Slowing Titanic's flooding/sinking

The short of it is that once the ship had hit the iceberg, there was nothing that Smith, Andrews and the crew could have done which would not have been subject to criticism by hindsight from theorists and experts in the years to come.

Many, many ships have gone done over the years who could not or have not closed their watertight doors, and that has been a subject of criticism. In Titanic's case, the doors were closed and that too has been a subject of criticism.

The most elementary point of this that we must remember is that the watertight doors were there for a reason, if there was flooding inside the ship on a major level then the crew were trained to follow procedures which included closing the doors. Science has shown since then that the right decision was made.

My only criticism would be that the distress signals and preparation of the lifeboats should have begun much sooner than almost an hour into the sinking, but again, hindsight is a wonderful thing and to actually be there that night would obviously be a much different kettle of fish.
 
Pretty much the scientific evidence that not closing those doors would have resulted in an earlier sinking and the real possibility of uncontrolable listing and capsizing.

More importantly I think would have been the very quick loss of electric power on the ship.

Not only would this silence the Titanic and prevent them from communicating with potential rescue ships, but imagine if you will all of the lights going out no more than 30 minutes after the collision.

It would have been mayhem, and the orderly evacuation of the ship by the crew absolutely immpossible.
 
Adam Went said:
The short of it is that once the ship had hit the iceberg, there was nothing that Smith, Andrews and the crew could have done which would not have been subject to criticism by hindsight from theorists and experts in the years to come.

Many, many ships have gone done over the years who could not or have not closed their watertight doors, and that has been a subject of criticism. In Titanic's case, the doors were closed and that too has been a subject of criticism.

The most elementary point of this that we must remember is that the watertight doors were there for a reason, if there was flooding inside the ship on a major level then the crew were trained to follow procedures which included closing the doors. Science has shown since then that the right decision was made.

My only criticism would be that the distress signals and preparation of the lifeboats should have begun much sooner than almost an hour into the sinking, but again, hindsight is a wonderful thing and to actually be there that night would obviously be a much different kettle of fish.
Click to expand...

As a point of curiosity, I think its important to remember that all of the watertight compartments had floats which would automatically release the watertight doors and allow them to close if water entered the ship. I don't know if it was even feasible, given limited time, manpower and resources, to disable those mechanisms to allow the doors to stay open in flooded compartments.
 
Scott Mills said:
According to an engineer at Missouri the Titanic could have been given 4 to 4.5 extra hours of life by counter flooding the aft most compartments.

Was able to find the abstract here, on my phone. Can't find more detail until I get home.

http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/americ...ys Titanic Might Have Been Saved-Abstract.pdf
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In a perfect world, maybe. Unfortunately lots of things aren't perfect.

The abstract is full of more holes than the Titanic. I'd love to be a heckler in the audience.

1. They couldn't alternate the thrust of the wing screws AND advance the thrust of the center screw. The center screw ran off exhaust steam and had no throttle. Yes, they could have altered the thrust of just the wings screws. The flaw is that someone had to be at the ready to do this. Something not very likely to have taken place in the middle of the Atlantic.
2. Ramming the iceberg head on may have worked but isn't it instinct to try to avoid a head on collision? If you were going to crash in your car and didn't have an option, would you still swerve to try or just hit it head on? Again, the Titanic didn't turn on a dime.
3. Counter flood the stern, maybe. What does it do to the metacentric height? Now you have more free water sloshing around in a ship that is already listing. Not a good idea.
4. Connecting the bilge pumps in series? No one alive knows what was going on as far as pumping arrangements. None of the engineers survived.
5. Steering the vessel towards the other ship? This would have delayed (even further) launching the lifeboats and any movement in a damaged ship is inherently dangerous, not to mention we're drawing the fires to prevent a boiler explosion. Steam engines don't run well without sufficient steam.
6. Broadcasting the correct position? Well, ultimately it didn't matter as the Carpathia found her. Nobody else was even close, or at least listening. Mistakes happen.
7. Increasing the height of the watertight bulkheads. I bet Thomas Andrews would have liked to have been able to do just that but it wasn't an option on April 14th was it?
8. Increasing the number of lifeboats and lifeboat drills? Once again, coulda, woulda, shoulda. It was again a bit late.
9. Enlargement of the ships rudder? It was not undersized. It was an ocean liner not a runabout. From Father Browne's pictures we know she could maneuver very well.

There was no engineering "failure." The engineering did exactly what it was designed to do. Poor navigation sank the Titanic.

The answer to the question "what sank the Titanic" is simple. It took on board more water than it displaced. Period, end of discussion.
 
I got the impression from reading the abstract that these were all "what if" things that could have saved the ships. Not practical advise that should have been followed.

In retrospect I suppose not trying to port around the berg would have had a "better" outcome, but I think you are correct.

Murdoch did the right thing tryin to avoid the collision (and was nearly successful.

If I recall correctly hitting the berg straight on would have resulted in crumpling the forcastle near to the bridge--killing hundreds.

The only real option for the deck officer was to try to avoid the collision as best he could. Though from a practical standpoint, if Boxhall was correct about the full astern order, this was probably not the most prudent order.
 
Well of course scuttling the coal would've made a BIG difference, as all that dead weight helped drag her down too. But Ismay had paid thru the nose for that coal (which was very dear at the time), and still had plans to head for NYC until Andrews told him they were headed down. By then it was too late.

