Could an improvised barrier have been rigged up on Titanic's E deck to slow the flooding?

[Jim Currie]

Captain Currie, it is me who has been patient. I've presented not only my calculations based on the work of marine engineers, but also the views of Wilding the chief designer of these ships at H&W at the time, which all point to the same conclusion. The water would stop flowing (excluding the small leak in BR5) if the bulkhead had been extended to D deck between boiler rooms 5 and 6. Moreover, the contention that any attempt to raise that bulkhead by blocking those corridors would gain time is even more obvious. To deny this you seem to be reinventing the laws of hydrodynamics.

Either you don't understand the basic science, or you are emotionally committed to protecting a myth, that everyone on that ship did everything humanly possible to save as many people. I suspect it's the latter, and from bitter experience I know such people will never be convinced by facts. I don't think these exchanges serve any further useful purpose except waste my time.

Peter, before you insult someone, you should save yourself the possibility of embarrassment by learning a little about that person.
Know that as well as holding the highest Marine Deck Certificate while at sea, I was latterly a Marine Accident Investigator for Lloyds and US underwriters for many years.
I was also Undewiter's Newbuilding Inspector at John Brown's Shipyard, Clydebank and as UK Director of my Company, hired Chief Engineers, Captains, and people with higher qualifications than Wilding.
In addition, I was formally trained and examined in Ship Construction, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
In the real world - my world - the world in which I spent most my working life - your idea of a temporary bulkhead takes pride of place among stories of the Star Ship Enterprise' and "The Flying Dutchman"

As the character in "Allo-Allo" often said..

"I vil say zis only once" and then I'm done.

1. Water does not flow uphill. A barrier to water in a space only stops it from progressing beyond that space if the adjacent spaces are level with or lower than it. Otherwise, it will rise within the space at a rate proportional to the rate of initial inflow and in the case in question would not have, for a second, slowed down the rate of inflow and consequently- sinking.
3. The rate at which a vessel sinks is directly proportional to the rate of her losing buoyancy. Consequently, the only way to delay loss of buoyancy is to reduce the inflow of seawater.
4. If flood water was confined to the forward part of the ship, and she had not "broken her back", she would simply have attained a maximum stern-up attitude before there was no more reserve buoyancy. Then she would have slid, intact, bow forward, to her grave.
I suggest you look up the Bulkhead Committee work in 1912 into floodable length curves and the concept of the Margin Line
Byeeeee!

 

[Jim Currie]

Heyo Jim! Hope you're well

What if we use Boiler Room 5 as an example? If a steel Coal Bunker door couldn't keep the water back, I'd say there's no chance a makeshift structure on E-Deck would keep back the water either

just my two cents

Hello, Cam...I'm fine, thank you.

The water pressure in any of the spaces breached would be equal to the outside water pressure. once the level within the compartment flooding had reached the level of the breach in the ship's side in each space. i.e. between 2500 and 3000 lbs/ft.s.,
Once the water level within the fwd bunker in No. 5 rose above the hole in her side, the water pressure would equalize with the outside pressure. There would be almost one and two short tons/ Ft sq, acting on the bottom of the bunker door in 5... not a "fire hose". That is why the bunker door failed so spectacularly.

However, in this case, we are discussing a different idea. The question asked was:
"Could an improvised barrier have been rigged up on Titanic's E deck to slow the flooding?"
The answer is an emphatic NO!
There was no way to slow the flooding. The only way to do that was to block or partially block the holes in the ship's sides - to slow down the amount of water entering the ship.

Stay safe.

 

[PeterChappell]

As Stettler & Thomas say in their impressive study of the sinking:

"Near Equalization. As the flooding in the forward holds and Boiler Room 6 approached the E-Deck, the rate of ingress slowed dramatically as the differential head across the openings was reduced. This near-equalization is clearly visible in the flattening of the best estimate permeability (solid red) curve between 50 and 90 minutes in Figure 8 through Figure 11. The spill-over from Boiler Room 6 into Boiler Room 5 and the upward flooding of E-Deck drive the increase in draft and trim which increase the flooding rates again after 90 minutes"

Perhaps some people have been confused with the total volume of floodwater graph I posted from this report earlier ion this thread. To help I've attempted to convert this to rate of flow which illustrates more clearly how dramatically the flow reduced.

So why did it increase again after 65 minutes? Yes, it flowed over bulkhead E allowing water to spill over into the next compartment including Boiler room 5. However, far more importantly, flooding could take place in further areas of the ship without further increasing the head of water over the breaches (or to be more accurate without reducing the differential head to the outside further). This increasing head of water was responsible for slowing down the flow by a factor of ten up to the 65 minute point.

