2:00-2:20 ?

[sir john adams]

My questions concern the final plunge .

1 . Were there multiple plunges or was it just one continues one from beginning to end
2. When technically did the final plunge start
3. And would this final rapid submersion of Titanic affected Titanic differently had the Titanic not "plunged" persay but simple sinks like it was previous to "the final plunge" and please tell me if the scenario in which Titanic sinks at a steady but slow rate after the forward boat deck is impossible.

 

[Kyle Naber]

Water most likely reached the boat deck at 2:10AM. At this point, the bow would rapidly drop which was described by Lightoller. In fact, the Titanic was dropping so fast at this point, that it slowed down a bit. I’m not sure why, but basically the Titanic dipped the foward end of the boat deck down QUICKLY, and then it sort of stalled, it dropped down again and the stern rapidly rose up, the breakup occurred, the stern rolled over to port for about a minute and then it rose back up, performed a 90 degree swivel and two minutes after the breakup, it vanished for good. The final final plunge was probably the breakup and beyond.

 

[Chris cameron]

I always thought it was odd how the witnesses described the last events as it taking a series of plunges. I had always assumed that when the bow was fully submerged with water entering non-stop every possible opening that it would simply be a consistent but rapidly increasing submersion only interrupted by the beak up. But witnesses seem to describe a start-stop type of submersion I would only think would have occured when the only water Titanic was taking in was through the damage caused by the iceberg.

 

[Aaron_2016]

There are accounts which suggest the screams started when the ship broke and immediately ceased when the stern went under up to 10 minutes later and very likely anyone who heard the screams after the ship "disappeared" from their view had mistakenly believed the ship had completely sunk when the stern was possibly still floating in the darkness for some time before finally going down as several watches stopped around 2.30am when the stern finally went under and victims entered the water. The explosions were estimated to be between 10 - 20 minutes apart as the stern wrestled to stay afloat.

Frank Prentice was on the stern and felt the ship right herself on a level keel and then rise up and then settle back. He then felt her rise up again and then he slipped off and saw the propellers in the air when he dropped into the sea. His watch stopped at 2.22am and he could see the stern was still afloat when he entered the water. Thomas Dillon was on the stern and felt the stern settle back and actually went down with it. When he reached the surface he saw the stern rise out of the water and go down again.
Q - She had sunk when you came up again?
A - Well, I saw what I thought would be the afterpart of her coming up and going down again, final.
Q - Then she had not sunk?
A - She came up and went down again.
Q - You saw what you thought was the afterpart coming up again?
A - I thought it was the ship coming up again. She came up and went down again, finish.

I believe the stern rose up at least 3 times as it tore away from the bow and settled back, then rose up again and separated completely and settled back again, and then it dipped down again and bobbed up like a cork until it finally went down. It is unknown if the watertight doors were sealed as this would create more buoyancy in the stern. The broken decks above would start to flood and cause the stern to become top heavy and roll over to port. Nobody could scream in the water as survivor Thomas Dillon said the water was so cold they could not yell out. Mr. Hyman said - "The cry was blood curdling and never stopped until the Titanic went down, when it seemed to be sort of choked off. The cry is ringing in my ears now and always will." Edith Rosenbaum heard the yells coming from the ship and thought the people were cheering and when the stern went under she said there was absolute silence. Lady Duff Gordon said "After the Titanic sank I never heard a cry."
Q - You never heard anything?
A - No, not after the Titanic sank.
Q - Did not you hear cries at all?
A - Yes, before she sank; terrible cries.
Q - Before she sank?
A - Yes.
Q - Did you see her sink?
A - I did.
Q - You mean you heard nothing at all after that?
A - My impression was that there was absolute silence.

This tells us that everyone who heard the screams after the ship "disappeared" must have assumed the ship had sunk when the stern was still partially afloat in the darkness.

