Could Titanic's double bottom have been torn open by the iceberg

[Erik Wood]

Since Dave didn't chime in, let me agree with Sam's assessment of what Dave and I have discussed both in public and I have published a paper on.

The numbers that RINA and SNAME used are the same numbers the Wilding used so based off this information both reports including Wildings findings are correct (although both RINA and SNAME need to do some reading and get names etc correct and how a ship handles).

However, I don't believe that Wilding followed the testimony as closely as I believe to some extent I have. Now that being said I don't think my theory is correct, I just think that it is plausible. More plausible then others.

Before I comment on my thoughts of the RINA paper perhaps someone else could go first...

 

[David G. Brown]

I swore I wouldn't do it...but, I'm making another post on this subject.

The problem with 99% of the research done on Titanic is that everything is segregated into little compartments of knowledge. Unfortunately, a ship is like a living creature in that everything works together.

You can't understand why the ship sank without taking into account more than just the square footage of the holes. In a very real sense, they are only curiosities in the total story. Titanic suffered several different types of damage from impact on the iceberg. Until you factor these into the equation, all disucussions are meaningless. The reason is that Titanic did not sink from simple ingress of water alone. To repeat my ol' song--in my opinion, it did not "sink" at all, but rather broke apart and the pieces of junk sank.

What is the relationship to Lee's testimony about the heeling movement of the crow's nest while the ship was on the ice to the flooding of boiler room #6? and #5? and the falling of funnel #1?

Did the heel noticed by Lee presuppose the almost instant list to starboard on the clinometer? Why was this noticed on the bridge, but not elsewhere? Why did the passengers only note tipping by the bow and the later port list?

Beyond that, it is necessary to consider the damage done to the hull by the sinking itself. Titanic did not go without a whimper. Lots of things took place within the hull girder after the accident. The biggest, of course, was the breakup. But, there were other events.

I also do not see any discussion of the descriptions of the impact. Where is a discussion of what Olliver said? and, how does that dovetail with Lightoller's U.S. testimony?

What caused the avalanche of coal that trapped Cavelle in boiler room #4? Certainly, the type of sliding impact described by most witnesses would not have triggered such an event. But, there are alternate descriptions of the impact which neatly explain what happened to Cavelle.

Why did so many of the staff who were in the first class galley think the event took place at the wrong end of the ship? What does this have to do with Cavelle?

How could Rowe have been telling the truth about the nearness of the top of the iceberg to the docking bridge given the known underwater shape of icebergs? The answer to this question has to explain why such proximity to the berg did not cause damage to the starboard propeller.

What does engineer Shepherd's broken leg in boiler room #5 have to do with the flooding in boiler room #6?

And, has anyone noticed the fact that the square footage of the opening defined by one of Titanic's automatic watertight bulkhead doors is roughly 12 square feet.

I suggest that before continuation of the pontification it is necessary to broaden the scope of the research to include the total Titanic. But that's just my opinion...

-- David G. Brown

 

[Samuel Halpern]

I completely agree with Dave regarding the need to formulate a complete picture of what happened and not just to focus on isolated events. The derivation of an equivalent hole opening based on assumed initial flooding rates does not tell the complete story. And I do like his description of those types of details as just "curiosities" in the total story.

To get the total story, however, you need to look at many inputs and then put them through some checks and integration steps. So to add to the list that Dave has started of different considerations I would like to include the following:

Regarding the heeling to port noticed by Lee while the ship was on the ice we should add the heeling to port noticed by Fleet. The difference is that Fleet said the list came not when the she struck the ice but just afterward. They both said she struck just in front of the foremast, that would be in the vicinity of bulkhead B. So the heeling to port would have started about that point and going aft. Both associated the heeling to port with underwater contact with the berg. It should also be pointed out that if the ship was still going at close to 20 knots and turning to starboard after the collision, it would carry a slight heel to port until it steadied up and/or slowed down significantly.

Regarding the list to starboard that most people believe took place immediately after the collision, we have to look at the source. In the US Inquiry it was QM Hichens who said that Capt. Smith looked at the "commutator" which showed a 5° list to starboard only 5 to 10 minutes after the collision. However, in the BOT Inquiry Hichens' time frame changed. There he said it was after 12 that the captain had looked at the commutator and found that the ship was carrying a list to starboard. Also, there were others that noticed a starboard list besides Hichens. Norman Chambers had said he went up from E deck to A deck to investigate after the crash. After noticing nothing unusual, he went back down to his cabin on E deck to get his wife and then they both went back up to A deck where he then he said there was "a noticeable list to starboard, with probably a few degrees of pitch." And he was not the only passenger who noticed the list to starboard early on. Maj. Peuchen was another. "I happened to look and noticed the boat was listing, probably half an hour after my first visit to the upper deck....She listed to the starboard side; the side she was struck on." When Senator Smith asked how long after the collision did he notice the list, Peuchen guessed at 25 minutes. So if we take Chambers and Peuchen as well as both accounts by Hichens, what time do we say the ship developed a noticeable list to starboard? To me it looks like about 20 to 30 minutes, not the 5-10 minutes in Hichen's US testimony.

