Are you forgetting we have a witness from that boiler room? We know precisely where the water came in and it was on the side two feet above the stockhold plates. Which exactly matches the damage surveyed on the outside. And the damage on the outside goes back to the first couple feet past the watertight bulkhead which led to where the same witness saw water coming in to boiler room 5.
Actually two. Beachamp was there too. He was working in the same stokehold as Barrett but probably on the port side. Beachamp described the water as "coming through the bunker door like." BR 6 flooded quite quickly. In about the first 10 minutes, or thereabouts, the water was as high as half the diameter of the boilers there according to Barrett. Reaching the locations of the breach would have been impossible by then. I covered this in quite a bit of detail in Ch 6 of: http://www.titanicology.com/Centennial/CentennialBookPage.html.
I have to nearly totally agree with your post. Years ago when I first saw it, I recognized some important truths in Roger Long's breakup theory. But while he had the crushing damage and the double bottom accounted for, the rest of his theory no longer matches what has been found. Thanks for calling my attention to Sam's paper (Why A Low Angle Break?). It was an excellent read. I find that the one part I can't get behind is the idea that the ship suddenly started to tip over. I think that at 2:15 the double bottom broke and started a 2-3 minute sequence of cascading damage that resulted in the final break at 2:17-18. I think Jack Thayer was mistaken about which funnel shot up sparks. A number of other survivors call out the 3rd, not 2nd funnel. That fits with the area of damage and a sudden flooding of the boilers causing sparks and smoke to fly up. I've doused enough camp fires and grill coals to recognize the description. I think the key is Baker Joughin and Trimmer Dillon, both on the stern as the ship broke. Joughin made it to the starboard poop rail. Both felt the stern take a sudden dip to port. Most of the people were thrown to port and Dillon ended up overboard. And with the horrible extent of the damage in the middle section and the multiple description of an explosion with pieces flying off and killing people in the water and with the analysis of the "Big Piece" - that it bent and broke outward, I think there is ample evidence for an unequal breaking that came from inside out. The visible break happened at the same time the "Big Piece" snapped. But that description is EXACTLY the way Roger Long described it in his theory. He is the only one whose theory has a complex multipart process that truly fits the damage. So much wrong with it, yet so much right.
This diagram brings up an interesting question. We know the ship was designed to have these bulkheads be water tight up to a certain level. But when water goes over that level, by what means does water take to get to the other side? If Compartment A is not filling fast, how does water get in to fill it. The deck plans often do not show ways in water can get through. The chain locker in is Compartment A so we know there is access from the forcastle B deck, but water cannot just flow over when it reaches the top of the bulkhead. It has to find a way to go. In some locations this is obvious - doors and hatches - but in other areas there is no obvious way for water to get through. I'm sure some of the partitions are wood and could not hold up to the force of the water, but others are going to be metal and while they may leak, water cannot just flow freely. This is one reason why I think the break hastened the end and why I don't think the angle was that high when the ship broke.
Thanks Sam. That was what I meant by saying that they could probably note the general area where the water was pouring in before the water level got too high.
Agreed completely.
I suspect that most of the water progressed in two ways, either by wooden walls collapsing, or by doors being forced open by the pressure of water. The doors leading to the various stairs are particularly important, because this is a quick route to by-pass the bulkheads. There is eyewitness account of walls collapsing in the early stages of the sinking. This would be expected, because the height of water increased so rapidly there wasn't time for it to seep into adjacent areas via the cracks between boards under doors etc. However, between 12:30 to 13:00 the water flow was much less, I except most walls would have remained intact because the water would have time to gradually build up on the other side. So you might have say 6ft of water in one room and 4ft in the next, and 2 ft in the next. However, the open Scotland Rd corridor would have enabled the water to move down the ship and flood many rooms simultaneously. Another possibility is that the weight of water over an unsupported area might collapse that deck. It depends on the exact design, and strength of materials.
The only problem with stairs is that none of them lead to the boiler rooms. Only the doors on Scotland Road lead there and those doors had high sills and I doubt they were wood. Water would have to find another way down.
I really mean stairs to the F deck from which it would accumulate and have to seep through to the boiler rooms. At 12:45-12:50am Wheat
The last time that article was revised was 2017. One day I may update it a little bit based on some recent work I've done. But that would only tweak the curve of trim vs time by a very small amount. For example, Wheat's observation was probably closer to 12:55 since he was leaving his quarters on F deck and going back up the stairs when he saw that water. Also, Ray's observation had to be somewhat later than what I show since when Wheat was there the list of the vessel still over to starboard because water came from the E deck starboard side alleyway only, while when Ray was there, it was about equal on both the port and starboard alleyways and somewhat further back from the time that Wheat was there.
I really feel that the timed observations from the lifeboats about where the ship was sitting in the water and at what time is the most accurate indicator of where we should be finding water inside. I feel that the time for water on that stair has been listed in error. At 12:50 that would put water higher inside the ship than outside. In reading Wheat's testimony, his timing was an estimate after having been up to the boat deck. The UK hearing grilled him on where he saw water and really glossed over the time. Water should have been flowing in that area if ports were open and at about 1:15 from the external observations, 25 minutes after Wheat claimed.
Not at all. The ship would have trimmed down to about 3.2° by that time, and was still carrying a list to starboard. Water would easily flow onto E deck from the stairs leading down to the mail room. It would have reached the level of E deck there about 12:15 and then find its way aft along the starboard-side alleyway as the bow sank lower and lower. And not just Wheat. Look also at what Ray had to say.
Ray went down sometime after 12:55 (LB 7 in the water and rowing away) and before 1:30 (LB 9 lowered). That is a sizable window. And his testimony was that the water was on both port and starboard of deck E. So he was enough after Wheat. Neither one identify exactly what time they were below, but Ray's testimony places him on E deck about the time the ship had righted itself before listing to port. That was closer to 1:30 and we know he was on the boat deck at 1:30 when LB 9 was lowered. So what he saw puts him below closer to 1:30 than to 12:55. That would fit if he was 5 to 10 minutes later than Wheat in seeing water on E deck and closer to 1:15.
