The Iceberg

Colleen:
Antarctica's iceberg B-15 is featured in the December 2001 issue of National Geographic. In March, 2000, it measured 180 miles x 25 miles. In May 2000, it broke into a number of pieces, predominantly B-15A and B-15B.
B-15A turned west along the Ross Sea, and B-15B headed north.

Iceberg B-15B broke in half again around May 2001, and is apparently now riding a western current within the Antarctic Circle, well south of Australia. It is described as being the size of Delaware, but I'm not sure if that was before or after the May split. There is one incredible two page picture of B-15B, rising 205 feet above the water, in the December issue.

I tried to find pictures of B-15 on the nationalgeographic.com website, but never could. Is National Geographic available in stores or is it subscription only?
 
HI MIKE! Good to see your name pop up. I was just thinking about this iceberg conversation today, and guess you were too.
I'll have to get ahold of National Geographic and check it out. Is it making the shipping lines dangerous yet, or is it out of the way?
Take care! Colleen
 
Hi Mike,

Haven't seen you for a while, I hope all is well!

I think it would be bad business of National Geographic was subscription only. Here it is available in news agencies like any magazine, so I guess getting a copy won't be tricky. Most libraries subscribe to NG, so I guess past issues won't be so hard to find either ... that's how I get my fix of the 1985, 85 and 87 NG Titanic articles! I can't believe I let my sister cut up the one and only original (1986) article that I had, all those years ago for a school project!!! (I still treasure the remains)

Daniel.
 
Colleen there's already an ice thread I started awhile ago. Michael gave me a great link to a great site where they track and measure ice bergs. You should check it out. Double the fun. I'm reading double threads here. Be sure to check the other ice thread, the link is there.
 
Daniel:
Sorry to be a stranger. I here about you from time to time when talking to MLB. 2001 has been rough on me. I'm only home on weekends nowadays and internet access is down about 80 percent, but do have some interesting things to share with you, that I'll mail.
Best Regards,
Mike
 
Red Lead paint is heavier than water (density of linseed oil 0.93 g/cm^3, ocean water about 1.027 g/cm^3, red lead (Pb3O4) 9.1 g/cm^3).

But the paint it is also soft, so it will come off in more or less small pieces during contact between the ship and the ice. If the friction creates a slush made of salt water, fresh water ice and red lead paint, this slush might be able to float for a while.

If I fill a bucket with water, put small cork grains onto the surface, dip a snowball under the surface and pull it out again, some of the cork will cling to the snowball (and my hand).

A similar process might create a red smear near the waterline of the iceberg, even following the nooks and crannies there:

1. If grounding was involved, the iceberg may have been tilted a bit toward the area of contact, taking the swimming paint with it when it returned to its previous orientation.

2. Wave motion may have swept the paint slush a small way up the side of the iceberg.

Anyone please explain to a landlubber and armchair researcher like me whether or why this is possible or not.
 
Hello, Dieter!

Is that the Prinz Adalbert iceberg you're referring to? - the one that had the red smear along its base? It's very difficult to spot any such smear in the photograph. Anyway, there's been lots of discussion as to whether that was *really* the iceberg the Titanic hit. The red blotch doesn't tell us all that much. And if, in fact, it was antifouling paint, remember that the winter of 1911-12 was a very, very nasty one for ships in general getting into trouble with floating ice - from mid-December, right on through April 14-15. It was nothing at all like the mild winter that Lightoller later wrote about and Titanic was far from being the ice's only victim - just the most dramatic and noteworthy. And, of course, it's the ONE we all remember.

My point is that virtually every iceberg in the area of the Titanic's sinking was identified as THE iceberg that did the dastardly deed. No one really knows which one it was. Scarrott did a pretty good sketch that does resemble one of the bergs photographed from the Carpathia - not the Prinz Adalbert berg - but he didn't get a very good look at it the night before either.

Roy
 
Roy,
I am referring to ANY iceberg with such a red stain near the waterline, regardless of who saw it or when or where.
It has been suggested that the red smear can not have been created by contact with a ship, because the red stuff was located inside a convex section of the iceberg.
The mechanism I have described in my post may be impossible for some reason, and I would like to learn why.
Since I have no experience at all with icebergs, ships, the ocean or red lead paint, I am asking for the opinion of someone who has, to help me understand what may have happened.
 
quote:

Since I have no experience at all with icebergs, ships, the ocean or red lead paint, I am asking for the opinion of someone who has, to help me understand what may have happened.
Click to expand...
A full explanation: page 40, The sinking of the Titanic:An Ice Pilot's Perspective, The Mystery Solved page 26.​
 
Your point being Capt. Collins is that red paint does not adhere to ice very well and that the red discoloration, if it was there, might have been organic in nature.
 
>A full explanation: page 40, The sinking of the >Titanic:An Ice Pilot's Perspective, The Mystery >Solved page 26.


Still trying to sell more books, Captain? Why not be courteous and just TELL us.
 
Captain Collins: Thank you for the reference, it seems this book might be interesting to me.

Sam Halpern: Thank you for the summary, I wish it had come with the reference.

Paul Lee: Please don't start this type of thing on this thread, the 'Grounding' thread is already drama enough.

I will probably buy the book. From what I have learned here on ET it may be that some things in this book are asserted as facts where others think they are mere opinion or even false, but I hope my education will help me make my own conclusions.

A new perspective can be valuable, and this is what I was asking for.
 
Dieter Klimow,

Very well said. I would encourage anyone to seek out books that put a new perspective on the Titanic disaster. Captain Collins brings to this debate years of experience as an ice pilot safely navigating ships, some of them considerably larger than the Titanic, through pack ice, field ice and around icebergs.

Whether you come to agree with his theory or not, the book will give you a lot of information to consider regarding the tragic accident.

Regards,
Allan
 

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