The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: twyacht on April 14, 2012, 06:23:54 PM
-
Some may not know that I work on large yachts, and cruise ships, even mega-liners per se,....But nothing compares to the pinnacle of technology and innovation,... of the Titanic at that time. An amazing ship, destined for history, and took over 1500 souls with her. The size and scope of power, electricity, and scale had never been done before.
The proclamation by White Star Line to state "God Himself Couldn't Sink Her", was the prideful curse that took her...Fate and human audacity can be a bit** that way....and a reminder.
But 100 years ago this week, the mystique, the story, the fate that awaited Titanic will be a part of history. An amazing time, and an amazing tragedy. She rests and decays upright,....a true statement to her stature....
Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven seemed fitting.
RIP.
-
If she'd been going any faster, or any slower, she would have drove her bows straight into the berg which would not have opened up enough compartments to sink her, or else she would have missed entirely.
Instead, she scraped along the side of the berg ripping open to many compartments to survive.
70% of her passengers and crew died over a couple MPH.
-
Its amazing to think that the first class ticket on the Titanic back then was $4500.00 US.
To put that in perspective:
Average Income (year) ........................ .............. $1,033
New Home (median price)........................ ..............2,750
New Car (average cost)........................ .................$941
Gas (gallon) ........................ ........................ .......... 7¢
Stamp................... ........................ ........................ 2¢
Bacon (pound)........................ ........................ .....24¢
Bread (loaf)........................ ........................ ...........5¢
Butter (pound) ........................ ........................ .... 37¢
Eggs (dozen)........................ ........................ ........34¢
Milk (quart)........................ ........................ ............9¢
Sugar (pound) ........................ ........................ ...... 7¢
Steak (pound)........................ ........................ .......23¢
Simply amazing eh.
RIP to all those poor bastards that died that day and as a result in the years to come.
-
If she'd been going any faster, or any slower, she would have drove her bows straight into the berg which would not have opened up enough compartments to sink her, or else she would have missed entirely.
Instead, she scraped along the side of the berg ripping open to many compartments to survive.
70% of her passengers and crew died over a couple MPH.
+1
Capt. Smith ordered flank speed, in an inside the uniformed "stripes" boastful test to also set the transatlantic record....Ignoring warnings from several other ships in the area about icebergs, and a flank speed of 26 knots, (God bless those poor bastard stokers),...
It was like turning a school bus with flat tires on a moonless night..and the watertight doors only went up 9 decks....Not the 14 aboard Titanic,,,,so as one flooded it spilled over to the next, and the next.....and the next......to her demise....
Titanic would have been better off with a direct hit, as her bow would have flooded only 2 compartments, but it was the perfect combination of disaster.
Many SOS, distress, and maritime rescue protocols were implemented after this tragedy, and are still in effect to this day.
A tough lesson learned, but saved many lives going fwd. Except for the R.M.S. Lusitania sunk by a German U-Boat, just a few years later....
-
RMS Titanic was the first ship to use the signal "S-O-S", to request rescue.
The proscribed signal had recently been changed from the previous "C-Q-D"
Carpathia, the first rescue ship on the scene was the sister ship of Lusitania and was also sunk by a U Boat, U-55 in 1915.
-
Fine ship? To paraphrase Moriarity from Kelley's Heroes, "she's a piece of crap!" I'm thinking mostly of the substandard rivets they discovered were used in an effort to save money. Like the whole "not enough lifeboats" thing. Well, the lack of lifeboats was also driven by aesthetics.
If you traveled 1st Class, yeah, it was a wonder, all of the comforts of home. For the rest, meh, not so much.
To be fair, TW, yes White did speed up but he also re-routed the ship to the south, away from the sighted ice field.
There is also a report that when the iceberg was sighted (on a moonless night in an unusually calm ocean making the berg very difficult to detect visually) the helmsman was ordered "hard a-board" meaning away from starboard, but being younger did not understand that meaning and turned instead to starboard. It was corrected fairly quickly, but even that little bit of mis-direction contributed to the loss.
When you stop and look at the entire sequence of events, it really was a charlie-foxtrot all around.
Or, as TW noted in the OP, perhaps a series of Divinely directed events.
There's a newly released photo today showing a tiny fraction of the human loss. The picture was shown before, but heavily cropped to show only a single boot. Now the pair of boots, and the remains of a jacket next to them, are clearly the evidence that this is where one of the bodies ended up.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/15/officials-say-human-remains-may-be-at-titanic-shipwreck-site/#ixzz1s5K79C9U3?test=latestnews (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/15/officials-say-human-remains-may-be-at-titanic-shipwreck-site/#ixzz1s5K79C9U3?test=latestnews)
(http://a57.foxnews.com/img.foxnews.com/static/managed/assets/660/371/TitanicHumanRemains.JPG)
-
The things that made Titanic so famous was mostly media hype because of the 1st class passengers such as J. J. Astor, and of course "Unsinkable" Molly Brown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Brown
For real, long term tragedy read up on the SS Central America, or the steamer General Slocum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Central_America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_General_Slocum
-
The rivets were fine right up until impact...and that 300+ ft rip...Yes the watertight doors were the Achilles Heel, but most naval architects don't spend enough time away from their drafting tables. (Holds true today)...
