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Message: [QUOTE="Cal Haines, post: 218089, member: 136875"] Yuri, I wish I had time to make a proper response to your two posts, but I'll have to just hit the high points: Shepherd was a pretty senior guy. He was (as near as I have been able to figure out) in charge of all of the boiler rooms. They did not have enough engineers to put one in each boiler room; that was Barett's job. He probably just happened to be in BR#5 when the collision occurred. More than likely he went forward with Hesketh on some sort of inspection. Why did Barrett go to BR#5? Easy, to try to save himself. He describes a huge flow of water; I would have run too. I doubt Beauchamp and his mates were made of any sterner stuff or that Hesketh and Barrett were cowards. I don't see Hesketh standing around for 10 minutes before he orders the men to their stations. To have done so would have been gross negligence. He had seen the water rush in with his own eyes, he had abandoned his boilers and his men. I can't imagine what would have been more important to him, or Barrett, or Shepherd, than finding out what the condition of BR#6 was. It's not surprising that he did not go back himself, he needed to get to the main engine room where he could use the phones and report to the Chief engineer and Captain. Look at what Barrett says he did: 1) dive into BR#5 as the doors are closing, 2) look into the bunker and close the door(s), 3) report water in bunker to Shepherd, 4) return to BR#6 with Shepherd. He can do all that in under two minutes. In times of stress, time seems to take a lot longer that it really does, that's probably why Barrett [u]estimated[/u] that it took ten minutes. I know that if I had been in charge of ten men and had abandoned them under such circumstances, you would have had to tackle me to keep me from getting back there to find out what happened to them. I Barrett really hung out for any period of time after the collision, he was not only incompetent and a coward, but very atypical of sailors as a whole (and the black gang was renown for being the toughest sort of sailor). There is just no way to quickly draw the fires. The bed of coals in each furnace is about 3 feet wide, 7 feet long and 6 inches deep. It's so hot that you could not be closer than a foot or two to the coals for more than a few seconds; try holding your hand 6 inches over a barbecue for a ten seconds and you will get the idea. The fire door is about half the width of the furnace, so you would be trying to work the coal out through a pretty restricted opening. Somebody has to hose down and get rid of the coal as the fireman pulls it out, otherwise his pants will literally catch on fire. I've talked this over at length with a man who hand-fired Scotch boilers with coal on the Great Lakes; he says no way to Beauchamp's story. Who gave the order to draw the fires? A very good question indeed! I am quite convinced that Beauchamp was, shall we say, less than truthful here. Opening the watertight door so that Barrett or whoever could stick his head in and give orders was not an option. The doors had to be released from the bridge. When Mr. Bell ordered some of the doors opened, it took a fair amount of doing to get it done. Either Scott or Dillon talks about this. Cal [/QUOTE]

Verification: In which year did the Titanic sail?