Dark Wire on Adeck Forward Promenade

Dave Gittins

Dave Gittins

Member
Great pictures! I think you'll find that the wires are the fore-guys for the long spars that held the wires from the Kelvin sounding machines clear of the hull. The spar was 30 to 40 feet long. I'll admit that I've never seen a diagram of exactly where the two machines were placed.
 
Hi!

Not only great pictures, but a great post, Nigel. There may be some diagrams on the Kelvin's sounding machines on the TRMA website Dave, though I am not sure and can't find them at present; check out www.titanic-model.com. You've likely seen the page before, but the diagrams will be new.

Best regards,

Mark.
 
Thanks to one Bruce Beverage, I can report that the sounding machines were located about where I thought they were. They were 5 or 6 feet inboard of the edge of the boat deck and the sounding wire ran out between the emergency boat and the first large lifeboat. The spar was 28 feet long.

The sounding machines were under wooden covers that appear to be varnished. They would be less than 3 feet tall, so they are not very conspicuous. On an average model they would be job for a magnifying glass and tweezers.
 
Dan:

In no way do I wish to impede on your modeling skills, your work is brilliant! However I was led to believe that the winches (as seen in the aforementioned link) were of a *forest* or dark green color?

With all due respect to the TITANIC wreck I wonder that if in some inconspicuous area, perhaps where the rustcicles are less inundating about the forward most winches, that a *trickle* of the original paint survives and could be recovered via a MIR/NAUTILE manipulator arm?

Perhaps as with Ballard's '85 ARGO *close encounter* with which he thought to be a stack, resulting in a swatch of TITANIC's paint on the camera sled's frame.

Michael A. Cundiff
USA
 
Hello all,

As I was looking at photographs of the Britannic, there seems to be no sign of the wire mentioned above and she had an enclosed promenade deck like Titanic. That wire is really puzzling. I would like to add another question to the list above, why no wire on Britannic when she had the same enclosure to her promenade deck like Titanic?

All the best,

Nigel
 
Now that's a job for Remco Hillen.
smile.gif


Best regards,

Mark.
 
Hello, Michael,
Good eye! I do admit that in that picture the winches, which I painted camoflauge/olive green were a bit too bright, but then again, the bright sunlight didn't help its appearance any...
the picture is an old shot (1999 or early 2000) and since then I have redone the winches by mixing a bit of black with the camo green, made the spools on them a bit more accurate in appearance, and replaced the forecastle with the improved fo'c'sle from the updated Minicraft kit anyway.
One of these days, I might actually finish the model and get onto other projects...
 
Hello,

As I have no idea what the wire is for, it's difficult to see how it was for Britannic.
If it was for the sounding spar, then the situation on Britannic would have been different.
Britannic's sounding spar was placed directly aft of the wingcab, see pictures.
A wire from this spar ran to the forward end of B-deck.

Regards,
Remco
 
On the Britannic, there seems to another outrigger crane just directly behind the curve where enclosure starts. This outrigger is slightly smaller in size than it's counterparts so it might of been used for a difference purpose. This in nearly in the same area where the slighty thicker wire is located on Titanic. Since Britannic was the improvment over the Titanic, this small attachement might have replaced the wire that was seen on Titanic. It's funny though because the Olympic never had this wire, but I guess she was the first of the class. I have also noticed that on Olympic's maiden voyage she had no leadsman platform.She only had the sparpole. Then when Titanic was built they must of seen the need for another extra area for sounding so they added the platform on Titanic on her forward promenade deck then maybe they added it on Olympic, though this only guessing.

All the best,

Nigel
 
Well, Britannic had the double amount of coaling outriggers compared to Titanic.
So I don't think the absence of the wire on Britannic has anything to do with that extra outrigger.


Something that might be related, a quote from 'Engineering' about Britannic:

quote:

..the depth of the ocean is sounded by electric machinery..
Click to expand...

I've learned that sounding the depth in those times was purely mechanical.
And, Britannic had sounding spars(thus mechanical); they are well visible in pictures.
So, or they had some sort of new machine which could sound the depth and the spars were a back-up, or, they mean that the cable from the spar can be operated electricaly.

I guess that the last option is the most logical, but then again, I don't know a single thing about sounding machines.
If it is the last option, then the absence of the wire can be explained by this; and the different position of the spar compared to Titanic.

Regards,
Remco​
 
Remco, what was meant that the sounding wire was retrieved by an electric winch, not that there was some kind of primitive echo sounder. Essentially it was a hand operated machine with an electric motor tacked on.
 

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