The lifeboats, or lack there of, were not mandated by any oversight committee, or statute/law etc,....(they were after Titanic), as the post sinking trial revealed.
http://www.history.com/news/2012/04/15/titanic-on-trial/
Fantastic resource of the second "Charlie Foxtrot",...after the sinking and investigation.
While the Capt. adjusted his course, an unusually cold Winter kept the ice farther south than what Capt. Smith "assumed" would be Wide Open Throttle to NY.
-
The rivets were fine right up until impact...and that 300+ ft rip...Yes the watertight doors were the Achilles Heel, but most naval architects don't spend enough time away from their drafting tables. (Holds true today)...
My reading has been that the rivets were of a low-grade iron because the high-carbon steel rivets couldn't be shipped fast enough and were too expensive. Recent metallurgical studies have shown how poor the iron was in the rivets using non-visual techniques such as x-ray and microscopic analysis of the metallic structure which showed large (relatively) chucks of non-ferrous materials.
Still and all, agreed on the doors, but then back then who designed to that level of worst case scenario. And the Titanic was a fluke, hence the CF notation. A perfect storm of coincidences, or . . . .
And even recently, we've had our own CF moments, such as the Challenger, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the walkway in the KC Holiday Inn, et al.
-
I saw an interview with a forensic metallurgist who identified that the steel used in both the ships hull and the rivets was of inferior materials. That, coupled with the colder water of the north Atlantic, was instrumental in making the material far more brittle than it should have been.
As to watertight compartments, this was a commercial vessel, I doubt they ever considered losing one compartment, let alone several.
For the souls that went down with her, I wish Ballard had never found her! She was the bait the Navy used to propel him to survey the Scorpion and the Thresher.
-
For the souls that went down with her, I wish Ballard had never found her! She was the bait the Navy used to propel him to survey the Scorpion and the Thresher.
I thought Ballard was on a secret mission to find the Thresher and Scorpion and only after finding those two was he "allowed" to look for the Titanic?
-
I thought Ballard was on a secret mission to find the Thresher and Scorpion and only after finding those two was he "allowed" to look for the Titanic?
They already knew where the Thresher and the Scorpion went down. In fact, they'd already surveyed the sites earlier. Ballard had better technology and solicited the Navy for the funding to look for Titanic. The Navy said only after he finished the sub survey would he be allowed to search for Titanic and he had a limited window.
In order to keep him quiet, they swore him back into active duty as well.
-
They already knew where the Thresher and the Scorpion went down. In fact, they'd already surveyed the sites earlier. Ballard had better technology and solicited the Navy for the funding to look for Titanic. The Navy said only after he finished the sub survey would he be allowed to search for Titanic and he had a limited window.
In order to keep him quiet, they swore him back into active duty as well.
Kinda makes you go Hmmmmmm.... :-X
-
They already knew where the Thresher and the Scorpion went down. In fact, they'd already surveyed the sites earlier. Ballard had better technology and solicited the Navy for the funding to look for Titanic. The Navy said only after he finished the sub survey would he be allowed to search for Titanic and he had a limited window.
In order to keep him quiet, they swore him back into active duty as well.
People wonder why some institutions reject every offer of government money, apparently they haven't heard there is no such thing as free lunch. Just wait until the welfare recipients get their debt called...
-
Watched several updated and new shows over the last week on Titanic....one last night on History. They took rivets made out of the same materials and put them to the teat under hydraulic testing and they stood up to the test. It was a cool show....where they did high-def sonar of the complete 15 mile debris field in order to capture all the pieces of the puzzle (up to this point, only about 30-50% had been surveyed in no particular order). They did a holographic reconstruction of the break-up of the ship and sinking.
One thing I saw on a Nat-Geo special that explained a lot was info on the water-tight compartment and flooding. I had always thought that the water had went over the "top" from compartment to compartment.......but as one of the scientists on the show said, "water-tight" means sealed separate from each other....water couldn't go over the top of a closed cell. Titanic was designed to stay afloat as long as no more than any four of her water tight chambers flooded. The iceberg ripped into just enough linear hull length to flood five compartments, thus dooming the ship. It was reported that Thomas Andrews, the ship's main designer, went below and surveyed the extent of the damage (right after impact) and reported to the captain that it was going to sink (an account from one of the only surviving engine room workers).
They also said it was a credit to the design of the ship that it stayed upright during the sinking, when practically all ships that size roll over.