Boxhall was burning green flares before the Titanic sank. He would almost be blinded by the light he was emitting. He saw the ship's lights go out and then saw nothing else as his own light was hampering his vision of the darkness ahead. He assumed the ship had gone down when it was still afloat and he then heard the screams. He said: "I can not say that I saw her sink. I saw the lights go out, and I looked two or three minutes afterward and it was 25 minutes past 2. So I took it that when she sank would be about 20 minutes after 2." He thought the ship had gone down at 2.20am by the disappearance of her lights and sound of the screams, but I believe the stern was still afloat until 2.30 and when it finally went down the screams stopped and watches stopped in the water.


.

 

[Scott Mills]

I think Aaron is correct here. The "series" of plunges were most likely related to the breaking of the ship and the settling of the different parts as the bow separated from the stern completely. There was obviously a lot of air trapped in Titanic's stern (the implosive damage to the wreck tells you this alone) so there were multiple up and down motions of the stern as she "bobbed" like cork before finally sinking.

My guess is, given that the we know the WTDs were opened from the engine room forward that at least some of these doors were open, and once the stern was more or less vertical not even the float system (if it was still operational) would have been able to close them since they relied on gravity.

Not that them being closed would have bought the stern significant time, particularly given that we know that many of the manual watertight doors above the tank top were never closed.

 

[Chris cameron]

No, not likely.

 

[Jay Roches]

Aaron_2016, be wary of the possibility that the stopped pocketwatches had not been adjusted to April 15 time. Most passengers would not have made the adjustment to their watches until, at the earliest, the morning of the 15th. But Titanic gained 47 minutes during April 14th, and the clocks should have been turned back 47 minutes in order to be accurate. Thus, it is possible that the two pocketwatches you've depicted were stopped before 2 am, let alone 10-20 minutes after the 'official' time the stern went underwater.

 

[Rob Lawes]

Plus with pocket watches there is no indication they stopped immediately when the wearer entered the water. A good quality watch may have remained dry internally and running for several minutes if not longer.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Mr. Weikman was asked:


Q - State further what you know about the case.
A - After I was washed overboard I started to swim, when there was a pile of ropes fell upon me, and I managed to get clear of these and started to swim for some dark object in the water. It was dark. This was about 1.50 a. m. toward the stern.

Q - How do you know it was 1.50 a. m.?
A - Because my watch was stopped at that time by the water.

Q - Did you hear any noise? Yes; I was about 15 feet away from the ship when I heard a second explosion.

Q - What caused the explosion?
A - I think the boilers blew up about in the middle of the ship. The explosion blew me along with a wall of water toward the dark object I was swimming to, which proved to be a bundle of deck chairs, which I managed to climb on. While on the chairs I heard terrible groans and cries coming from people in the water.

Q - Was it possible to help them?
A - No; it was not. The lifeboats were too far away.

Q - Do you think if the lifeboats were nearer they could render any assistance?
A - Yes; had the lifeboats remained close to the Titanic they could have taken 10 to 15 or maybe 20 more passengers to each boat. There was a great number of people killed by the explosion, and there was a great number that managed to get far enough away that the explosion did not injure them, and these are the people that I think could have been saved had the lifeboats been close.

Q - Did you see the ship go down? I mean the Titanic.
A - Yes; I was afloat on chairs about 100 feet away, looking toward the ship. I seen her sink.


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[Scott Mills]

Plus with pocket watches there is no indication they stopped immediately when the wearer entered the water. A good quality watch may have remained dry internally and running for several minutes if not longer.

AND this was 1912. The accuracy of that watch was only as good as the internal mechanisms and the accuracy of the person who wound the watch. The later itself gets even more confusing when dealing with crossing the Atlantic and the daily winding back or forward of the ships clocks.

It's not like today when everyone has phones displaying times beamed into them from atomic clocks; HOWEVER, you could think about it like this... these 1912 watches provide us a lot more information than modern digital time keeping devices would! If they had digital devices in 1912 you'd just find a bunch of blank screens with no possible way of determining the exact moment water damaged stopped them from functioning!

