Question Most survivors couldn't hear or feel the collision with iceberg. Why is that?

[Curiosite]

I've read a few accounts, and each one of them stated that there was "no sound" or "just a light sound". Honestly, I'm confused. Why would the ripping of the hull by massive knives of ice not be heard or felt?

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

I am personally extremely skeptical about the very few claims about being thrown out of a bunk.

Especially when there ware some who were far away from the area of impact who claimed it too.

 

[Steven Christian]

Especially when there ware some who were far away from the area of impact who claimed it too.

Yeah I would agree with that. From my limited experiance living aboard ship the foward berthing compartments were a lot worse than the aft ones. They were a lot noisier and when in rough seas they seem to get it worse as far as the shuttering and impacts when wave crashing. Of course the conditions were different and it might be apples to oranges and all that but I think the same physics apply. I remember going on my rounds and saying how it sucked up foward for the guys up there compared to us in the back and lower in the ship.

 

[Nerea90]

I’m reading “Guide to the Crew of the Titanic“ by Günter Bäbler right now and it says: “The accommodation for the greasers was on the starboard side in the very tip of the bow on G-deck, exactly where the Titanic collided with an iceberg. It is impossible the greasers would have slept through it. The survival rate amongst the greasers was 12%. (...) Most of the bunks were against the outer hall wall. A slight buckling of the hull at the side by only a few centimeters could have jammed the narrow dormitory door and only exit, trapping the greasers who survived the collision. The portholes had a diameter of only 23cm, insufficient for a man to pass through. If the door was jammed, the greasers had only a few minutes until their accommodatio filled with sea water”.

So I guess it would depend on where you were located.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

“The accommodation for the greasers was on the starboard side in the very tip of the bow on G-deck, exactly where the Titanic collided with an iceberg.

Not quite "the very tip of the bow." The greaser's accommodation was aft of watertight bulkhead A on the starboard side. Ahead of bulkhead A was the chain locker for the anchors and ahead of that was a store room compartment which was at the very tip.

 

[TimTurner]

In addition to what's already been said:
1. Most passengers were asleep at the moment of impact.
2. Many passengers might be unfamiliar with a ship at sea and wouldn't feel or hear the difference for lack of experience.

The greasers indeed were not in the very tip of the bow" (coincidentally I was modeling this very compartment tonight) the greasers were actually above the (probable) 2nd impact site by about 10 feet. The bow of the Titanic didn't plow into the iceberg head on, and it would seem most of the damage occurred aft of where the greasers bunked. Some 3rd class passengers on G deck were likely closer to the collision point than even the greasers.

Also for consideration: Titanic was a big ship. It would have acted a lot like a big crumple zone, absorbing much of the impact. This would have deadened the impact for most people. At the same time, certain ship structures and sympathetic vibrations could have enhanced the force of impact in very specific parts of the ship. So, while it isn't terribly likely, it is within the realm of plausibility that some people were "thrown out of bed" while others felt "nothing".

 

[Matthew Q]

ship big

... Okay, I won't leave it there. If the ship grounded (as I believe it did) the actual impact would have been pretty minor. By "grounded," I obviously don't mean she rode up out of the water, but simply there was a submerged shelf of ice that she slid over, doing some fairly minor damage in the critically wrong areas. It'd be like a very small earthquake, if you were sleepy, you mightn't even distinguish it from the vibration of the engines that have been your life for the past four days.

There is a superb Titanic Channel episode about it with Parks Stephenson, if you're interested in learning more about this theory.

 

[Aly Jones]

It were 11:40 pm when she struck, many were still up and awake because wsl policy was lights out at 1130pm.The lookouts 3 warning bell ring would've alerted many passengers to the up coming danger? So many were expecting some kind of collision.? Hearing those bells must had been a nightmare.

 

[RileyGardner17]

I would suspect the only passengers who might've heard were in the cabins of forward A/B/C deck, and if they did they didn't know what they meant nor did they dwell on it, I'd suspect. When you're a frequent traveller and been on a ship for a number of days "ship noises" like bells, whistles, etc. probably go right over your head.

 

[Tim Gerard]

Most passengers were asleep by 11:40pm and the collision was enough of a glancing blow that most were able to sleep right through it, such as 5th Officer Harold Lowe. But there were some people who were still awake, throughout the ship, who did feel something out of the ordinary, but minor enough that they didn't think too much of it at first. 2nd class survivor Lawrence Beesley was still awake and reading in his cabin, D56, way aft on D deck on the port side, he described what to him felt like a slight heave of the engines.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

It were 11:40 pm when she struck, many were still up and awake because wsl policy was lights out at 1130pm.The lookouts 3 warning bell ring would've alerted many passengers to the up coming danger? So many were expecting some kind of collision.? Hearing those bells must had been a nightmare.

Lights out policy was a function of different parts of the vessel. The last lights out would have taken place in the smoking rooms at midnight.
The lookouts striking 3 bells, or 2 bells or 1 bell would not have meant anything to most passengers. Other than every half hour, when ship bells were struck tolet the watch on deck know how much longer that had remaining in their watch, the lookout bells were used routinely by the lookouts to let the officer of the watch know that they had spotted something, which might include another vessel, ahead, to port, or to starboard. The bells did not signify danger. Nobody expected any collision. Let's not start conspiracy theories here.

 

[Robert T. Paige]

Molly Brown said she was thrown out of her bed when the ship hit the iceberg but I feel like it was an exageration...

There is a scene from one of the movies (I believe it is one of the "deleted scenes" from the 1997 "Titanic" ? ).
Mrs. Brown is shown in what appears to be one of the lounges, having a drink.
She asks for some ice.
In the background, seen through a window, the iceberg is seen passing by.
Of course this can be crossed off as just an invention of the movie maker.

 

[Steven Christian]

Yeah movie making. But I recall reading someone saying that they collected some of the ice on the deck and using some to put in a drink. But I don't remember where that came from. Could have just been fiction too.

 

[Robert T. Paige]

Yeah I would agree with that. From my limited experiance living aboard ship the foward berthing compartments were a lot worse than the aft ones. They were a lot noisier and when in rough seas they seem to get it worse as far as the shuttering and impacts when wave crashing. Of course the conditions were different and it might be apples to oranges and all that but I think the same physics apply. I remember going on my rounds and saying how it sucked up foward for the guys up there compared to us in the back and lower in the ship.

My experience was similar to yours in only having a relatively short period of sea duty.
Things seemed a lot smoother the lower you were and the closer you were to the middle of the ship rather than on an upper deck near the bow or the stern.

 

[Steven Christian]

Yeah just physics. On Titanic most reported not feeling anything, some just a slight shudder. Then like a lot of things the story got bigger and bigger for some.

 

[Robert T. Paige]

Yeah movie making. But I recall reading someone saying that they collected some of the ice on the deck and using some to put in a drink. But I don't remember where that came from. Could have just been fiction too.

There is a scene in the 1958 "A Night To Remember" of a man coming in with a large chunk of ice that he said he picked up off the deck.