Greetings!
I was speaking with a friend recently about Titanic. He is an amateur sailor and said that he was always puzzled about something. He wondered about the science behind why the iceberg didn't cause damage along the entire starboard side of the ship. He felt that a starboard-side collision between a large steam ship (traveling the speed of Titanic) and a large iceberg should have caused both to rotate into one another as a result of the collision.
Due to the collision, Titanic, he argued, should have turned counterclockwise and the the iceberg clockwise. Since there was no damage to the middle or rear of the ship), he believes that Titanic "bounced" off of the iceberg. This would mean that it hit with a higher degree of force than the "gentle" rub mentioned by most eyewitnesses.
I admitted that I had never thought about this. The eyewitnesses -- particularly the testimonies of Lightfoot, Boxhall, Fleet, Lee, etc. seem to indicate a more gentle collision. In fact, I've always been struck by the fact that Fifth Officer Harold Lowe slept in the crew quarters through the collision and another half-hour following it.
If his assumption about how a ship and iceberg would react from a collision is true, then I stated that the shape of the iceberg might have been such that it would prevent damage to the rest of the starboard side of the ship. In other words, the iceberg would have been seemingly perpendicular to the ship itself at the time of the collision. This would allow for the type of collision described by the various eyewitnesses. The iceberg would have still shifted clockwise, but it was shaped in such a way that it wouldn't have brushed with the ship further toward the aft starboard side.
Obviously, underwater damage to the aft starboard side (in addition to the forward starboard damage) would have been catastrophic. The number of survivors would have been greatly reduced.
Are there any publications or articles about this?
I was speaking with a friend recently about Titanic. He is an amateur sailor and said that he was always puzzled about something. He wondered about the science behind why the iceberg didn't cause damage along the entire starboard side of the ship. He felt that a starboard-side collision between a large steam ship (traveling the speed of Titanic) and a large iceberg should have caused both to rotate into one another as a result of the collision.
Due to the collision, Titanic, he argued, should have turned counterclockwise and the the iceberg clockwise. Since there was no damage to the middle or rear of the ship), he believes that Titanic "bounced" off of the iceberg. This would mean that it hit with a higher degree of force than the "gentle" rub mentioned by most eyewitnesses.
I admitted that I had never thought about this. The eyewitnesses -- particularly the testimonies of Lightfoot, Boxhall, Fleet, Lee, etc. seem to indicate a more gentle collision. In fact, I've always been struck by the fact that Fifth Officer Harold Lowe slept in the crew quarters through the collision and another half-hour following it.
If his assumption about how a ship and iceberg would react from a collision is true, then I stated that the shape of the iceberg might have been such that it would prevent damage to the rest of the starboard side of the ship. In other words, the iceberg would have been seemingly perpendicular to the ship itself at the time of the collision. This would allow for the type of collision described by the various eyewitnesses. The iceberg would have still shifted clockwise, but it was shaped in such a way that it wouldn't have brushed with the ship further toward the aft starboard side.
Obviously, underwater damage to the aft starboard side (in addition to the forward starboard damage) would have been catastrophic. The number of survivors would have been greatly reduced.
Are there any publications or articles about this?