The most likely initial route for the water after flowing over the bulkhead was probably when it met the porters staircase on the far port side of Scotland Road just over the bulkhead. This would be at around 50 minutes, but it would take another 10-15 min to build up from a trickle to a waterfall. This stairway led directly down to the deck below and eventually to the bunker of Boiler room 5. This would explain both the heel to port, and bunker collapse later. Without access to these stairs, and the main 1st class stairs 15 mins later, the water would have to slowly seep through the decks which would take far longer.

So even the simple job of shoring up the doorways to these stairs would make a difference to the sinking time, without doing anything else!

Of course if two small dams could be constructed in the two passages above bulkhead E as well, then the head of water would need to rise still further, pushing down on the hull breaches more, reducing the flow, and maintaining this low flow by preventing the flooding of the the stairways.

In practice, some water would get through. Even if it could be reduced from the minimum here of 0.65 m3/sec or 1170 m3/hr, to half this, it would extend the sinking time enormously. The sheer volume of the ship and what pumps can be brought to bear could easily handle this flow within the extra 4 hour timeframe necessary for rescue, even if we allow for a slow steady increase in flow from this level.

 

[William Oakes]

As Stettler & Thomas say in their impressive study of the sinking:

"Near Equalization. As the flooding in the forward holds and Boiler Room 6 approached the E-Deck, the rate of ingress slowed dramatically as the differential head across the openings was reduced. This near-equalization is clearly visible in the flattening of the best estimate permeability (solid red) curve between 50 and 90 minutes in Figure 8 through Figure 11. The spill-over from Boiler Room 6 into Boiler Room 5 and the upward flooding of E-Deck drive the increase in draft and trim which increase the flooding rates again after 90 minutes"

Perhaps some people have been confused with the total volume of floodwater graph I posted from this report earlier ion this thread. To help I've attempted to convert this to rate of flow which illustrates more clearly how dramatically the flow reduced.

View attachment 77517
So why did it increase again after 65 minutes? Yes, it flowed over bulkhead E allowing water to spill over into the next compartment including Boiler room 5. However, far more importantly, flooding could take place in further areas of the ship without further increasing the head of water over the breaches (or to be more accurate without reducing the differential head to the outside further). This increasing head of water was responsible for slowing down the flow by a factor of ten up to the 65 minute point.

The most likely initial route for the water after flowing over the bulkhead was probably when it met the porters staircase on the far port side of Scotland Road just over the bulkhead. This would be at around 50 minutes, but it would take another 10-15 min to build up from a trickle to a waterfall. This stairway led directly down to the deck below and eventually to the bunker of Boiler room 5. This would explain both the heel to port, and bunker collapse later. Without access to these stairs, and the main 1st class stairs 15 mins later, the water would have to slowly seep through the decks which would take far longer.

So even the simple job of shoring up the doorways to these stairs would make a difference to the sinking time, without doing anything else!

Of course if two small dams could be constructed in the two passages above bulkhead E as well, then the head of water would need to rise still further, pushing down on the hull breaches more, reducing the flow, and maintaining this low flow by preventing the flooding of the the stairways.

In practice, some water would get through. Even if it could be reduced from the minimum here of 0.65 m3/sec or 1170 m3/hr, to half this, it would extend the sinking time enormously. The sheer volume of the ship and what pumps can be brought to bear could easily handle this flow within the extra 4 hour timeframe necessary for rescue, even if we allow for a slow steady increase in flow from this level.

They didn't have the benefit of hindsight, calculations and graphs, models and simulations.
I think that they were probably preocupied with saving their asses.

 

[Steven Christian]

They didn't have the benefit of hindsight, calculations and graphs, models and simulations.
I think that they were probably preocupied with saving their asses.

Yes and even though I've always said the only option I could see that would have made a difference was to overload the lifeboats. Compared to some later examples they did the best they could with what they had to work with which was half the boats needed. The early boats that people didn't want to get into one could debate how those were handled. But all in all later crews wouldn't have even saved the 700+. Cheers.

 

[PeterChappell]

The report is for the benefit of the doubters, who still think the ship didn't have a cat in hells chance of staying afloat for 4-5 hours.

As far as the information available to Captain & Andrews:

1) no model was needed. It was reasonably obvious that the open corridor of Scotland road would allow the water to flood many rooms simultaneously and flow down the adjoining stairs which would accelerate the flooding appreciably. There's no rocket science here.

