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Late Titanic thread....one second after she hit the iceberg, what would you

fairsheet

Senator
In retrospect, the best thing that Captain Smith could have done would have been to not try and dodge the iceberg, given that a ship that size took 40 acres to turn around (jk), and let the ship ram the berg head on. It would have caused some damage, crumpled up the bow and slung passengers, dishes and furniture all over the place; but it would not have caused the long tear along the side of the ship that sunk her.
Just the other day, I heard a piece from the great-grandaughter of the ship's pilot. Evidently, his family still bears his expressed shame, for "turning the wrong way". Of course, it wasn't his fault. He only did as he was ordered and trained. But, it's likely that had he turned towards the iceberg instead of away from it, the ship would've survived.
 

Friday13

Governor
The best thing he could have done was to heed the warnings he received of the ice field, slowed the ship, or changed course...but he was trying to set a record for the trip to NY. Recent documentaries I have watched said there was not one long tear, but many smaller punctures and tears. I agree that it would have been better to hit it head-on. The damage was below the water line where the bulk of the iceberg existed. Only about 1/8 of an iceberg is visible above water.

The best thing the designers/builders of the ship could have done would have been to provide enuf lifeboats for all aboard, and NOT declared the ship "unsinkable". Several titanic egos destroyed the Titanic.
 

Friday13

Governor
Here's an interesting article on 10 reasons the Titanic was lost...they address the "wrong turn" (did turn toward the iceberg), and apparently, they did reverse the engines...

The ship was going too fast: Many Titanicologists have said that the ship's captain, Edward J. Smith, was aiming to better the crossing time of the Olympic, the Titanic's older sibling in the White Star fleet. For some, the fact that the Titanic was sailing full speed ahead despite concerns about icebergs was Smith's biggest misstep. "Simply put, Titanic was traveling way too fast in an area known to contain ice; that's the bottom line," says Mark Nichol, webmaster for the Titanic and Other White Star Ships website.

Iceberg warnings went unheeded: The Titanic received multiple warnings about icefields in the North Atlantic over the wireless, but Corfield notes that the last and most specific warning was not passed along by senior radio operator Jack Phillips to Captain Smith, apparently because it didn't carry the prefix "MSG" (Masters' Service Gram). That would have required a personal acknowledgment from the captain. "Phillips interpreted it as non-urgent and returned to sending passenger messages to the receiver on shore at Cape Race, Newfoundland, before it went out of range," Corfield writes.

The steersman took a wrong turn: Did the Titanic's steersman turn the ship toward the iceberg, dooming the ship? That's the claim made in 2010 by Louise Patten, who said the story was passed down from her grandfather, the most senior ship officer to survive the disaster. After the iceberg was spotted, the command was issued to turn "hard a starboard," but as the command was passed down the line, it was misinterpreted as meaning "make the ship turn right" rather than "push the tiller right to make the ship head left," Patten said. She said the error was quickly discovered, but not quickly enough to avert the collision. She also speculated that if the ship had stopped where it was hit, seawater would not have pushed into one interior compartment after another as it did, and the ship might not have sunk as quickly.

Reverse thrust reduced the ship's maneuverability: Just before impact, first officer William McMaster Murdoch is said to have telegraphed the engine room to put the ship's engines into reverse. That would cause the left and right propeller to turn backward, but because of the configuration of the stern, the central propeller could only be halted, not reversed. Corfield said "the fact that the steering propeller was not rotating severely diminished the turning ability of the ship. It is one of the many bitter ironies of the Titanic tragedy that the ship might well have avoided the iceberg if Murdoch had not told the engine room to reduce and then reverse thrust."

More...
 

Friday13

Governor
Due to the lack of lifeboats, more than 1000 steerage passengers were locked below decks to perish as the ship went down. First Class passengers, of course, were saved. Some things have changed since 1912, but not all.
 

trapdoor

Governor
Given the amount of naked hubris involved with her being 'unsinkable' that one second would have turned into (as it did) several minutes. By then, the ship was lost and the captain knew he was overseeing the worst maritime disaster of his time.
There really was no "naked hubris" in play. Neither Harland & Wolf nor the White Star Line ever claimed the Titanic was unsinkable. A reporter in a trade magazine devoted to the shipping trade described her as "virtually unsinkable," and by the industry standards of the time, she was.
 

trapdoor

Governor
Thanks Mr. Hey. When last i saw Mr. Cameron interviewed, he lamented the fact that there was thought to be no binoculars in the crow's nest.. it would appear that he was correct.

Would binocs have seen through the fog? Entirely unknown.

No binoculars for the lookouts on Titanic

It is true that the lookouts in the crow’s nest of Titanic did not have binoculars.

There were binoculars in a locker used by Second Officer David Blair who sailed on Titanic from Belfast to Southampton. However, for the maiden voyage, Blair was not required on board and when he left the ship he did not inform anybody of the location of the binoculars.