As far as the impact is concerned, there are many different accounts from hardly noticeable to more severe in nature. Beesley for example said in his book: "there came what seemed to me nothing more than an extra heave of the engines and a more than usually obvious dancing motion of the mattress on which I sat. Nothing more than that--no sound of a crash or of anything else: no sense of shock, no jar that felt like one heavy body meeting another. And presently the same thing repeated with about the same intensity."

Maj. Peuchen described it as: "I felt as though a heavy wave had struck our ship. She quivered under it somewhat. If there had been a sea running I would simply have thought it was an unusual wave which had struck the boat."

Thomas Ranger described it as: "There was just a slight jar - just lifted us off our feet."

It should be noted that in the Beesley description there appears to be two slight impacts. I had found two other sources that also came up with a two impact type of event besides the longer 7 to 10 seconds of grinding sounds that seemed to go along with the collision. One was from Mrs. Churchill Candee who mentioned "There were two distinct shocks" in describing the collision to a reporter. The other is our man at the wheel QM Hichens who apparently told a reporter: "I ain't likely to forget, sir, how the crash came. There was a light grating on the port bow, then a heavy crash on the port bow, then a heavy crash on the starboard side. I could hear the engines stop, and the lever closing the watertight emergency doors." And the Beesley account taken in an interview by a Truro Daily News reporter came out as: "I felt a slight jar and then soon after a second one, but not sufficiently large enough to cause any anxiety to anyone, however nervous they may have been."

Although non of these made it into the testimonies, somehow we (or at least I) get a feeling that there was a lot more to it than a just a simple, constant, underwater grounding event, or a series of little strikes along the side. And I think that is what Dave is getting at. A more complex encounter.

As far as correlating the 12 square feet of openings to the size of the automatic watertight bulkhead doors, that is the one thing I don't get. Dave, you may wish to go a check your data again. The WTDs on the tank top were 4'x5'6" which is 22 sq ft of area. The coal bunker doors were 2'9"x5' which is 13.75 sq ft. So 12 sq ft has nothing to do with the area of the WTDs or bunker doors as far as I can tell.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I completely agree with Dave regarding the need to formulate a complete picture of what happened and not just to focus on isolated events.<<

As do I. There's generally far more to a sinking then a single event, but one or a few events that lead to a whole host of others. There's the initial damage to consider, but once the flooding has started, what can one expect to happen when the mass of water that comes in starts to wreck havoc with weakened or broken frames that can no longer carry the load? What happens to that when you have differential flooding...slight in some areas, heavy in others, and what sort of stress does that impose on the hull girder? Things start to get complicated from that point on.

>>Although non of these made it into the testimonies, somehow we (or at least I) get a feeling that there was a lot more to it than a just a simple, constant, underwater grounding event, or a series of little strikes along the side.<<

Mind if I sign on with that club? Assuming that what happened was a grounding/allision event...as I believe it was...the ice shelf the ship would have run over would have been anything but a nice even plain. It would be something in the realm of a variable surface of gullies, protrusions, outcroppings and the like. Some would have broken away on contact, but there would always be the next "bump" in the road to consider.

 

[Erik Wood]

Here Here!!!

I third or fourth or whatever. Part of my research has revolved around the entire picture. I will admit that Dave Brown is the..."author" of my theory, while I am the one that actually came up with the idea he is the one that put it into a understandble format.

I have always and still to this day concentrate most of my thinking on the forensic aspect of the sinking. Oddly enough, over the years various folks have come up with theories that have been posted here about who did what to get the ship to do what must have been done, to get the result that lays on the bottom. There are probably a billion ways to skin a cat. Therefore, there are probably hundreds of ways to sink Titanic to get the result that we find on the bottom.

Mike hits on some key points of discussion he and I have had, and he, I and a bunch of overs have had but rather then repeat his words in my own way. I will just say that I agree.

 

[Paul Lee]

Just hoping to rejuvenate this discussion with a question: how coud water get so far aft as to be in Joughin's cabin? His room was well above the waterline, so I can't see how water could have reached there....