2) the breach in BR5 was insignificant, so the ship effectively had just one too many compartments damaged to stay afloat indefinitely. This implied that it would sink, but only slowly. This 'just over the edge' condition means that interventions can have a big impact on sinking time. Andrews would or should have known this, as would any competent Engineer. He even accurately estimated how long it would stay afloat without any intervention. Of course any other conversation between him and the Captain went down with the ship.

3) the crew required to launch the lifeboats wouldn't have been involved with any damage control, with the possible exception of the two Carpenters. There was a guarantee crew from H&W on board headed by Andrews. Why not use them, what were they doing?

4) the timing of the launching of the lifeboats wasn't dictated by the available crew, but by the decision, or interpretation, to evacuate all the 1st and 2nd class 'woman and children' before anyone else. This turned out to be a psychological and logistical disaster. It was also exacerbated by the arrogant attitude of high class passengers who thought they knew better about the ships fate than the ships Captain & Designer. The Captain should have called up the 3rd class passengers who would be more than happy to get on the lifeboats after seeing their compartments flooded, as would the crew.

 

[PeterChappell]

It might seem like a world away, almost literally, but it's interesting to compare the Titanic disaster with how the Mission Controllers and Engineers reacted to the Apollo 13 incident.

The Lunar module, a craft designed to maintain 2 people for 3 days had to replace the main spacecraft designed to maintain 3 over a week to get them back. Of course there was no craft to come to the rescue in space, but they had access to information from the designers.

At first, the attitude of the Engineers reaction was, "the Lunar module wasn't designed to do this, or that". The Lead flight Director Gene Kranz replied, "I'm not interested what it can't do, I'm interested in what it can do...Work the problem.... that's not good enough, think". At one point they had to find a way of literally fitting a square peg in a round hole.

I suspect the mentality of of the Captain and Andrews on the Titanic was defeatism, and it's difficult to think optimally under such conditions. This wasn't helped by the thought they would be blamed regardless of what they did from then on. This wasn't the case with the Apollo 13 Flight Director who saw it as an opportunity to use his management skills to the full, and make the most of the incredible talent around him. He was the 'modern day' Captain Rostron.

(Gosh I've just realised by the end of this decade, there will be as much time between the Titanic sinking and Apollo 13 as Apollo 13 and today!)

 

[Thomas Krom]

He even accurately estimated how long it would stay afloat without any intervention. Of course any other conversation between him and the Captain went down with the ship.

From fourth officer Joseph Groves Boxhall (1884-1967) we have a small mention of this conversation:

"15610. Did you hear the Captain say anything to anybody about the ship being doomed?
- The Captain did remark something to me in the earlier part of the evening after the order had been given to clear the boats. I encountered him when reporting something to him, or something, and he was inquiring about the men going on with the work, and I said, "Yes, they are carrying on all right." I said, "Is it really serious?" He said, "Mr. Andrews tells me he gives her from an hour to an hour and a half." That must have been some little time afterwards. Evidently Mr. Andrews had been down."

This happened a short while 12:27 when the first distress call was send since shortly after Boxhall calculated the more accurate position of the ship, or so they thought at the time, and brought it to the wireless operators.

There was a guarantee crew from H&W on board headed by Andrews. Why not use them, what were they doing?

Assistant manager of the electrical works William Henry Marsh Parr (1882-1912) and outside foreman of the engine works Anthony Wood Frost (1874-1912) were seen by a greaser by the name of Alfred White (1880-1922) at the main feeder switchboard room, assisting chief electrician Peter Sloan (1881-1912) and his 5 fellow electricians with the power of the ship. There is no documented evidence what which duties were preformed by Chief draughtsman of the drawing offices of Harland and Wolff Roderick Chisholm (1868-1912), Leading Hand Engineer Robert Knight (1869-1912), apprentice joiner William Campbell (1891-1912), apprentice engine fitter Alfred Fleming Cunningham (1890-1912), apprentice plumber Francis Parkes (1890-1912) and apprentice electrician Ennis Hastings Watson (1893-1912), but the fact that there is no documented evidence to support that they didn't do anything does not mean that they didn't assist the crew in any way. Perhaps Mr. Watson was there at the main feeder switchboard as well, assisting one of his supervisors back at the yard. Perhaps Mr. Parkes was assisting the engineers, trimmers, firemen and greasers down below by making sure the emergency stop valves of the boiler room piping were closed properly. We shall never know what these men did with certainty, but I believe it must not be assumed that they didn't do anything.

I suspect the mentality of of the Captain and Andrews on the Titanic was defeatism, and it's difficult to think optimally under such conditions.

