The Jack Grimm propeller photo or image?

[Aaron_2016]

Wish they would release the scans of the port bow as well. Regarding the slow ahead engine orders. I personally don't believe they made much progress as one of the lifeboats rowed towards the iceberg that was apparently only a mile or so off the stern and could be seen by some on the Titanic in the distance. A number of survivors felt the engines suddenly stop. I believe the vibration only lasted a very short time, and would not be noticeable too much as she slowly started again and the cavitation corrected itself. I believe the sudden loss of the blade caused enormous cavitation immediately after the collision and that is why a number of survivors mistakenly believed the engines were going full speed astern just as the iceberg passed the ship. There was also a strange twisting motion of the rooms - which was also felt by passengers on the Olympic when she lost a blade a month earlier, and the trembling of the ship from stem to stern - which was also felt on the Mauretania when she lost a blade.

Other passengers and crew recognized the sensation straight away and believed they had lost a blade. e.g.

Mr. Ismay
"I really thought what had happened, was we had lost a blade of the propeller."

Mr. Wheelton
"It felt as if it was the dropping of a propeller."

Mr. Crowe
"I thought one of the propellers had been broken off."

Mr. Wheat
"I thought she had cast one of her propeller blades. It sounded to me like that."
Q - Have you been on a ship where that has happened?"
A - Yes
Q - And you thought it was that?
A - Yes, I thought it was the same thing.

2nd officer Lightoller
"It was a feeling as if she may have hit something with her propellers, and on second thoughts I thought perhaps she have struck some obsruction with her propeller and stripped the blades off. It flashed through my mind that possibly it was a piece of wreckage or something. A piece of ice had been struck by a propeller blade which might have given a similar feeling to the ship."

Mr. Beesley
"Like a flash it came to me. We have dropped a propeller blade."

Mr. Silverthorne
"I jumped to my feet, remarking to one of the card players who had crossed with me on the Olympic when we had lost one of the blades from a propeller. I remarked that I guessed, we had lost another propeller."

Mr. Burke
"I thought probably she had dropped her propeller."

Mr. Keen
"It seemed to be nothing worse than a blade falling from a propeller."

Mr. Witter
"I thought she dropped a blade from the propeller."

Mr. Ward
"I thought at first it was the propeller gone, the way she went."

Mr. Marechal
"We heard a violent noise. Similar to that produced by a screw racing."

Mr. Burgess
"There goes a blade!"

Mr. Behr
"My first thought was that we had broken a shaft."

Mr. Johnson
"We thought she had lost her wheel or something, and somebody passed the remark, "another Belfast trip."


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[Scott Mills]

Aaron,

No, I am well aware of this testimony. Instead I am referring to the multiplictous reports of Titanic stopping after the collision, and then resuming forward steaming--there are too many to mention specifically while I am at work; however, suffice it to say these witness statements come from both passengers and crew, and they do not mention any sort of excessive vibrations once Titanic's engines and forward momentum, and thus I assume shaft rotations, resumed.

This is what I am basing my assumption that she, at a minimum, did not throw a blade at the time of collision; however, honestly I am open to the suggestion--pending significant research--that she could have thrown a blade on this restart of the engines.

That could, reasonably (not without doubt) fit the above testimony, and could have acted as the final impetus for the ship to finally come to a stop.

In such a scenario you would have to posit:

• Collision with the ice;
• Damage to hull and propeller;
• Immediate assessment of damage is either serious, but not fatal, or no damage;
• Titanic begins making way again, most likely with the destination of Halifax in mind;
• During this process, the damaged blade is thrown;
• Titanic brought to its final halt;

Full disclosure though here, I take points 3 & 4 as fact based on the available circumstantial evidence; however, with the exception of one who I have talked to about this privately, all the historians on this forum disagree with all, or parts, of both those points.

Edit.

The testimony of Titanic's officers should, in my view, be taken as extremely suspect. This is doubly the case of anything that came out of Ismay's mouth at either inquiry.