However, it is likely that binoculars would not have helped to save Titanic as they are of limited use in the conditions found on the night of 14th April 1912.
There were no binoculars, but there was also no fog. It was a very clear, calm night. There's a new theory out, and one that I can accept, that the temperature inversion caused by the conditions that night created a false horizon - a mirage (in the sense of the heat mirage you see over a barbecue grill) that made obstacles appear further away than they were in fact. This theory also explains why the men on the Californian thought the Titanic was further away and smaller than it was.
 

trapdoor

Governor
All hind-sight, of course. If the captain hadn't been trying to set a record, he might not have been speeding thru an ice field in the middle of the night...

In the first second, the thought would be "OH SHIT!"
Smith was not trying to "set a record." The Titanic was too large and too lacking in horsepower to travel as fast as the Mauretania, which held the record from 1909 to 1929. The Titanic, to use modern terms, was not a Corvette, it was a Cadillac.
 

trapdoor

Governor
A few thoughts.

The idea that striking the iceberg head on would have saved the ship has merit -- but it ignores the energies involved. It's possible a head on collision would have smashed the ship back to the well deck, opening the first four watertight compartments, and causing additional damage further astern -- and if she's leaking into five compartments, she's dead even in a head on scenario.

The oft stated "fact" that it was the short bulkheads to the watertight compartments that caused the ship to sink is also not true. She was taking water into the first five compartments at a rate that could not be controlled by her pumps. This meant she would sink (it was not her "down by the bow" attitude that allowed water into the fifth compartment -- she had damage there).

Louis Patten, granddaughter of Second Officer Charles Lighttoller, the most senior surviving officer, may have the story about the helmsman right, but it seems unlikely. Second Officer William Murdoch (not Capt. Edward Smith) was on the bridge at the time of the collision. He is supposed to have ordered "Hard astarboard" in an effort to "port around" around the iceberg. This means turning the ships wheel to the right (hard astarboard) causing the ship's bow to turn left (port) with the intention of passing the iceberg down the starboard side -- which is the side that the iceberg damaged. Obviously, the ship didn't turn in time, but the helmsman couldn't be at fault.

As with many a modern tragedy, no one thing caused the tragedy of the Titanic. She was probably steaming too fast for conditions, but that alone wasn't the problem. She had too few lifeboats, but that also isn't a problem. She ignored radio-telegraph ice reports -- but the vast majority of the leadership had sailed for a good 20 years during a period when no such reports existed (wireless was the cutting edge tech of the day -- it was brand new and most ships didn't have it). They'd never hit an iceberg before they had wireless, why worry about them now? Add all this together -- you have the Titanic tragedy.

And the only reason we care now is that it's a compelling story, replete with class warfare, the elegance of the first class passengers, and the heroism of the first class string band, plus the fact that the Titanic was both the largest and most famous ship of her era, and sank on her maiden voyage.

More people were lost on the Empress of Ireland -- sadly, it's not as interesting a tale.
 

GordonGecko

President
I've been a Titanic afficianado for years. Obviously, there's no way to save the ship -- but if you can keep it afloat an extra couple of hours, its still on the surface when the Carpathia arrives.

I like the idea of the mattresses, but I wonder if there was sufficient in-thrust in any one place to hold them in place. The Titanic's "gash" was more a series of unzippled lines of rivets, more than likely.

Cameron's a pretty finely trained engineer, so his idea of backing the ship might have merit (but frankly it sounds a little unworkable to me).

I think the two things I might have done that Smith didn't do is to 1) Not have Lightoller open the portside gangway door. This hastened the sinking of the ship; and 2) I might have tried to stop the leak into the furthest aft watertight compartment. The ship was designed to float with four flooded compartments -- try to confine the flooding there with a combination of patches and pumps. Even if you fail, you keep the ship afloat longer to wait for assistance.


But I think a lot of this is pie in the sky. There wasn't technology available for at-sea repairs. For example, when the Bismarck received its torpedo-induced rudder damage, the captain could send down divers to look at the damage and attempt to make repairs. Nothing like that was available to Smith.
I think the mattress idea was another "Slow the flooding enough for the pumps or atleast to delay until the Carpathia arrived" idea.

Without calling Cameron an "idiot"...I agree somewhat with yah-tah on "off-loading onto the iceberg". A photograph taken supposed of the one that hit the Titanic shows it VERY vertical and sheer....plus the general idea of people not being willing to get ON the very thing that just wrecked the ship.

Another of Cameron's was to order the lifeboats to row TO the California, both for rescue and to get it to come to the Titanic. I think this isn't workable due to the possibility of missing the California and getting lost at sea. Plus by the time a lifeboat made it and got the California up to steam....the Titanic would have been under and anybody in the water dead from exposure.

Another idea floated (no pun) was that there was pack-ice nearby that the passengers could have gotten onto.
 