Regarding Thomas Andrews Jr the first signs of defeatism were noticeable when he had calculated how long the ship had to stay afloat, he estimated the ship had a half hour to stay afloat at the end of his first damage inspection but now he could more calmly calculate how long the stability curves would go negative during his second damage inspection. He went up the forward Louis XIV staircase, looking very pale, ill with a look of terror on his face. After he informed captain Smith how long the ship had to stay afloat he directly began to assist in the preparation of the evacuation by advising both passengers and crewmembers to put on their lifebelts, by instructing his own bedroom steward to make sure all the passengers had their lifebelts on and that all the lifebelts were taken from unoccupied staterooms, by making sure the staterooms on B-deck were empty and when he came across someone he ordered them up to the deck, making sure his table companions were safely off the ship and even throwing deckchairs over the side as floating devices. He did all this in a spawn of about a hour between 12:27 to an estimated 1:25. The next bit of defeatism came shortly afterwards where he was seen lost in thought in the first class smoking room by assistant verandah café steward John Stewart, who left the ship in lifeboat number 15. Shortly later he was seen on the deck again.

The report is for the benefit of the doubters, who still think the ship didn't have a cat in hells chance of staying afloat for 4-5 hours.

I never stated that this barrier wouldn't have brought the ship more time, I only stated that it couldn't have saved the ship all together which was the impression I had from some of your previous statements.

 

[Jim Currie]

As Stettler & Thomas say in their impressive study of the sinking:

"Near Equalization. As the flooding in the forward holds and Boiler Room 6 approached the E-Deck, the rate of ingress slowed dramatically as the differential head across the openings was reduced. This near-equalization is clearly visible in the flattening of the best estimate permeability (solid red) curve between 50 and 90 minutes in Figure 8 through Figure 11. The spill-over from Boiler Room 6 into Boiler Room 5 and the upward flooding of E-Deck drive the increase in draft and trim which increase the flooding rates again after 90 minutes"

Perhaps some people have been confused with the total volume of floodwater graph I posted from this report earlier ion this thread. To help I've attempted to convert this to rate of flow which illustrates more clearly how dramatically the flow reduced.

View attachment 77517
So why did it increase again after 65 minutes? Yes, it flowed over bulkhead E allowing water to spill over into the next compartment including Boiler room 5. However, far more importantly, flooding could take place in further areas of the ship without further increasing the head of water over the breaches (or to be more accurate without reducing the differential head to the outside further). This increasing head of water was responsible for slowing down the flow by a factor of ten up to the 65 minute point.

The most likely initial route for the water after flowing over the bulkhead was probably when it met the porters staircase on the far port side of Scotland Road just over the bulkhead. This would be at around 50 minutes, but it would take another 10-15 min to build up from a trickle to a waterfall. This stairway led directly down to the deck below and eventually to the bunker of Boiler room 5. This would explain both the heel to port, and bunker collapse later. Without access to these stairs, and the main 1st class stairs 15 mins later, the water would have to slowly seep through the decks which would take far longer.

So even the simple job of shoring up the doorways to these stairs would make a difference to the sinking time, without doing anything else!

Of course if two small dams could be constructed in the two passages above bulkhead E as well, then the head of water would need to rise still further, pushing down on the hull breaches more, reducing the flow, and maintaining this low flow by preventing the flooding of the the stairways.

In practice, some water would get through. Even if it could be reduced from the minimum here of 0.65 m3/sec or 1170 m3/hr, to half this, it would extend the sinking time enormously. The sheer volume of the ship and what pumps can be brought to bear could easily handle this flow within the extra 4 hour timeframe necessary for rescue, even if we allow for a slow steady increase in flow from this level.

You're flogging a dead horse, Peter. These nice little graphs and theories only work on paper and on a ship which is upright. Any other angle of heel alters the scenario.
The minute a compartment below the waterline is bilged, the contribution that compartment makes to the buoyancy of the ship is lost. By how much, depends on the permeability. of the compartment. But then
you know that.
Titanic did not start sinking on an even keel - you know that too. Consequently; during the initial sinking period, the ship was heeled to starboard and the water level in the flooded compartments was level with the outside. This being so, water would only over-top a WT bulkhead at its outboard, starboard side unless the ship came upright. or the water level reached half the width. Since water does not flow up hill - what brought Titanic upright?

 

[Jim Currie]

PS; Do not confuse realism with defeatism. These men were masters of their trade

 

[William Oakes]

The report is for the benefit of the doubters, who still think the ship didn't have a cat in hells chance of staying afloat for 4-5 hours.

