Ship's name on the wreck [was: I just noticed this...]

[jktress]

The fatal flaws in the whole conspiracy theory are so numerous that it would be hard to list them all, but the very essence of it is insurance fraud, and that's the show stopper right there. The Titanic was only insured for 1million pounds sterling of her 1.5million pounds sterling value. The remaining 500,000 was covered by White Star's own in house insurance fund at a time when inflation had not turned all that into chump change.

The conspiracy theorists would have us believe that White Star would contrive a fraud where it would rook itself out of 500,000 pounds sterling.

They were NOT that stupid!

I'm not trying to stir up the Titanic/Olympic switch. It's the Titanic on the bottom of the Atlantic, plain and simple. However can we keep the thread focused on the lettering at the site? As I mentioned, I'm interested for purely aesthetic reasons, not to prove anything.

 

[Rusty_S]

I'm not trying to stir up the Titanic/Olympic switch. It's the Titanic on the bottom of the Atlantic, plain and simple. However can we keep the thread focused on the lettering at the site? As I mentioned, I'm interested for purely aesthetic reasons, not to prove anything.

In reference to your post about making out the C, I looked at the photo and something just nags me about it. The C in my opinion appears too small to be the name. I just wonder if this "C" is nothing more than the glowing rust around a porthole.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>However can we keep the thread focused on the lettering at the site?<<

I think that any photos are going to be very hard to come by, if for no other reason then the rusticles which are obscuring everything. If somebody knows otherwise and is free to post a photo with the permissions required if they're protected by copyright, please do so. I can think of a whole planet full of people who come to this forum who would like to see them.

 

[Calvin Harvey]

Good Catch, While I was looking at the hi-rez composite photos of the bow I noticed something that could be iceberg damage. At first it looks like rusticles hanging from a plate seam but when you zoom into the photo, it looks like its deformed and being filled with silt and rusticles. I overlaid the image over a researcher's diagram where he believed the iceberg damaged boiler room 6 and 5. Using several reference points, it lines up pretty good; just like the witness said 2 feet into boiler room 5. The port holes do not line up exactly but considering how they made the overall composite image I think it's worth bring up for discussion. Thanks.

 

[Jake Peterson]

Calvin-

It could be plate damage, but considering that it slammed onto the ocean floor, I'm wondering if it's not just regular deformation. It sort of appears to jut outward a bit.

 

[Calvin Harvey]

That was my original assumption but then I decided to see where the bulkheads were in comparison to the deformation. After reviewing the plans, I counted port holes and compared it to the photo and it was withing boiler room 6. That gave me the idea to overlay the photo over the plans to see if it lines up. But for I did the overlay, I read up on the damage and I believe it was Barrett who said the gash went two feet into boiler room 5. So when I overlaid the photo the deformation does barely go into no. 5. I agree it could be from the impact with the bottom but considering Edward Wilding's report states, "Frederick Barrett who said that water came through the side of the ship about 2 feet above the stokehold plates in Boiler Room No. 6 and in the forward bunker space of Boiler Room No. 5. The stokehold plates, the flooring that the firemen and trimmers walked on within the stokeholds, was a little over 2 feet above the ship’s tank top, the top of Titanic’s double bottom. The tank top itself was 5 feet above the keel, which in turn, was about 34 feet below the load waterline. So if we take 5 feet for the tank top, add 2 more feet for the stokehold plates, and then add 2 feet above that for where the water was seen coming into the ship, we find that the damage seen was 9 feet above the keel. Nine feet above a keel that itself was about 34 feet below the waterline means that the openings in the ship’s hull were 25 feet below the surface of the sea." So I think the damage could be related to the iceberg because it matches the description provided by the witness and from the engineer's report. Thanks for your reply and they are discovering new information with the first comprehensive survey of the wreck site so maybe someone with more knowledge than me can explan it.

 

[Jake Peterson]

Like your analysis. Perhaps it's a combination of the rip, and hitting the floor bed. Could explain why it appears to jut out a bit.

 

[Rusty_S]

Good Catch, While I was looking at the hi-rez composite photos of the bow I noticed something that could be iceberg damage. At first it looks like rusticles hanging from a plate seam but when you zoom into the photo, it looks like its deformed and being filled with silt and rusticles. I overlaid the image over a researcher's diagram where he believed the iceberg damaged boiler room 6 and 5. Using several reference points, it lines up pretty good; just like the witness said 2 feet into boiler room 5. The port holes do not line up exactly but considering how they made the overall composite image I think it's worth bring up for discussion. Thanks. View attachment 243View attachment 244View attachment 245

First thing I have to comment on, what resolution is the bow composition image you have in? Ive been trying to find a high resolution one to see details but can only find these small low quality ones.

