Hull and Watertight doors

[Tom Pappas]

Erik,

For heaven's sake! We aren't trying to figure out how a ship sank! We are merely wondering whether Titanic would have survived if there had been no water in the port half of the compartments that flooded. This does not require any autopsy of the carcass.

(And I am assuming that the fact that the early list went away is sufficient proof that there wasn't much ingress of water in the port side. The cargo in the holds can be derived from existing records with enough precision for a good guess at the outcome.)

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>For heaven's sake! We aren't trying to figure out how a ship sank!<<

As a matter of fact Tom, that's exactly what "we" are trying to do. And whether you know it or not, what you're interested in is part of the overall picture that Dave, Erik, and myself...just to name a few...have been interested in for quite some time now. Care to join the party?

And no, I'm not being sarcastic at your expense. Our mutual disagreements aside, I make it a point of honour to give credit where it's due and you've shown yourself to be a helluva mathmatician. Once I have my own computer back from the shop, I intend to do some poking around to see if I can get the information you want. That inclining experiment data's got to be out there somewhere.

 

[David G. Brown]

Tom -- Incomplete data or confusing testimony were not the reasons Wilding had to do some "outcome based" flooding calculations. A quite accurate description of the flooding was presented by Second Officer Lightoller to the U.S. Senate inquiry.

The BOT inquiry under Mersey chose to deliberately ignore Lightoller's description and create one without constraint by the facts.

Now, think about what this means. Titanic did not have enough damage to sink--but it definitely foundered.

Your question about a longitudinal bulkhead becomes immaterial. If the damage was not fatal, then no amount of additional subdivision could have saved a ship that wasn't in a sinking condition.

How do you rescue a non-drowning man?

Titanic's bulkheads could have extended upward to the crow's nest and the outcome would have been the same. That's why we don't need to do any stability calculations based on a non-existant longitudinal bulkhead. It would not have made any more difference to the outcome than re-arranging the deck chairs.

--David G. Brown

 

[Samuel Halpern]

The watertight inner bottom, or tank top, was about 5 ft above the top of the keel, which extended for the full breadth of the vessel from bulkhead A to 20 ft. before bulkhead P.
The transverse watertight divisions of this double bottom practically coincided with the watertight transverse bulkheads; there was an additional watertight division under the middle of the reciprocating engine room compartment (between bulkheads K and L). There were three longitudinal watertight divisions in the double bottom, one at the centre of the ship, extending for about 670 ft., and one on each side, extending for 447 ft ... (From the 1911 Shipbuilder, the outer longitudinals in the inner bottom were 30 ft from centerline.)

In all, there were in all 73 watertight compartments on these ships, 29 of these being above the inner bottom.

This means there were 44 (73-29) compartments making up the inner bottom. When you draw out the inner bottom based on the above description (taken from the Wreck Commission report), I get more than 44 compartments. This can be seen in the attached diagram I put together. Not counting the fore and aft peak tanks of these vessels, I get 9x4 + 4x8 + 2 = 46. What's wrong here? Am I missing something?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Sorry for the typo in my last paragraph of the previous post in this thread. It should have read:

"This means there were 44 (73-29) compartments making up the inner bottom. When you draw out the inner bottom based on the above description (taken from the Wreck Commission report), I get more than 44 compartments. This can be seen in the attached diagram I put together. Not counting the fore and aft peak tanks of these vessels, I get 9x4 + 4x2 + 2 = 46. What's wrong here? Am I missing something?"

 

[Cal Haines]

Hi Sam,

I'm pretty sure that only the tanks under #3 hold and the dynamos were divided in two. The remaining tanks, forward of bulkhead C and aft of bulkhead N were pretty small, so they probably did not divide them down the center. Forward of D and aft of M there were no wing tanks above the turn of the bilge, which is why there were only one or two tanks there.

Also, the margin plate curved to follow the lines of the ship, starting at about bulkhead F for the forward end. The two light lines on your drawing forward of D and aft of M are the sides of the tanks. The tanks in these areas did not extend to the sides of the ship as you show. In the machinery spaces, the margin plate and the side of the tanks bend to meet those lines on either end.

Cal

 

[Cal Haines]

more...

If you have a copy of "The Birth of Titanic", you can see photo H2364 (page 69, also AOT* pg 27) and H1331 (page 71) which show the transverse holes in the keel beam that allowed water to pass through.

Cal

*AOT - Anatomy of the Titanic