Ice Bound Theory

[Mark Robert Hopkins]

quote:

Curiously enough, nowhere is Jack Thayer on record as having actually said that.

Sorry for the confusion, Michael. What I meant by that was that he was the only survivor with whom the claim was associated, not that he actually reported that. As we know, such an occurrence is/was physically impossible due to the weight of the completely flooded bow.

I sympathize with you, Sam. At this point, as mentioned above, I am gone, as I have nothing further to say on this topic.​

 

[James Tennant]

>>Only the inner tanks under the reciprocating engine room were FW tanks<<

I was using your "Hidden Decks' drawings (which I complimented you on by the way) and it was hard for me to tell the little fw from sw in some places but I defer to you of course.

>>If those FW tanks froze then you should see evidence of expansion. (Water expands when it freezes.) No such evidence exists<<

The History Channel's underwater 'detectives' noted the deformation on the show - are they incorrect?

>>Your diagram in the third frame is a physical impossibility given the state of flooding in the forward compartments<<

Curiously enough it was here I learned that the perceived weight of the bow was lessening as it filled with water and the center of gravity would shift to the boiler areas pushing down harder nearest where the keel sheared. Forcing any air in the remaining compartments into the bow. (The only thing 'impossible' was the sinking of the ship and we know how that went!)

>>not really a grounding event but an allision event<<

My dictionary says this is a ship to ship collision. So, no bottom damage at all to the Titanic?

>>The hull was seen to split while on the surface in the general area of the aft expansion joint<<

This is exactly what happened between the second and third pictures of the diagram. The ship broke at the expansion joint and rolled forward into the bow section pushing it down and leveraging the bow out of the water for an instant. The duration of time between the bow rotating back down and the stern settling would have been a matter of seconds.

>>larger than what you show<<

The stern is doing 99% of the work, the ice is sort of hanging on for dear life and resisting being pushed underwater.

>>I have more important things to work on than spending a lot of time<<

I was unaware of any mandatory requirement for anyone to read my posts. I have seldom asked direct questions of anyone so only those that are interested need respond.

None of the above responses are to forward the theory. They are merely clarification of points already raised.

>>And for the record, I don't run and hide.<<

Your message said

>>I'll go back into hiding now<<

I never inquired as to where you were going or why. I never interpreted that as support for the theory. And I never sent you to -or recalled you from - hiding.

The only correlation I have is our own Punxsutawney Phil who emerges from hiding usually gives us bad news about the weather and goes back into hiding.

No Mike, I don't think Sam is a large mammalian rodent except perhaps in the seeming duplication of effort.

 

[Matt Pereira]

James, those are some interesting sinking diagrams. Im posting a few out of the 25 I have made a while back. I know now that theres some inaccuracies that I did not catch till after I finished. These diagrams that I created a while back used some information gathered from what I have read from the disaster hearings (Lightoller mentioned crowsnest being level with the water when the bridge was under, Archibald Gracie talked about jumping up and grabbing the deck house railing at the base of #2 funnel above the gymnaisum just as water washed over him). You might find these interesting yourself and I stress these are how I theorize the sinking excluding the bottom up break.

Even Keel

Water to Forecastle Deck

Water to Crows Nest

Titanic Pre-Break

Titanic Post-Break

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Nice work Matt.

Now back into hiding. (I'm not running James.)

 

[Matt Pereira]

Thanks Samuel. I figured from testimony since Lightoller was already in the water and thought about swimming towards the crows nest that was level with the water that the water should have been around the base of Funnel #1 to allow him to be in the water along with the collasable boats.

I also feel that the angle I have shown (10* - 12*) is more realistic cause with a 45* angle theres no way anyone could walk those decks without sliding into the water with a 10* - 12* angle that is enough an angle that you could slide down the deck but you could also still move around on deck (taken from Archibald Gracie`s book where he stated a mass of people came out of the first class grand staircase entrance and ran aft just as the "wave" washed over the deck).

With the breakup I theorize that in my diagrams there would be little to no wave created when the stern settled back down but the keel would still be visable as Lightoller stated.