Now on the comment about the damage, even without the box it appears to be a section of hull plates that seperated on the top edge. Question is though is this caused by the iceberg or caused by the collision with the ocean floor.

I am also curious about the heigth the damage is. I cant remember the exacts but I want to say 2 feet estimated heigth above the stokehold plates and I have this heigth to scale marked on high resolution profile blueprints ive been working on and comparing your high resolution image to mine I would have to say the heigth is about right. The heigth appears to be about 4 feet estimated above the deck plates where I have my diagram showing the damage being about 2 feet above the plates. I would have to verify this by pulling out my diagram specs to get accurate measurements and then double check the heigth claimed I might have made an error.

But the more I look at this I am inclined to say this is most likely buckled hull plates from the collision with the iceberg. The question now is, is the same damage found on the other side. If so then no matter how accurate this is to what was described by survivors you would have to throw it out as inconclusive.

 

[Calvin Harvey]

I captured the images from Nat Geo's April 2012 article "Unseen Titanic". I have the Nat Geo iPad app which lets you pinch and zoom the entire bow and stern sections on their starboard sides. You can also pinch and zoom looking down over both sections. The interactive mosaic says they created each composite using 1,500 hi-rez pics. Using my iPad, I captured a 1024x768 png image of the screen and created a 90% transparency layer in Photoshop to overlay on a 1422x1180 tiff file of the bow plans. I can send you the full size files if you want; just send me a prv msg with your email. Thanks.

 

[turricaned]

As far as the damage reported by Fireman Barrett is concerned, the 1999 expedition (which formed the basis of the "Answers From The Abyss" documentary) actually found a segment of what is potentially iceberg damage* that would lead to the ingress of water that Barrett described. Based on the fact that within the bow section there are steel support pillars that have been bent almost into a "C" shape and that the only possible cause of this damage would be impact with the ocean floor, I think it's fair to say that it would be impossible to determine conclusively what damage occurred before that impact versus after with regard to what you are describing.

With regard to the eventual flooding of Boiler Room #5, the main schools of thought centre on the water forcing its way into the coal bunker between #6 and #5 and eventually overwhelming the latter, the sections of bulkhead between #5 and #6 that were not designed to be watertight finally giving way under the sheer pressure of the water, or some combination of the two. The latter would not require a sudden, catastrophic failure to seal the ship's fate, just as time has proven that the "gash" was legend and what actually did for her was a series of relatively small plate separations across the first five compartments.

The reason for this is relatively simple. Once Boiler Room #5 began to take on significant quantities of water, the bow would submerge to the Boat Deck level and shortly thereafter water would cascade down into the Grand Staircase from above, accelerating the sinking process exponentially.

[* - The other interesting point about this find is that if it is indeed iceberg damage, it renders the "weak rivets" theory largely moot, as the rivets along this section were steel as opposed to wrought iron and fitted by machine rather than by hand. ]

 

[turricaned]

This debate has been going on, on the yahoo news article from the other night pertaining to Ballard. This guy is claiming the footage makes out a Y and a M on the name plate and claiming that the Titanic letters were riveted atop Olympic's.

I take it you don't mean Ballard himself - whatever you think of him, he's not a CT fellow traveller!

On a side note I have to say I would like to get some high resolution images of the name plate on the bow. I think I got a hazy one showing the name plate on the stern as well as part of Liverpool.

See the video linked earlier in the thread - it's the one and only time you're likely to ever see the etched name.

So - the original post. Even allowing for the fact that the photomosaic is going to have some wiggle to it, you're looking too far forward for the lettering, and what appears to be a "C" (which I'm sure is merely a rusticle formation) is far too small. The engraved letters were 50% of the height of the plating at least! The lettering on the Olympic-class was situated between two large apertures (presumably portholes) on the hull plating immediately below the white-painted fo'c'sle plate. The forward aperture is roughly midway between - counting back from the starboard anchor - the second and third fo'c'sle porthole (allowing for the fact that the 1912 photo provided for comparison is in fact a more-or-less 3/4 view of the ship) and the aft aperture is between the fifth and sixth. The letters are buried beneath a layer of rusticle accretion and are not visible. To give an idea of just how quickly these accretions form - think about the fact that the letters were revealed on the port side in 1987 and had disappeared again by the time of the following expeditions in the early '90s.

 

[Calvin Harvey]

Here is max zoom of the deformation. Is does appear in the photo rivets are missing and it is a plate seperation instead of the mythical gash. I've attached a full color photo, a inverted color photo and a converted black and white then inverted to add contrast to image. Prior to attaching I can tell what the resolution is going be in the forum but hopefully it close to the same size.