Though, it would have been nice to have had a Satellite link on Titanic, if only for the fact that GPS could have tracked her movements pre and post collision for posterity.

Mr. Weikman was asked:


Q - State further what you know about the case.
A - After I was washed overboard I started to swim, when there was a pile of ropes fell upon me, and I managed to get clear of these and started to swim for some dark object in the water. It was dark. This was about 1.50 a. m. toward the stern.

Q - How do you know it was 1.50 a. m.?
A - Because my watch was stopped at that time by the water.

Q - Did you hear any noise? Yes; I was about 15 feet away from the ship when I heard a second explosion.

Q - What caused the explosion?
A - I think the boilers blew up about in the middle of the ship. The explosion blew me along with a wall of water toward the dark object I was swimming to, which proved to be a bundle of deck chairs, which I managed to climb on. While on the chairs I heard terrible groans and cries coming from people in the water.

Q - Was it possible to help them?
A - No; it was not. The lifeboats were too far away.

Q - Do you think if the lifeboats were nearer they could render any assistance?
A - Yes; had the lifeboats remained close to the Titanic they could have taken 10 to 15 or maybe 20 more passengers to each boat. There was a great number of people killed by the explosion, and there was a great number that managed to get far enough away that the explosion did not injure them, and these are the people that I think could have been saved had the lifeboats been close.

Q - Did you see the ship go down? I mean the Titanic.
A - Yes; I was afloat on chairs about 100 feet away, looking toward the ship. I seen her sink.


.

This still doesn't convince me. As the ship broke rather violently a huge amount of water would be displaced by the sudden movement of the ship. This would create hydrodynamic surge all around the ship, as well as inside the parts of the ship that was submerged. These in turn would cause air to be displaced at very high pressures--in addition the break would create these all on their own--which to the untrained observer would be remarkably similar in character to an explosive shockwave.

Shockwaves in the air or in the water need not be caused by the literal explosive detonation of explosives, fuel, or machinery.

I will point again to videos of simple structural failures on the internet. There are even some out there (at work and youtube is blocked or I'd link it) of people being blown over from the shockwave of the actual building collapse during a demolition (not pretty minor explosions used to remove the weight bearing supports), or being hurt by flying giant chunks of concrete.

 

[B-rad]

At first the water was entering from the lowest part of the ship. This would, as we all know, drag the bow down. The weight of the water would eventually counteract any buoyancy and the ship would 'sink'. Once the upper decks were submerged (the forecastle for instance) water would enter much more rapid as it had a larger open area to flood the interior of the ship. However, though the over all buoyancy of the ship was compromised, the ship still had buoyancy as the flooding was not throughout the whole ship. So even though flooding increased there was still a lot of ship left that needed to flood.

Once the water reached the boat deck water could fill even more rapid as there was no more decks the water had to climb. However, due to trim, the water had to climb the rest of the ship at an angle. To contradict this trim the ship would plunge forward due to the weight of the water inside the ship (gravity), thus submerging itself even before all air was expelled due flooding. This could easily create a start/stop effect, as the flooding rate and expel rate fought for 'force' dominance (though gravity will ultimately win).

Flooding is also never symmetrical, and most ships capsize before their final plunge. Had Titanic not broken up I believe that it to most likely would have done so. The breakup itself is unique as it allowed a larger surface area at the end of the bow section to open up along the lowest point, allowing a much more rapid flood area, correcting is trim to a certain point. This is what I believe caused people to think the bow was righting itself. The stern section, which was most likely dry when the ship broke, now started to flood from the lowest point up. Unfortunately for it though, it had a huge hole (from tanktop to boat deck) to allow water to enter, thus the flooding could happen much more rapid, and the weight could drag the stern down faster than the air was able to expel, hence why it is believed implosions of air pockets caused the stern to ruin itself, though I believe, like some, that the bow may still have been connected somewhere to the stern section, and when they separated this caused more damage to the stern section.

This is what I believe occurred. Hope it makes sense!