Flooding on the titanic

[Jack Coburn]

On the '97 Titanic i noticed how when the ship took it's final plunge that in the grand staircase there were so many people struggling in the water because it was flowing like rapids. I know the ship was going down fast but would the water have been really flowing that fast?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Probably faster. A lot faster at some point. Whatever happened in the grand staircase was enough to rip it apart and leave absolutely no trace of it whatever in the wreck today. If anything, the movie probably understated the violence of the event.

 

[George Pastarmatzis]

That is exactly what I had in mind, too. Excellent thought, Michael!

 

[Ryan Patrick Thiessen]

To be honest, I had never thought of the event in the manner in which the movie showed it happening. In fact, the first time I watched it I thought to myself.."What a load of ....!" Then, driving home and thinking about the actual event, and taking into acount what Michael stated above, my thoughts changed to..."How horrible that must have been?! it was more than likely alot worse!" Could have been the scarient moment on the ship as it was happening.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

Ken Marschall has a painting of the flooding of the Grand Staircase in "Illustrated History", page 135. The painting also probably appears in a number of other books as well.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Anyone with a copy may also want to check out the photograph in Ghosts From The Abyss of what's left today. (The page number escapes me at the moment.) All that remains is the foundation.

 

[Jack Coburn]

i've seen that photo Michael. It's nothing more than just a big hole that goes a long way down.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>i've seen that photo Michael. It's nothing more than just a big hole that goes a long way down.<<

Ahhhhhhhh...you're learning Grasshopper! Now think of what sort of forces had to be at work to tear that all up, including those iron bulistrades and leave no trace save for the foundation supports at the bottom of the shaft.

When we think of water, we tend to think of a few harmless drops in glass which we drink down withpout giving a second thought to it. But watch lots of this stuff when it's out of control. Try wading against the current in even a fairly shallow stream to get a sense of how much resistance it can put up. Now hundreds or even thousands of tons of the stuff cascading in at once. Rather sobering when you think about it a spell, isn't it?

 

[Jeremy Lee]

>>Ahhhhhhhh...you're learning Grasshopper! Now think of what sort of forces had to be at work to tear that all up, including those iron bulistrades and leave no trace save for the foundation supports at the bottom of the shaft.<<

If the GSC was connected at all levels, when the foundations got loose, the entire thing would have floated out of the wreck. After that, suction or internal forces might have torn it apart after leaving the ship and scattered it all over the Atlantic.

It exactly Christmas time (12.00AM) in Singapore! Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Jeremy, that theory of the Grand Staircase floating out at once and intact has been mooted befor. While I won't go so far as to say "Utterly and non-debatably impossible" I will point out that there are serious problems with that theory. Not the least of which is that the opening over the Grand Staircase is not large enough for the whole column to just neatly float out.

Even if it was, there is the matter of the violent forces at work vis a vis hydrodynamic flow over and through the structure which would virtually gaurantee that nothing would neatly float out. I'm in agreement with Parks Stephenson's theory that as the ship went down, this area of the ship in effect became the world's largest Cuisineart Blender and that these same forces tore it to pieces. I have a sneaking hunch that the chunks are still there, scattered in and around the wreck, and buried in sediment.

Yes, I could be mistaken, but in this case, I wouldn't bet money on it.

 

[Jeremy Lee]

In Pellegrino's book (again!), he said that a fragment of the GSC must at least be 2 levels for it to 'float' out because of the cast iron glass dome. What conclusion is this?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

I'm not sure I follow quite what you mean. What I'm trying to point out is that the Grand staircase was simply too large to just float out through the opening in a single piece. My bet is that the cast iron framework wouldn't have been that much of a barrier in and of itself. If a really large mass was to go banging against it, I would think it would be torn away in fairly short order.

 

[Jeremy Lee]

Then the most possible way was that the GSC broke up inside the ship, not on the way out.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Then the most possible way was that the GSC broke up inside the ship, not on the way out.<<

Exactly!!!! That's what I've been trying to get accross.

 

[Jeremy Lee]

No wonder! I didn't really understand the posts above too, so that was what I deduced!