 

[Aaron_2016]

I agree it is a possibility that the blade may have been thrown when they stopped the second time as the broken ice would swirl around the stern, or even the cavitation of a sudden stop would throw a blade. However I believe the violent vibration that was felt immediately after the collision was the moment she lost a blade and shook the vessel from bow to stern as she rapidly came to a stop and threw a blade. I believe the vibration of the uneven propellers would cease when she stopped and would not start up again when she moved ahead again / if she moved that is. I say if she moved because I recall a female survivor who said the engines were coughing and jerking and "tried" to move forward again without success. A few other survivors thought something wrong had occurred in the engine room which may have led to the engineers trying to fix the problem, calibrate the propellers, and send her on her way again.

Mr. Ray
"I thought something had gone wrong in the engine room. I did not think of any iceberg."

Mr. Chambers
"I assumed something had gone wrong with the engines on the starboard side."

Mr. Andrews
"I thought something might have gone wrong with the engines."

Mr. Scott
"I thought it was something in the main engine room which had gone wrong."

Mrs. Douglas
"The engines stopped, then went on for a few moments, then stopped again."

Captain Smith and possibly a large number of the engineers were aboard the Olympic when she lost a blade just a month or so earlier. I believe they may have thought the same thing had occurred again, especially as the broken ice fell along the starboard side and would swirl into the starboard propeller. It is unknown what measures were taken to find out if they had lost a blade without disturbing the passengers. This could explain the gentle touch of the engines (or possibly just one of her engines - port or starboard) and they measured how many rotations per minute each propeller was making.

Lawrence Beesley was above the engines and had to touch the side of a bathtub to tell what the engines might be doing and he believed they were slowly going ahead again (although this was his first voyage on a liner). He said:

"On D deck were three ladies standing in the passage near the cabin. "Oh! why have we stopped?" they said. "We did stop," I replied, "but we are now going on again.". "Oh, no," one replied; "I cannot feel the engines as I usually do, or hear them. Listen!" We listened, and there was no throb audible. Having noticed that the vibration of the engines is most noticeable lying in a bath, where the throb comes straight from the floor through its metal sides I took them along the corridor to a bathroom and made them put their hands on the side of the bath: they were much reassured to feel the engines throbbing down below and to know we were making some headway."

There is speculation that he was simply feeling the engines working the pumps below and not the actual reciprocating engines pounding ahead. Although it is an open question.


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[Rob Lawes]

Flipping heck Aaron you make my eyes spin reading some of these theories that you pluck out of the air.

If you try and take every piece of passenger and crew testimony as gospel you are going to drive yourself nuts. Telling which way the ships engines were running by touching the side of a vibrating bath tub? Hmmmm.

Its clear that when somebody isn't sure what's happening they liken what they've just experienced to what they've experienced before. I would imagine far more seasoned travellers would have experienced a lost blade than those who had been on ships that struck icebergs. Even those who hadn't experienced a lost blade would perhaps have heard of ships doing so and made an assumption as this was far more common than ships striking bergs.

 

[Harland Duzen]

Out of interest, Aaron, but for this and other events you speculate on (like the stern rising and falling), have you thought of mapping out everyone's locations aboard Titanic with a rough map (e.g. by cabin and deck)? That might show how vibrations were felt or passed though the ship.

Also similar to what Rob points out, everyone's descriptions might be assumptions, rumours they heard from others who made assumptions (like stewards) etc.

Note The parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant, where several blind men touched an elephant and gave different descriptions of the same thing. This could be the same thing where passengers felt the iceberg and made multiple guesses as to what it could be.

 

[Rob Lawes]

have you thought of mapping out everyone's locations aboard Titanic with a rough map (e.g. by cabin and deck)?

If you Google Paul Lee's website I think he's already done that.

 

[Harland Duzen]

He probably has, but since the testimony mentioned comes from multiple passengers and crew on different decks / classes, it might be good to see if accounts come from closer to the bow (from the iceberg) or from the stern (from the propeller?)

Then again, this could not work due to survivor bias meaning we only get accounts from midship (from 1st and 2nd class).

 

[Aaron_2016]

Flipping heck Aaron you make my eyes spin reading some of these theories that you pluck out of the air.

If you try and take every piece of passenger and crew testimony as gospel you are going to drive yourself nuts. Telling which way the ships engines were running by touching the side of a vibrating bath tub? Hmmmm......

