was during A MIR submersible dive, that sub occupant/historian Ken Marschall, first sighted the hatch cover.
Michael Cundiff
NV, USA |
Charles B. Weeks Jr.
Member
Username: charles_weeks
Post Number: 248
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 11:29 pm: |
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Hello all:
Titanic's #1 weather deck hatch cover was a solid piece of steel. Built especially strong to with stand the conditions on the raised fore deck. Hatches # 2 & 3 had steel beams supporting wooden boards, covered with several layers of tarps, all well secured around the edges. They were the standard arrangement on ships up until WWII.
Regards, Charlie Weeks |
Will C. White
Member
Username: seastorywriter
Post Number: 260
Registered: 4-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 3:38 am: |
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OK, now I have a picture in my head of the hatches-thanks! These boards, were they called battons, or am I cross-wired again? WILL |
Charles B. Weeks Jr.
Member
Username: charles_weeks
Post Number: 249
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 7:49 pm: |
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Will:
The battens are used to hold the edges of the traps down tight to the hatch combing.
Charlie |
Jim Currie
Member
Username: sailorjim
Post Number: 333
Registered: 4-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 9:21 pm: |
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Hi Charlie!
Remember them well. Here's some facts for anyone who might be interested:
Portable hatchway beams were fitted inside the hatch coamings (sides) to form a framework for portable wooden hatch covers to rest on. They also helped to restore some of the lost transverse (cross-ship)strength due to cutting the ship's cross deck beams to make the hatch opening. Hatch covers were made of solid pine wood. They averaged about 8 feet long, 18 inches wide and at least 2.5 inches thick. They had their ends protected by galvanised steel bands. To cover the hatch opening, the boards were laid in rows fore and aft across the hatch opening with 3 inches of each end resting on a beam. A third beam supported them in the middle.
The hatch beams were not all the same. There were two kinds - a 'King' beam and an ordinary
beam. The ends of the hatch boards rested on a'king' beam. It had a vertical flange fitted on it's top surface which divided successive rows of hatch boards. The boards had a recessed steel bar on the top surface at each end which acted as a handle.
When the boards were all in place, it was recommended that they were covered by three tarpaulins - two good good ones with and older one on top (it would protect the ones below from objects being placed on the hatch top.
When the tarpaulins were put in place, they were laid to overlap the hatch sides. They were then folded back (inward) and tucked at the ends - much like the old way of making a bed with sheets and blankets.
When all this was done, the hatch bars - long flat pieces of steel about half an inch thick and two inches wide were laid on a ledge situated on the outside of the hatch side. They were arranged with their sides vertically against the folded down edges of the tarpaulin.
All along the ledge in question, there were situated at intervals, short, vertical, steel plate brackets. These were angled-in toward the hatch side. To secure the hatch cover in place, hard wood tapered wedges hammered between these plate brackets and the hatch bar.
Believe me this was a very efficient way of making a hatch watertight. Except for an exceptionally heavy sea - the hatches seldom ever leaked. Often, deck cargoes of timber would be piled on top of such hatches without detrimental effect.
Anyone interested - I can make a few rough sketches! |
Charles B. Weeks Jr.
Member
Username: charles_weeks
Post Number: 250
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 11:54 pm: |
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Hi Jim:Your description is exactly as I remember it. What you called ordinary hatch beams, we called Queen Beams as opposed to the King Beams. The Problem was they were labor intensive to open or close. They also weren't as strong as metal covers.
Regards,
Charlie |
Jim Currie
Member
Username: sailorjim
Post Number: 334
Registered: 4-2008
| | Posted on Friday, March 27, 2009 - 10:56 am: |
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That's the name! 'Queen Beams' we did the same.
We had old steam winches which had to be in double gear before we could lift the beams in and out. I ended up 3 months in a plantation hospital on a tiny island in the New Hebrides because of one of the 'King' variety. I was passing the hatch when the local crew boys were unshipping one. They had the winch in single gear and the beam was suspended on a wire bridle. The damn thing ran away with the weight and the beam landed on my left leg - still suffer from it to this day.
The most damning thing was though; I was just 18 years old and had been promoted to 3rd.Mate from Apprentice just two weeks previously. I was more upset about losing a pay increase of,from 85 pounds/year to 31 pounds /month (being a Scotsman).
In 1952 I joined a ship with the new MacGregor Steel hatch covers. We all thought we had died and gone to heaven! |
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