Cheers

Paul

 

[Michael H. Standart]

It might help if I knew exactly where Joughin's cabin was.

 

[Paul Lee]

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Ahhhhh...E deck then. I'll need to look into this some more. However, E deck isn't that far from the waterline.

 

[Paul Lee]

Yes, but by the time Joughin was in his cabin imbibing "fluids" (hic!), the bow of the ship was down, and the stern was rising from the water, so his cabin would have been higher above the water than normal. I don't think even the heavy list to port at this time could account for the water to be so seen so far aft.

Paul

 

[Bob Godfrey]

I'd go along with Joughin's own suggestion that the small amount of water he saw in his room was quite likely the run-off from a broken pipe somewhere above the working alleyway. "In the circumstances" he didn't think it could be incoming sea water, and he even recalled a similar incident on the Olympic.

 

[Paul Lee]

Perhaps....it just seemed strange that the watertight door outside his quarters was being closed at about this time! I might have connected the two incidents together in my mind.

I think you could be right. For a number of reasons: firstly, the cabin was well above the water line and water couldn't thus reach it. The other reason is that, for water to have traversed the working alleyway makes me think (based on the RINA paper), so much fluid would have been in the ship to have caused a premature foundering - unless the water along E deck counts as some form of counter flooding?

Paul

 

[Roy Kristiansen]

Hi, Dave!

Great to see you back here kicking *** !

It's such a rarity that I question something you said that I even surprised myself!

You wrote:

>>"We have a grisly sort of proof of this in the descriptions of the protracted cries for help. These have been ascribed to people int he water, which is again ridiculous. Anyone in 28 degree water is going to lose their ability to shout very quickly, most within a minute or two. This doesn't mean they're dead, just busy trying to breath. Anyone who has jumped into a swimming pool on a hot day has an inkling of the effect that a sudden plunge into cold water has on the human system. Well, where were those people doing all of the shouting? DRY. That's why they could shout. They were dry because they were on the upended stern section of Titanic as it slowly sagged into the sea."

First, please let me say I think your reasoning is sound, as usual. But -- and it's a big "but" -- it goes against everything I've heard or read from any survivor, not only the unreliable ones, but the very reliable ones. They all described hearing the cries after the tumult of the breakup had ceased and the stern had disappeared. I can't think of a single exception. What does seem to vary is each survivor's perception of duration, the very shortest I recall being about ten minutes. Would you have access to any contrary statements you'd be willing to share? -- One thing I am not is set in my thinking.

Now I have a question. Am I right in thinking that, at the point of collision, the people nearer the front of the ship were likely to have heard a long grinding slide, whereas people farther back, say in second-class, were more likely to have felt a series of bumps? I surveyed Fleet, Lightoller and Olliver up front and Beesley, Edith Brown and Charlotte Collyer in second-class and that's the impression I came away with. Should I be attaching any importance to what they said?

Best wishes!

Roy

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Yes, but by the time Joughin was in his cabin imbibing "fluids" (hic!),<<

Keep in mind that Joughin adamently denied that he was doing anything like the heavy drinking attributed to him. While he might have been fibbing about that, I think it's risky to treat this particular story as reliable.

>> the bow of the ship was down, and the stern was rising from the water, so his cabin would have been higher above the water than normal. I don't think even the heavy list to port at this time could account for the water to be so seen so far aft<<

Given the stress the hull girder was under, the possiblility of a pipe breaking somewhere can't be ignored. However, it might be well to consider what might come welling up from fixtures and fittings such as sinks, toilets, and deck drains. You'd be amazed to see just how much water can come up this way. My last ship, the USS George Washington (CVN-73) had a tendency to take on a slight list to port and anything in the drains down in my laundry plant tened to well up and flood out the dry cleaning plant to about 3 to 4 inches deep unless the drains were closed.

Bear in mind that with a ship, one must look at the whole picture and think in three demensions. You not only have the flooded space to think about, you need also account for how it effects the spaces above, below, and around the one with the primary casualty or even no casualty at all. What you need to factor in would also be anything that handles water or could serve as an ingress point for water such as what's in the plumbing as well as any sort of ventilation system. Closing all of this can be the devil's own job on a warship even with a crew that knows what they're doing, and as far as I know, there was no way to close off any of this on an Olympic class liner.

The stern goes up, the contents of the waste water drainage system comes pouring out, and it all rolls downhill. A slight list one way or another and it gets in through the base of the door into whatever spaces are in the way.

 

[Paul Lee]

FYI,
Looks like my quest for Wildings notebooks have hit a brick wall. Neither the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, nor the Belfast/Ulster Titanic Society have them.

Paul