As far as the information available to Captain & Andrews:

1) no model was needed. It was reasonably obvious that the open corridor of Scotland road would allow the water to flood many rooms simultaneously and flow down the adjoining stairs which would accelerate the flooding appreciably. There's no rocket science here.

2) the breach in BR5 was insignificant, so the ship effectively had just one too many compartments damaged to stay afloat indefinitely. This implied that it would sink, but only slowly. This 'just over the edge' condition means that interventions can have a big impact on sinking time. Andrews would or should have known this, as would any competent Engineer. He even accurately estimated how long it would stay afloat without any intervention. Of course any other conversation between him and the Captain went down with the ship.

3) the crew required to launch the lifeboats wouldn't have been involved with any damage control, with the possible exception of the two Carpenters. There was a guarantee crew from H&W on board headed by Andrews. Why not use them, what were they doing?

4) the timing of the launching of the lifeboats wasn't dictated by the available crew, but by the decision, or interpretation, to evacuate all the 1st and 2nd class 'woman and children' before anyone else. This turned out to be a psychological and logistical disaster. It was also exacerbated by the arrogant attitude of high class passengers who thought they knew better about the ships fate than the ships Captain & Designer. The Captain should have called up the 3rd class passengers who would be more than happy to get on the lifeboats after seeing their compartments flooded, as would the crew.

I respect your passion for this theory which you have postulated most eloquently, but I still think that you have the benefit of hindsight.
While your explanations, and the time and effort that you have put into this study are admirable, they lack real-life, in-the-moment feasability.
You are able to look back at records and sinking models and know where the water was going next.
The people on this ship didn't have the ability to know or predict where it was going next.
They only knew that what they were standing on, is sinking.

 

[William Oakes]

It might seem like a world away, almost literally, but it's interesting to compare the Titanic disaster with how the Mission Controllers and Engineers reacted to the Apollo 13 incident.

The Lunar module, a craft designed to maintain 2 people for 3 days had to replace the main spacecraft designed to maintain 3 over a week to get them back. Of course there was no craft to come to the rescue in space, but they had access to information from the designers.

At first, the attitude of the Engineers reaction was, "the Lunar module wasn't designed to do this, or that". The Lead flight Director Gene Kranz replied, "I'm not interested what it can't do, I'm interested in what it can do...Work the problem.... that's not good enough, think". At one point they had to find a way of literally fitting a square peg in a round hole.

I suspect the mentality of of the Captain and Andrews on the Titanic was defeatism, and it's difficult to think optimally under such conditions. This wasn't helped by the thought they would be blamed regardless of what they did from then on. This wasn't the case with the Apollo 13 Flight Director who saw it as an opportunity to use his management skills to the full, and make the most of the incredible talent around him. He was the 'modern day' Captain Rostron.

(Gosh I've just realised by the end of this decade, there will be as much time between the Titanic sinking and Apollo 13 as Apollo 13 and today!)

Yes, but the people on board Titanic, didn't have a mission control to reach out to. There was no crack team of scientists and engineers sequesterd in a lab, readily available and working non-stop, to come up with a quick fix.

 

[Incony]

William Oakes, i agree. Neither was the time available, nor the materials, for those in control of the Titanic. , there were not enough lifeboats even. Apollo had a lifeboat big enough , equipped enough and with the crew skilled enough to save them all.. There is no comparison to such analogy.... Apollo did not run out of time.. The Flight of Concorde that caught fire on take off before crashing does have comparison, since the crew and passengers did not expect the fire, could not avoid it at the time it happened, had to carry on, since Concorde could not stop before taking off, and despite everyone inside as prepared as they could be, with all the skills available by extremely competent crew, the aircraft crashed, and everyone on it died. It ran out of time. Titanic did better than that, Titanic was able to save nearly half of those onboard.... The concept that management skills and better technology skills save lives is flawed, because we still have accidents... Accident - Wikipedia

 

[PeterChappell]

Yeah Titanic only had the ships Designer, White Stars most experienced Captain, 2 crew Carpenters another in the guarantee squad, a dozen more in the passenger list, a Carpenters shop, Carpenters store and tonnes of surrounding timber in the form of tables, doors, and furniture surrounding them, and only 1 hour until the critical juncture. Neither had a ship ever been holed and saved before, whereas manned spacecraft 200,000 miles away, without any chance of rescue, were blowing up all the time. No comparison!

More seriously, the real difference was the positive rather than defeatist attitude. There was one similarity, it was damn cold!

 

[Cam Houseman]

Spacecraft 200,000 miles away wouldn't exist until 1969.