 

[Rusty_S]

I take it you don't mean Ballard himself - whatever you think of him, he's not a CT fellow traveller!



See the video linked earlier in the thread - it's the one and only time you're likely to ever see the etched name.

So - the original post. Even allowing for the fact that the photomosaic is going to have some wiggle to it, you're looking too far forward for the lettering, and what appears to be a "C" (which I'm sure is merely a rusticle formation) is far too small. The engraved letters were 50% of the height of the plating at least! The lettering on the Olympic-class was situated between two large apertures (presumably portholes) on the hull plating immediately below the white-painted fo'c'sle plate. The forward aperture is roughly midway between - counting back from the starboard anchor - the second and third fo'c'sle porthole (allowing for the fact that the 1912 photo provided for comparison is in fact a more-or-less 3/4 view of the ship) and the aft aperture is between the fifth and sixth. The letters are buried beneath a layer of rusticle accretion and are not visible. To give an idea of just how quickly these accretions form - think about the fact that the letters were revealed on the port side in 1987 and had disappeared again by the time of the following expeditions in the early '90s.

Oh, I didnt mean Ballard was saying that. It was a comment post on the yahoo news article about Ballard. This guy was going on about the letters being riveted over the ones for Olympic. When I watched the video the high resolution one I clearly made out every letter. It was very nice seeing that and I got a photo mosiac of it but it has a blueish tint to it and it looks more like the photos or stills were taken through some nylons.

 

[jktress]

I take it you don't mean Ballard himself - whatever you think of him, he's not a CT fellow traveller!



See the video linked earlier in the thread - it's the one and only time you're likely to ever see the etched name.

So - the original post. Even allowing for the fact that the photomosaic is going to have some wiggle to it, you're looking too far forward for the lettering, and what appears to be a "C" (which I'm sure is merely a rusticle formation) is far too small. The engraved letters were 50% of the height of the plating at least! The lettering on the Olympic-class was situated between two large apertures (presumably portholes) on the hull plating immediately below the white-painted fo'c'sle plate. The forward aperture is roughly midway between - counting back from the starboard anchor - the second and third fo'c'sle porthole (allowing for the fact that the 1912 photo provided for comparison is in fact a more-or-less 3/4 view of the ship) and the aft aperture is between the fifth and sixth. The letters are buried beneath a layer of rusticle accretion and are not visible. To give an idea of just how quickly these accretions form - think about the fact that the letters were revealed on the port side in 1987 and had disappeared again by the time of the following expeditions in the early '90s.

This is a pretty inaccurate assessment. We're clearly not too far forward. Let's look at the image more closely. You are correct about the 1912 photo perspective, however it is still useful for gauging size. The 'C' is roughly the size of a porthole. Neither the 'C' nor the porthole are in fact 50% the height of the plating. That is far too large (shown by the red circles). Next let's look at positioning. Too far forward? Using known landmarks such as the two smaller holes, visible in both the NatGeo photo and the 1912 image, we're obviously pretty close. What about the three large cylindrical objects (tie downs?) visible on the deck? Again, we're in the right area, even considering the wiggle room you mentioned.





I just don't believe that is a rusticle. There are plenty of places on the hull that aren't covered. Where is your source stating the letters disappeared after the '87 expedition? The french divers cleaned the name on that expedition, and I know Cameron stated he saw letters on both the stern and bow in '96.

Here's one final piece of evidence. Take a look at the shape of the 1912 'C' zoomed in closely. Look at the angles formed at the top of the letter, compared to the angles in the 2010 photo. Sharp at the top, slightly rounded at the bottom. They are a pretty close match.



Here's another person who thinks this could be the name - TITANIC FORUM - Titanic's starboard bow wreck nameplate 2010/2012 mosaic scan Positioning is spot on.

 

[turricaned]

This is just my opinion - you make some fair points - but I remain to be convinced. The vertical width of the strake containing the ship's name is narrower than that of the fo'c'sle plating (which you compared with the red circles), and the apertures on either side of the letters are noticeably larger than the portholes running along the fo'c'sle (I remember because the latter were a bugger to paint around on the model when I was 12! ). Those apertures appear to be entirely rusted over, but I think I can spot the outline, and your potential "C" looks to be forward of it.

The clincher for me though is the angles. The bow section forward of the superstructure has been bent downwards at a fairly acute angle - but what you've highlighted as a "C" if anything seems to be angled slightly upwards. Because the mosaic is not exact it could be a minor error on the part of the compositor, but combined with the previous paragraph I have to say I'm not sold. I'm happy to be proven wrong however!