P
Peter Dufault
Member
Years ago after I saw the movie I thought about how to prevent it from sinking on and off for a couple weeks. I then had an idea that I have not been able to find expressed anywhere else yet. Depending on the remaining structural integrity of the ship, would the following be possible, had the captain acted in time?
1) Having collided with the iceberg, recognize that the ship would indeed sink in a short time due to water pouring in.
2) Realize that the ship would continue to take on water because the bow would go in first.
3) If the ship took on the water in the middle, the ship as a whole would dip down, but possibly not sink.
4) With the above 3 points in mind, could saving the ship be as simple as pointing the bow into the iceberg and setting the engines on full speed ahead? This would use the iceberg as a support to take on enough load to prevent the bow from dipping in, which at the very least might delay the sinking for a couple hours. If everything held together, then they could even manage it until the coal ran out.
It would take someone with more skill than myself to model the ship and conditions with a good finite-element package, but it might yield interesting results.
1) Having collided with the iceberg, recognize that the ship would indeed sink in a short time due to water pouring in.
2) Realize that the ship would continue to take on water because the bow would go in first.
3) If the ship took on the water in the middle, the ship as a whole would dip down, but possibly not sink.
4) With the above 3 points in mind, could saving the ship be as simple as pointing the bow into the iceberg and setting the engines on full speed ahead? This would use the iceberg as a support to take on enough load to prevent the bow from dipping in, which at the very least might delay the sinking for a couple hours. If everything held together, then they could even manage it until the coal ran out.
It would take someone with more skill than myself to model the ship and conditions with a good finite-element package, but it might yield interesting results.