 

[James Tennant]

>>You might find these interesting yourself and I stress these are how I theorize the sinking excluding the bottom up break<<

Your graphics are very good. If you looked at mine that large you would see I'm not very good at freehand art.

I think the disconnect between the bottom and top break appears to be the level of violence. The top, even after the break seems relatively intact but the force associated with the underwater break must have been sudden and massively destructive.

Doing my diagrams I discovered that I had divided the ship into two parts. There were actually three.

To get the two parts I always assumed existed, I just cut a picture of the ship in two at the angles seen underwater today. So, I ended up with a picture of the stern from the engine back and a picture of everything else as the bow.

While looking at the picture of the stern piece -I wondered if it would float. (Would its displacement equal the weight of the machinery props rudder,etc) Especially given the water flowing in through all the then open watertight doors. My conclusion was that this was an ocean bottom paperweight by itself.

The actual bow of the ship (up to boiler room #6) was filling with water. If you chopped it off, same result - underwater paperweight.

This left a 'third' section - boiler rooms 2,3,4 as the most buoyant part of the ship. Even in our diagrams of water reaching the top decks there was no reason to believe these areas were not still dry or sinking at a much slower rate.

I actually did the diagram of the bow heading toward the ocean floor before the 3rd diagram. But I realized at some point they had to be together so I picked about a 40 degree angle and stuck them together. When I put in the waterline - the tip of the bow was above water.
(I knew this meant instant ridicule but I didn't make up the angles so I left it that way.)

If you look at diagram #3 only two things can be happening, either the bow is pushing up or the stern is pushing down. Two keel splits have already occurred so the stern is now a separate entity. Before the keel splits it was leverage to apply upward pressure on the sinking bow. After the keel splits it became an anchor.

In the meantime - after the keel splits - the still buoyant 'third' section was freed of this weight and reached a 'neutral' buoyancy (Still sinking but at a slower rate.)

The end result is that diagram #3 shows the stern trying to sink quickly with the 'third' section now in its way. It pushes down so hard and so fast that it is actually rotating the bow upward around the still buoyant 2,3,4 boiler rooms.

This only works for a moment though. The bow quickly regains a nose down attitude and in doing so inadvertently pushes back against the stern. This is the 'settling back' as displayed in the new diagram I put in. It isn't the stern trying to stay afloat (it can't float) it's the 'third' section pushing it back up.

In my last diagram, the bow isn't pulling the stern under - it's just getting out of its way.

Odd, how making a diagram tied so many of the loose pieces together for me.

 

[Mark Robert Hopkins]

I know I keep saying I'm done, but I have discovered yet a few other things to say . . .

quote:

To get the two parts I always assumed existed, I just cut a picture of the ship in two at the angles seen underwater today. So, I ended up with a picture of the stern from the engine back and a picture of everything else as the bow.

James, the two primary sections of Titanic lying on the ocean floor do not "hook up" evenly. What is meant by this is that when the ship broke up, it did not simply crack right down the hull and decks as depicted in Cameron's movie. This portion of the ship (i.e. the 150-300 feet directly aft of the third funnel housing) merely crumbled away. If you look close at the forward end of the stern section, you will see various significant signs of a break up beyond the simple split: the forward Reciprocating Engines gone, leaving only the two in back; the missing Reciprocating Engine exhaust tube and aft-grand staircase; decks flattened tightly down on one another in literal pancake form; and the whole boat deck and boat deck housing gone as far back as the 2nd-Class entrance, with the starboard boat deck walkway peeled back over the side. Notice, too, that the starboard hull has completely fallen off. The condition of the stern also explains how the keel could have snapped in more than one place, which wouldn't have been the case had the ship merely split. As a matter of consideration, the multiple snapping of the keel might have been what caused (triggered?) a much vaster portion of the ship to break apart as opposed to the simply split, so the condition of the forward end of the stern can serve as viable (although not entirely conclusive) evidence of a multiple snap in the keel (IMHO).

Destructive break up, indeed! This shows that one cannot simply set the two pieces end-to-end to achieve creating and accurate model.

