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Discover new research on all aspects of the sinking, interesting Titanic facts, and learn more about the Titanic's passengers and crew.
Ioannis Georgiou
Member
Water did not spill over from one boiler room into the next. This is a nice but wrong explanation in the movies. Boiler Room No. 5 was filling already from the damage on the starboard side coal bunker. Leading Stoker Barrettt who was in BR 5 gave the time he left as about 1.10 a.m. when the BR started to flood which was more the failure of a coal bunker door which hold the water back in the coal bunker and was not designed to withstand such water pressure.
Barrett used the escape ladder which lead to the port side of E Deck and he was clear that water did not spill over.
Barrett used the escape ladder which lead to the port side of E Deck and he was clear that water did not spill over.
Michael Serviss
Member
Barrett also described water coming up through the floor plate suggesting that there was damage to the bottom of the ship from the berg's ice shelf. Further more, a first class passenger said the their cabin was flooding from water coming up through the sink plumbing which was also connected to the bottom of the ship.
Ioannis Georgiou
Member
Barrett did not said that. I guess you mean Cavell (or Beauchamp?).
Can you said who it was? I do not know of anyone saying that.
Stephen Carey
Member
I'm not so sure the water didn't come in over the top, Ioannis. The bulkheads were watertight up to E Deck and no higher. That would mean the water - once it got to that level - would come in via the open areas round the uptakes and any other opening above the boiler rooms, through non-watertight doors in the alleyways etc. The difficulty of making the uptakes watertight was one of the reasons given for not continuing them further up.
I seem to remember that one of the firemen said the water came in from above, either a bulkhead collapsing (unlikely as it was made to resist the maximum height of water) or via one of the openings above.
Stephen
Michael Serviss
Member
Berthe Mayn
Ioannis Georgiou
Member
There was no plan to make the "uptakes" watertight. There high of the bulkheads were directed by the BOT.
I do not know of anyone mentioned it. Maybe you can share it if you find it.
Ioannis Georgiou
Member
From what I know this nothing she stated but something which was shown in the terrible film "Inside the Titanic" which is full of mistakes and made up stuff.
Stephen Carey
Member
2038. Then tell us what happened at the end of a quarter of an hour?
- A rush of water came through the pass - the forward end.
This is from Fred Barrett's testimony. He said he didn't know where it came from as he didn't stop to look, but it came in through the "pass" the passageway between the bunkers constituting the transverse WT bulkhead between 6 and 5. If the water "came in with a rush", and as the WT door was shut and around 8' of water mentioned earlier in Boiler Room 6, it's difficult to know where this water came from. It's unlikely that a WT bulkhead would fail, or that the doors would leak to allow that much water in. I would imagine - without looking at the various pictures of the ship at different angles of trim by the head - that as the decks were not watertight and the WT bulkheads only went up to Upper (E) Deck, then once the water was above that level, and with portholes etc open, then the water would find its way over the top of the bulkhead into the alleyways and thence into Boiler Room 5. This would have "dominoed" for the other boiler rooms aft as the head went deeper. There are some animations on the web showing the water coming over the tops of the bulkheads.
Ioannis Georgiou
Member
2056. And you say it got worse. Now can you give me any idea whether the water came from over the top of the bulkhead or through it? - I do not see how it could come over the top.
2057. You do not think it did come over the top? - No.
2058. Now, when it came through this pass between the boilers, did it come with a rush? - Yes.
The "pass" is the space between the boilers.
The most likely case it the failure of the coal bunker door. The starboard forward coal bunker had been emptied from the coal and when Barrett came across it (directly at the collision when he jumped over from BR 6 to BR 5) he saw water entering that bunker though the iceberg damage and closed the door to that bunker. Such doors were not build for water pressure.
2057. You do not think it did come over the top? - No.
2058. Now, when it came through this pass between the boilers, did it come with a rush? - Yes.
The "pass" is the space between the boilers.
The most likely case it the failure of the coal bunker door. The starboard forward coal bunker had been emptied from the coal and when Barrett came across it (directly at the collision when he jumped over from BR 6 to BR 5) he saw water entering that bunker though the iceberg damage and closed the door to that bunker. Such doors were not build for water pressure.