But if say all the men aboard had grabbed shovels and started tossing the coal overboard at midnight, I think they'd have stayed afloat maybe 2 more hours, perhaps a bit longer. Also it would've given everyone something to do and helped avoid panic and such.

If you figure each shovel/scoop of coal weighed 8 or 10 lbs, the average man probably could've bucked about 1/4 ton or so overboard every say 5 mins. The steerage guys were probably helluva strong and could've done even more, plus the regular trimmers and such who were built for that type of work. So I estimate in maybe 1 and 3/4 hours you'd have had all the coal offloaded and saved all that weight, giving more buoyancy to the unflooded areas.
 
21 replies already...a lot more popular than I first thought...

Very interesting your replies...by the look of the responses it seems that some theories are sinking quickly and others staying above water...at least for now...

I did know that counterflooding would probably knock out the generators...but didn't know that the additional weight of water aft might make Titanic unstable...

In my opinion, here is how Titanic should have been designed from the get-go:
1. Implementation of a double hull to keep water out in the first place, as exemplified by Brunel's Great Eastern
2. Heightened watertight bulkheads, say to D deck (with the critical bulkheads D, F, K, and N being raised to B deck)
3. Elimination of the fireman's passage (just another pathway for water to crawl around the ship)

For a visual interpretation, look at this pic...

Olympic_refit.jpg

Olympic_refit.jpg
 
Steve Butcher said:
Well of course scuttling the coal would've made a BIG difference, as all that dead weight helped drag her down too. But Ismay had paid thru the nose for that coal (which was very dear at the time), and still had plans to head for NYC until Andrews told him they were headed down. By then it was too late.

But if say all the men aboard had grabbed shovels and started tossing the coal overboard at midnight, I think they'd have stayed afloat maybe 2 more hours, perhaps a bit longer. Also it would've given everyone something to do and helped avoid panic and such.

If you figure each shovel/scoop of coal weighed 8 or 10 lbs, the average man probably could've bucked about 1/4 ton or so overboard every say 5 mins. The steerage guys were probably helluva strong and could've done even more, plus the regular trimmers and such who were built for that type of work. So I estimate in maybe 1 and 3/4 hours you'd have had all the coal offloaded and saved all that weight, giving more buoyancy to the unflooded areas.
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That idea falls apart when you consider the roughly 5800 tons of coal Titanic carried for the voyage represents about 15 minutes of flooding from the iceberg damage. The anchors, too, would have made minimal difference, and both of these ideas require a massive expenditure of manpower, which was already in short supply and needed for other tasks.
 
Michael Kestner said:
That idea falls apart when you consider the roughly 5800 tons of coal Titanic carried for the voyage represents about 15 minutes of flooding from the iceberg damage. The anchors, too, would have made minimal difference, and both of these ideas require a massive expenditure of manpower, which was already in short supply and needed for other tasks.
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To which you have to add the sheer stubbornness of the human spirit, "Bloody H E double hockey sticks I'm going to let my ship sink out from underneath me!!!". Mr. Andrews may well have proven it as a mathematical certainty, but I really doubt that any of the crew were of a mind to just "let it happen" as the number of surviving engineering crew would clearly demonstrate.

M.H. Standart summed it up rather well, the crew did the absolute best they could given the knowledge and tools at their disposal, insofar as we are able to determine at any rate. Without knowing precisely which actions were undertaken and how the results of these actions were evaluated, and then modified, and re-evaluated, it is rather difficult to say one way or the other what might have helped.

Regards

D. Gullon
 
>>How about dropping all the anchors? You'd lose 31 tons forward not to mention all the chain. <<

Unfortunately, you gain it all back as soon as the chain lockers flood out and with a third of the ship's length open to the sea, and with water ingress at up to 1200 tons a minute, this is one of those differences which would have made no difference. That quality of having a third of the ship's length in open communication with the sea is the lynchpin of the whole deal. Even if every watertight bulkhead had gone all the way to the main deck, the ship would not have survived. We know this much from the floodable length curves which have been worked out for the Olympic class.

She might have lasted longer but in the end, the Titanic's fate was sealed as soon as steel met ice.
 
ADeblois said:
21 replies already...a lot more popular than I first thought...

Very interesting your replies...by the look of the responses it seems that some theories are sinking quickly and others staying above water...at least for now...

I did know that counterflooding would probably knock out the generators...
Click to expand...

I am not sure this is the case, perhaps someone with a little more knowledge about the design of Titanic could respond to this. What I was referencing was notion that the watertight doors could have been opened to allow even flooding.

The science done to demonstrate the results of such a tactic for dealing with the influx of water shows that, in addition to the immediate loss of power (or near that), the ship would have founder more quickly and may have become unstable.

but didn't know that the additional weight of water aft might make Titanic unstable...
Click to expand...

Strictly speaking, without being an engineer myself, what I read (written by an engineer at Missouri) after the original question was posted was that counter-flooding the rear one or two compartments (not just opening up the doors and letting the ship flood evenly) could possibly have bought the Titanic 4 to 4 and a half extra hours; that said, what is really at question here is did Titanic and her engineers actually have the ability to actually counter-flood at all, and if she did could it be done in a controlled manner which would have kept Titanic stable.
 

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