But you're on a start. Now look deeper . . . get in closer at the details and study those. Believe it or not, they have a whole story to tell. When you gain further information from this, you should get closer to developing an even better model depicting features that are congruent to what actually happened.

quote:

Odd, how making a diagram tied so many of the loose pieces together for me.

Exactly! That's why models are so important--not only do they make the dynamics of a theory easier to understand, but they allow further development in that theory and thus a better understanding of the knowledge involved.

Now, keep on moving forward with this and see what happens . . .​

 

[Matt Pereira]

James, I cant post the diagram I did not too long ago to explain to a friend but the link is below. The lines divide up the bow wreck and stern wreck everything between the lines is basically what is missing and what was torn up and is scattered all over the place.

i148.photobucket.com/albums/s8/Rusty_S85/Titanic/ProfileDiagram.gif

You diagrams I have to say you put thought into them. The only thing is that you have to be sure to weigh the offical disaster hearing information and figure what is most logical. To me the ones I created was most logical to me. I just cant see Titanic going to 45* even though I want to but the truth is no one could have ran aft if the Titanic was at 45* it would be a a risk trying to run aft at 20* but 10* - 12* I feel is enough for people to slide down the decks into the water.

 

[James Tennant]

>>lines divide up the bow wreck and stern wreck<<

Thanks for the link. Lot of things in the debris field!


>>I just cant see Titanic going to 45* even though I want to<<

What I have discovered is a timing problem with the sinking observations.

In my first two diagrams, where the ship angles between 10 and 30 degrees. This is almost the entire duration of the sinking. I believe this is where everyone sees the Titanic as going down in one piece. Actually, underneath the keel has already broken once and will break again in the next few seconds.

By the time people hear the splitting of the rear expansion joint. The stern keel has been sheared twice. The top down expansion joint split is happening because the only thing connecting the stern to anything forward is the top decks and they can't take the strain.

The next diagram with the 'V' only lasts for seconds at most. The ship had already split under and then split up top so the stern was trying to sink independently. The engine room was completely open to the sea and the weight of the machinery drove the stern down into the bow section which was detached and sinking much slower because some of the watertight compartments weren't fully flooded.

It's odd that the people who thought the stern would float and save them would actually have been better off it had broken off and sank. Done early enough the center mass of the Titanic may have stayed afloat until help arrived.

Unfortunately it broke when it was at a rather steep angle - aimed at the 'third' section (my term for the still buoyant boiler area)under it.

While a lot of the Cameron film was inaccurate, the stern did end up going down almost vertical. I believe it was a cook who stepped of the railing into the sea and he was standing on the outside of the railing.

So if you wanted to see the Titanic at a steep angle you just had to wait until seconds before it went down. The shallow sinking angle was gone when the split occurred.

The next diagram shows the stern being forced back up by the rotation of the bow going back down. The angle of the stern went down to around 15 degrees when the stern came back up.

However, in the last diagram the 'third' section has moved out of the way and the stern was described as sliding down quickly without hesitation - like an elevator going down.

See how critical the timing is. It took more than two hours for diagrams one and two and maybe two minutes for three and four.

There was a lot of interaction between the stern and the 'third' section. At first the area between them was compressed as the stern tried to sink through the 'third section.' Then as if irritated, the 'third' section pushed the stern back up which caused it to 'settle' down and pull up on the area between them stretching everything. There was a lot of pushing, pulling, shoving and twisting, going on between the now (except for metal fragments)separated pieces.

I haven't concentrated on the top down split because of the timing. The split could have happened when the second hull shear happened as the decks tried to support the now freed stern and couldn't. Or it happened when the 'third' section pushed the stern back out of the water and it 'settled' back with only the decks to support that move. The top down split didn't sink her - the keel shears did (along with the bow damage of course.)

BTW my home state was West Virginia and of course a 20 degree slope wasn't even considered a hill. (Yes - all our cows had shorter legs on one side!) A friend of mine farmed his property by placing a pole at the top of his 'hill' and running a wire to the side of his tractor. By changing the length of the wire he plowed the whole hill. You'd be amazed at how steep an angle people can navigate! (They even had deck rails - we didn't - although I do remember carrying a small pick at a rather young age.)