Out of interest, Aaron, but for this and other events you speculate on (like the stern rising and falling), have you thought of mapping out everyone's locations aboard Titanic with a rough map (e.g. by cabin and deck)? That might show how vibrations were felt or passed though the ship......

Yes I am always interested in the survivor's perspective and what their experience was. If a number of passengers and crew believed the ship had lost a blade then it is surely up to us to explore all possibilities and not to dismiss any claims - same with those who saw the ship break in two and were ignored.

For instance the Titanic was speeding about 22 knots, so the iceberg would have passed the forward damaged areas in about 5 seconds. Has this ever been debated? Yet survivors felt several pushes, two or three shocks, a jerking motion, and a heavy vibration that lasted about 20 seconds followed by another shock, and those in the 1st class smoking room felt the ice passing underneath the ship, and also felt a twisting motion of the room, and as the ship trembled from bow to stern it created the impression she was going full speed astern when in fact she wasn't. Since this had occurred after the first 5 seconds we can deduce it had nothing to do with the forward damage and was very likely the effect of the ship grounding slightly over the ice and losing a blade.

Joseph Scarrott was in the bow section and thought the engines were going full speed astern. He also said the ship shook "from stem to stern." When the Mauretania lost a blade she also shook in the same manner. e.g.

When the Olympic lost a blade just a month earlier the vibration disturbed some of the passengers, but caused little alarm. They corrected the balance and were on their way again full speed ahead. One of the passengers said the ship swerved (twisted) like a train rounding a curve.

Very similar to the survivors in the 1st class smoking room who felt the same thing. e.g.


Mr. Woolner
"We felt it under the smoking room. We felt a sort of stopping, a sort of, not exactly shock, but a sort of slowing down; and then we sort of felt a rip that gave a sort of a slight twist to the whole room."

Mr. Steffanson
"It was a twisting motion that shook the boat terribly."

Mr. Silverthorne
"I jumped to my feet, remarking to one of the card players who had crossed with me on the Olympic when we had lost one of the blades from a propeller. I remarked that I guessed, we had lost another propeller."

Mr. Saalfeld
He said the vibration "made us think of some breakage of the machinery."


The question is when did the passengers feel this heavy vibration which shook the entire vessel from bow to stern. It certainly wasn't during the initial collision. Mr. Scarrott felt it about 6 minutes after he heard the crows nest bell ring. Quartermaster Rowe was on the poop deck and thought they were going full speed astern about "half a minute" after the collision.

Other survivors like Hyman and Harder felt it and saw the iceberg was a safe distance away from the side as the ship was circling around it after swinging her stern away. Hyman was told that they may have struck a long spur of ice that was hidden underneath and "jutted out a long distance" towards the ship. They could not understand what was causing the heavy vibration after the ship swung clear. It is possible that Captain Smith also believed they had struck a spur because when he spoke to Murdoch he said "What is that?" - present tense, which indicates the vibration was still going on. He then went to the starboard bridge wing and saw the iceberg safely away from the side as they began to circle round it. The wireless operator said the Captain told them "We had been struck just aft of amidships". This I believe indicates the position of the iceberg when the captain looked at it from the bridge wing. It was far away from the side, but he still felt the vibration and may have believed the same as the sailors - that they had struck a spur "that jutted out a long distance".

The ship slowed down and came to a stop as they continued to circle around it. Mr. Hendrickson told the UK Inquiry:

Q - Where was it?
A - Just abaft the engine room when I got on deck. When I got on deck first I saw a lot of ice on the deck, and I looked out and saw an iceberg astern just abaft the engine room.
Q - You came up very quick?
A - No, I walked up behind the others who were walking up.
Q - Had the ship nearly stopped then?
A - She was stopped.



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[Rob Lawes]

We are talking about a 45 thousand ton ship coming into contact with hundreds of thousands of tons of ice. Each passenger will describe the effects as best they can in their own minds. They will try and rationalise what they have experienced and in some cases equate it to what they know or have experienced before.

I've been below decks on an RN frigate that has caught a wave awkwardly and there is a large bang against the hull and the whole ship quivers for several seconds. Unusual sounds and motions happen all the time at sea.

 

[Rob Lawes]

This is the outstanding bit of work by Paul Lee.

http://www.paullee.com/titanic/thecollision.php