Several "authorities" (??) postulated from an entirely different angle than previously thought and said that it was the strength of the ship and its design that led to 700 lived saved instead of all lives lost.
I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the "experts"....merely passing along info from the latest field expeditions and fact gathering jaunts.
8)
-
Good to know, Peg. I have no TV at the moment, so I missed those shows.
-
Heard somewhere that some kids were confused over the Titanic's 100 year anniversary when the movie was just made ten years ago. ::)
What exactly are they teaching in schools these days?
-
Heard somewhere that some kids were confused over the Titanic's 100 year anniversary when the movie was just made ten years ago. ::)
What exactly are they teaching in schools these days?
Social justice and BS.
-
Peg-
I saw the Cameron one (to much social commentary at the end but otherwise a really good autopsy of the entire incident) and most of the one with Ballard that discussed the shipbuilders that went out with her. One of the things Cameron mentioned is that the engieenrs may have kept her trimmed upright for as long as possible, while the shipbuilders that knew her best were seen headed below and never were found. I think that the two facts are not coincidence.
One of the things that doomed her but may have helped keep it fairly even when she sank was that the flooding forward hit "Scotland Road" and had free access down the port side to flood the upper decks laterally. Then the open shell door also allowed fairly even flooding of other decks.
-
Peg-
I saw the Cameron one (to much social commentary at the end but otherwise a really good autopsy of the entire incident) and most of the one with Ballard that discussed the shipbuilders that went out with her. One of the things Cameron mentioned is that the engieenrs may have kept her trimmed upright for as long as possible, while the shipbuilders that knew her best were seen headed below and never were found. I think that the two facts are not coincidence.
One of the things that doomed her but may have helped keep it fairly even when she sank was that the flooding forward hit "Scotland Road" and had free access down the port side to flood the upper decks laterally. Then the open shell door also allowed fairly even flooding of other decks.
Yep.
I also think the working crew had an effect on the uprightness. Like several pointed out on the shows, I feel they sacrificed themselves working to keep the ship afloat for so long.
After all the study and research, there are just too many factors involved to 'blame' one area more than another for the tragedy. Many things could have been done better, or at least different, and it would have been just another footnote in history (like the educational system seems to have made it) instead of a learning point. One of the guys on the History channel show pointed out that many of the ship design characteristics are still in use today in shipbuilding...... albeit with better metallurgy.
-
Yep.
I also think the working crew had an effect on the uprightness. Like several pointed out on the shows, I feel they sacrificed themselves working to keep the ship afloat for so long.
After all the study and research, there are just too many factors involved to 'blame' one area more than another for the tragedy. Many things could have been done better, or at least different, and it would have been just another footnote in history (like the educational system seems to have made it) instead of a learning point. One of the guys on the History channel show pointed out that many of the ship design characteristics are still in use today in shipbuilding...... albeit with better metallurgy.
NOT TRUE !
Global warming makes for safer seas.
-
NOT TRUE !
Global warming makes for safer seas.
Deeper too ;D
-
While waiting for my car being repaired at the dealer, I managed to get control of the waiting room remote, and turned off Ellen Degenerate. I put History on, and caught the last 10 minutes of what had to be the Ballard show. Very good - damn, those photo mosaics were incredible, as was the mapping of the ocean floor, as well as the analysis that led to the conclusion that the stern had been spiraling down, whereas the bow section glided
The one thing they pointed out was that the design of the ship was the primary reason it stayed upright. They pointed out that with the Andrea Doria, the Lusitania and the recent grounding off Italy, they all rolled when they took on water. The Titanic did not, even when sinking. Might have been the trimming efforts, they thought it was based on the design of the ship.
-
Did anyone catch the new 4 part mini-series. It's a fictional drama done in a rather different approach. Each 1 hour show starts the time-line over, but follows different passengers and crew. In Part 4 the ship finally sinks. While fiction, it does give one a different look at the drama that may have taken place over the Decaprio version.
I especially was fascinated with the story of the killer, Peter, who decided to chuck his life of crime in UK/Ireland and head for a new start in America. In this story he turns into something of a hero.
-
I would say the best fictional use of the Titanic sinking was the Clive Cussler book (later movie) "Raise the Titanic".
-
NOT TRUE !
Global warming makes for safer seas.
Sooooo....
Let me get this straight.....it was Al Gore that sank the Titanic??
Makes perfect sense to me.
;)
;D
-
Sooooo....
Let me get this straight.....it was Al Gore that sank the Titanic??
Makes perfect sense to me.
;)
;D
Makes more sense than blaming Bush. ;D
-
I would say the best fictional use of the Titanic sinking was the Clive Cussler book (later movie) "Raise the Titanic".
I actually liked the movie quite a bit....The musical score was done by the same orchestral director that did Close Encounters, and Star Wars. Might be wrong about Star Wars...Still a great fictional scene when she comes up....\
Pretty darn good special effects for its day.