 

[Mark Robert Hopkins]

quote:

I just cant see Titanic going to 45* even though I want to but the truth is no one could have ran aft if the Titanic was at 45* it would be a a risk trying to run aft at 20* but 10* - 12* I feel is enough for people to slide down the decks into the water.

Matt, I agree. The fact that people, including Joughin, made it on foot to the stern during and following the breakup seems to serve as evidence that the stern did not achieve such a steep orientation of 20 degrees or more before slipping under. My guess would be somewhere between 10 and 20 degrees. Several of those on board supposedly did slide into the water, so the greatest slant achieved that night wasn't likely to have been too shallow--untill the very end, when the stern settled back into the water.

As for the link, Thank you. This seems to complement my description above. This will allow James to see what I meant when I said that the two piece cannot be fitted together and exactly what is missing in the middle.​

 

[Matt Pereira]

These are some of the rest of the sinking diagrams but these are just of the stern. I feel this is roughly how it went down besides the point of the port list I feel she would have had with Scotland Road running down the port side of the stern.

 

[James Tennant]

>>I just cant see Titanic going to 45<<

Your diagrams show 10, 35, 60, and 70 degree angles if my trusty compass is correct. So the steep angles are there but only at the end.

Your second diagram is virtually the same as my second diagram. Your third diagram is when I have the stern colliding underwater with the 'third' section. And your last diagram is virtually the same as my last diagram. (The only thing missing is the diagram where I show the stern settling back to about 20 degrees and then quickly going back to 60 degrees.)It is all in the timing of the angles.

So you don't have to imagine it happened - it did. Of course it was after the lights went out and not a lot of people were left on the deck to see it. Lightoller said 60 degrees so your drawings are probably close to what happened. (Actually my 'V' diagram is closer to 60 than 40 to show it happened in the last moments of the sinking.)

>>port list I feel she would have had<<

Someone said she heeled to port and then 'righted' herself.(This is probably where the hull started ripping off the starboard side.) The problem is that this would have thrown most folks overboard and if being on an incline is bad - a lateral and vertical incline at the same time must be worse. Yet I don't hear anything about the port list except it wasn't drastic. This may have been another last second, in the dark incident or just another anomaly!

 

[Matt Pereira]

I never said she never acheived more than 10 degrees in the final moments. Im talking pre break up. Thats the whole thing She could not have gotten 45* before the break cause by time she would have reached 20 degrees the stress of the unsupported stern being out of the water should have been too much not to mention the fact that key survivors that witnessed people or they themself ran to the stern when the ocean came up over the bridge as the bridge submerged could only be possible at less than 20 degrees.

I know you said people can travel on ground that is more than 20 degrees but were talking about a ship in the middle of the atlantic that the deck was lit dimly and with those ropes all around the deck in preperation or after the lifeboats were launched it would have been easy to lose your footing.

Also my second stern diagram is nothing like your second diagram. First off your second diagram shows water just at the base of #2 funnel, where as my diagram is after the break and the weight of the engine room and the fact that compartment was open to allow water in and the foreward end of the stern is sinking back into the water. What my diagram doesnt show is the portside list that I agree with Parks about. It had to have happen considering Scotland Road runs the length of the port side of the ship roughly. The big difference with my theory and diagrams is that she never went 90 degrees verticle. She got close and the only time she got close was after water was coming up to the poop deck.

It all really depends on where the pivot point is. If Titanic sunk by the bow like I theorize where water at the stern stayed fairly close to the waterline till the bridge started to submerge then she started to tilt. That would happen with the pivot point in one position. In another position it would look different. For instance a 5" long piece of metal tilted at say 10 degrees with a level and say you have the last 1" above the level that would simulate the water. Now add another 5" to this piece of metal without adjusting the tilt or the level and you can now see instead of 1" of the length being above the level you now have 6". It all relys on the pivot point.

 

[James Tennant]

>>my second stern diagram is nothing like your second diagram<<

I was only comparing relative angles of inclination.

>>It all relys on the pivot point<<

Yes, as well as the point on the keel that the stress reached the maximum level.