GordonGecko

President
trapdoor, I've always thought the "head-on collision" would have "worked"...even at 20+ knots, it seems the iron would have had enough flexibility in the other forward compartments to absorb the energy and you would have only seen major damage in the first, maybe second compartments....easily controllable by the pumps.

???
 

trapdoor

Governor
I think the damage in a head on collision would have a lot to do with the subsurface shape of the iceberg. In other words, we don't have enough information to draw a conclusion.

In his book "Ghosts of the Titanic" the author Charles Pellegrino did some testing that indicates the iceberg was shelved beneath the water's surface. His test is based on the testimony in court by the telegraph operator, who had left the radioshack and headed toward the bridge when the collision occurred. Basically, the collision occurred sooner than it should have based on that report, and he thinks the berg had large underwater projections. The ship would certainlly taken a lot of damage, even if it was still possible to get it into port.

I didn't even discuss the idea of offloadin peole onto the berg. I think it's silly. There may have been some sort of flat surfaced pack ice in the area that would have made tha tpossible -- but only if you can move the ship, and that wasn't a possibility after the first 40 minutes or so.

Steering for the Californian, in boats, isn't that bad an idea. Even if you miss it, you're in the middle of a heavy sea lane and there are going to be search parties in the area for all of the next month. You're going to be found. The issue, of course, is that you're moving a 70-foot wooden boat that is being rowed by two trained oarsmen and 30 women and children. It's not exactly an America's Cup crew.
 

GordonGecko

President
1. Like I said, always been "pro-head on collision"...I think it would have result in a lot of whiplash...but the ship probably would have stayed afloat.

2. True...."iceberg life-raft" not that feasible. Just throwing it out there.

3. Going to the California (California or Californian?) another of Cameron's ideas. I just think by the time they got to it, and she got underway, it would be almost no different from the Carpathia arriving.


As an aficionado, what do you think of the idea floated (again, no pun) of people "building rafts"...using the life preservers and deck chairs or wood paneling?
 

trapdoor

Governor
1. Like I said, always been "pro-head on collision"...I think it would have result in a lot of whiplash...but the ship probably would have stayed afloat.

2. True...."iceberg life-raft" not that feasible. Just throwing it out there.

3. Going to the California (California or Californian?) another of Cameron's ideas. I just think by the time they got to it, and she got underway, it would be almost no different from the Carpathia arriving.


As an aficionado, what do you think of the idea floated (again, no pun) of people "building rafts"...using the life preservers and deck chairs or wood paneling?
Raft building would have been a good idea. With very few exceptions, the Titanic passengers/crew fall into two groups -- those who stayed in the water and died, and those who got out of it (even if only by standing on an overturned lifeboat) and lived. Cook Charles Joughin went into teh water and lived, but somehow he managed to not get hypothermia -- and before he went into the water he spent a certain amount of time throwing deck chairs over the side to be used as improvised flotation devices.

My real critique of the actions of the crew and Smith in the hour following the collision is that, in the name of controlling panic, they acted with too little sense of urgency. The real heroes on the crew were stewards and cooks, not the ship's nominal leadership. I've always thought a lot of the stiff-upper-lip "courage" displayed by first class passengers was a result of simply not realizing this was a serious emergency and that the ship was going to sink. It's hard to get off of a warm, well lighted vessel that's not sinking and get into a rowboat in the North Atlantic, in April, unless you have a very serious reason for doing so.
 

ya-ta-hey

Mayor
I'm not seeing that Cameron was talking in terms of backing the ship to "ram" the iceberg. It sounds more like he was talking two different things, even if he was talking doing both. One was to "go back" to the iceberg and off-load passengers. The other was to run the ship in reverse - presumably at speed - and not with the intentions of ramming anything.
Mr. Fair,

Off-loading passengers to an iceberg would have been a stupid idea. Where exactly would he off load them to? Not like an iceberg has a nice smooth beach or docking area.
 

GordonGecko

President
My real critique of the actions of the crew and Smith in the hour following the collision is that, in the name of controlling panic, they acted with too little sense of urgency. The real heroes on the crew were stewards and cooks, not the ship's nominal leadership. I've always thought a lot of the stiff-upper-lip "courage" displayed by first class passengers was a result of simply not realizing this was a serious emergency and that the ship was going to sink. It's hard to get off of a warm, well lighted vessel that's not sinking and get into a rowboat in the North Atlantic, in April, unless you have a very serious reason for doing so.
True....two important facts-

1. Smith and Andrews and others KNEW that the ship would sink. Smith should have given clear orders to the officers and crew to insist, at the point of rudeness, of getting people to the boats AND filling them to capacity. The lackadaisical attitude was inexcusable.

2. I can understand why the "first hour" was so seemingly ridiculous. As you said, why would people want to leave a seemingly "sound", warm, and well-lit luxury steamer....for a wooden, open-air boat.
 
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