Almost everyone agrees the keel split at about 10 degrees and that it did it below the front of the third funnel(The right line on your diagram))

If this was the only break, the stern should have settled the instant it happened. But what force sheared the keel taking the engine room (the line on the left of your diagram)?

In my diagrams it is ice that stops the stern from settling. The 'blue' ice is dense and doesn't compress. This keeps the stern elevated to about 30 degrees where the unsuspended weight is enough to shear the keel again (my second diagram). The stern still doesn't settle because it is now against the ice.

However we move quickly - again this is the last two minutes of the sinking - to the 'V' at around 40 degrees where the bow is disconnected and rotates upward. This is due to the loss of the weight of the stern, which unfortunately then comes crashing into it.

So instead of the stern settling back on the initial 10 degree split. It settles back a minute or two later as the bow pushes it back up. I believe the term 'back up' was used literally as the stern had gone under but re-emerged - not just 'settled' back down.

Otherwise there would be three 'settlings' of the stern - one for each shear of the keel. And the stern would have to rise three times to supply the 'force'. None of this is recorded.

In my last diagram the bow snapped down again and broke the keel the third time as the ice shattered.

I'm still working on the frozen tank theory as protecting the double hull and stopping compression damage.

 

[Matt Pereira]

The right line of my diagram is at the front of the #3 funnel deck housing but that isnt saying she broke there at the surface that is just mearly showing the last of the bow of the Titanic and that all that between the forward edge of the #3 funnel aft wall of the Recprocating Engine Room Ventilation shaft. It does not mean that she broke at the ventilation shaft or that she broke at the foreward wall of the #3 funnel housing. It just simply means that everything between there is just gone. Which points more so to the fact that Titanic did NOT have a clean break as I indicated in the break diagram I did. It is not very easy to show the hull shearing and shattering and coming to pieces all between those two places.

With a welded hull ship you have a crack form in one area that crack can keep on running and not stop. Now on the other hand with a riveted steel plate ship if a crack forms its going to stop just where that plate stops. But it also means that during a break up its not going to be a hot knife through butter break its going to be a collaspsing of the whole area as the hull is tearing itself to pieces all over the place. It also does not help having steel plates that have microscopic air pockets and cracks starting or going to the small air pockets in the steel.

You are right they the diagrams are simmilar but take a look in your diagram at how much of the keel is visable and unsupported. In mine which happened after the break the keel is pretty much supported the whole time which would account to why that whole section of the stern is also in one piece and wasnt another break.

How do you know that the stern didnt settle back cause we have enough testimony that indicates that a number of passengers thought the Titanic was going to float cause she went back level. My theory for why there was no wave created was that the break was not like in Cameron`s movie where it happened like snapping a stick but it was a slow break that allowed the stern to settle back down with very little wave created. It also helps in my theory if the hull is like in my diagram which the keel is visable as Lightoller stated but is not so high out the water that she would gain speed as she fell.

I also know that your using the stern pushing the bow down to form the way how the wreck is today with the aft end of the bow sloping down from the aft wall of the gymnaisum to the forward wall of the #3 funnel housing which is whats missing on the wreck but the outline of it is visable. I only have a couple theorys to how that happened. One that I belive more than the other is that during the break if it was indeed a top down break that means the top is pulling apart and if thats happening that would happen if the keel has already broke and were able to allow the bow to pull down and bend the aft end of the bow down like that. The other theory is the downblast theory which has some truth to it cause your going to create a slipstream as anything falls in the water fast enough. Just like how you would create a low pressure area behind the aft end of the bow.

But all forms of ice doesnt compress. Just like all liquids can not be compressed. You try to compress a liquid and it becomes a hydrualic action. Water expands as it freezes but water also wont freeze if its moving, if water is stationary it has a hell of a lot better chance at freezing than water that is circulating. I doubt that those freshwater tanks froze mainly because we have testimony that the freshwater tanks were being watched for freezing. That and if that water would have froze you would have deformation in the hull as water expanded while it was freezing.

Why would the stern have to rise three times for the two keel sheers? Why couldnt both keel sheers happen on the break up and then the stern rose just once.

Another part that I am trying to understand is how can the ice support the Titanic to keep the stern from settling back but yet the Titanic breaking shattered the ice.