Titanic after the break up

[Kevin Zeniel Perez]

After the stern broke free, what happened next? I do know that fact that she fell on her port side, throwing everyone, maybe, except the Chef. But I want to know what was the exact position of the vessel when she listed over to her side. Is there also by any chance, that Titanic went vertical after that?

Terribly sorry if I'm being a pest with my topics

 

[Stefan Diklich]

I don't know where you heard about the ship listing to port. I think she went straight up. Like in the movie,

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

Baker Joughin, who Kevin refers to, testified that the stern tipped over on the port side not long before the end. He climbed up on the upward-facing starboard outside of the hull, and worked his way farther back.

There is an illustration of this in Paul Quinn's book "Titanic at 2 AM".

 

[Stefan Diklich]

Yeah, but he was drunk, maybe he was hallucinating.

 

[Kevin Zeniel Perez]

I think some of you are missing the point. I'm asking if there is by any chance that when she listed to her port side, did the ship sank vertical to its final plunge?.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Yeah, but he was drunk, maybe he was hallucinating.<<

Mmmmmmmm...maybe...but one should know that Mr. Joughin denied this for the rest of his life. there are problems with the premise itself in that alcohol has a tendency to dilate blood vessels. This means a greater supply of blood going to the skin and faster cooling and hypothermia setting in more quickly.

The advantage would be that if said drinker was sufficiently numbed by the alcohol, breathing while swimming in freezing water wouldn'tbe a painful exercise and thus increasing the chances...supposedly...of making it to a boat befor freezing to death.

>>I'm asking if there is by any chance that when she listed to her port side<<

Yes. And some of the witnesses tend to back that up.

>>did the ship sank vertical to its final plunge?.<<

Maybe. From a forensics standpoint though, this one is problematical to reconcile with the fact that the boilers are still there when it was reckoned that they would have torn loose had the ship tipped up much beyond 35°

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

As Michael said, Joughin denied being drunk. Regardless of whether he was or not, I have a number of problems with his testimony, not the least of which is his claim that he was in the water for over an hour.

There is quite a lot of evidence that she listed to port, before the break-up and sinking. I think Joughin is the only one to testify to the abrupt keeling over to port during the final plunge.

 

[Kevin Zeniel Perez]

What about Rosa Abbot? Wasn't she one one of the people on the side of the ship? Reading the Titanic At Two A.M. book, it said she was on the well, holding her two sons (one 9, the other 15). Surely she would have mentioned this, unless, she died after going through such a horrible thing? Oh!!!! Again, I'm terribly sorry if I'm sounding like an amateur, but there are so many things we'll never figure out on what exact happened the day she sank.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

If Rosa was in the well deck (and I'm not suggesting she wasn't), it seems to me that if she was tossed into the ocean with her sons, she may *not* have been aware of what happened to the ship itself (such as a sudden tip to port), just that she was thrown into the water, and she lost the boys.

The unfortunate situation is that most of the people on the stern who *could* have noticed a tip to port, died in the sinking. Only a very few people on the ship at this time, survived. And Joughin was in a good place/situation to have noticed what happened - it may have saved his life!

 

[David G. Brown]

The ship rolled slowly to port, with the speed of the roll increasing over time.

Water came onto the port boat deck while collapsible B was being manhandled off the roof of the officers quarters. When it landed upside down on the boat deck the men trying to right it were working in water, a sight observed by Lightoller and Hemming. I've always suspected tht the upside-down condition of collapsible B was in part due to the water on the boat deck.

Collapsible A could not be sent down from the roof because of the port list. In effect, the side wall of the officers quarters got in the way. Oars had to be used as makeshift skids. The amount of the list was sufficient that most of the weight of the boat was carried by the oars which apparently splintered.

Gracies leap to the roof of the first class entrance also illustrates the effect of the list. He could not have accomplished such a leap, even assisted by a wave, unless the wall was slanted. In effect, he was washed up a sloping beach and not carried vertically up a cliff.

Joughin said he went into the pantry at the base of funnel #3 for a drink--of water. While there, he heard the breakup taking place almost beneath his feet. At the same time he heard people running aft on the boat deck overhead. These people were undoubtely trying to escape the wave that Gracie used in his leap.

Joughin worked his way aft, saw people tossed into the port waterways, and eventually found himself on the outside of the shell plating. His narrative is pretty straight-forward with a ring of truth. He seems to have floated off as the ship went out from under him.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Kevin Zeniel Perez]

It's rather sad what the *remaning* people on the decks had to go through. The idea of smashing into hard objects likes benches, cranes, teak wooden decks, just like the Titanic At Two A.M. book says, can only be imagined. I'm surprised that Rosa and the Chef were able to tell the tale.

Oh, does anybody, besides, me think the book I mentioned is a good, reliable source ... if you want to know about the break up and such?

Kevin,

 

[Michael H. Standart]

I think the book is useful in general terms if only because it gives the reader a sense of the time in which all this took place. If you want a blow by blow technical explaination of what happened, you might want to click on Roy Mengot's Website then check out the essays in Marconigraph.com and Tim Foecke's NIST Webpage. Tim's site has a file on the metallurgy that you may find useful. It's in pdf format and requires an Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Hope this helps.

 

[Melissa Ziehl]

When she broke, the bow when down, the stern went straight up, bobbed for a couple seconds and then flooded and went down. I don't know if this is true for both pieces of the ship, but I know the stern spun around as she sank. If you look at pictures both ends are facing away from each other.

 

[Paul Lee]

With regard to the ship rolling to port before she went down, Jack Thayer in boat B said "she turned her deck away from us"- boat B was on the port side, but I remember reading on this forum that it had drifted to the port side (can anyone confirm this?)

According to Wilding at the BoT inquiry, the ship couldn't have exceeded 35 degrees or the boilers would have left their beds. The stern may have gone vertical after the break-up, with the bow no longer there.

Cheers

Paul

 

[Mark Robert Hopkins]

Paul,

Actually, it's suggested that collapsibles A and B, after the bridge went under, drifted to opposite sides of the ship. This would have placed collapsible B on the starboard side (or where the starboard used to be) when the uprighted stern "turned the deck away" to port.

As for the boilers, it has been documented that those in BR #2 can still be seen through the break in the bow, but that doesn't mean that those in the forward BRs didn't break off and roll forward. There is the suggestion that the weakened wall caused by the earlier fire in the coal bunker allowed the boilers from the following BR to fall through, and the weight of those boilers crashing into the boilers of the BR just forward caused a cascading effect of boilers tumbling forward into the bow. In short: just because the boilers in BR #2 are still intact on their bedding doesn't meant that those forward are. I don't think that the angle at which the bow sank necessarily could be deemed "not steep enough," as the boilers could roll at any considerable angle, and heaven knows that there was enough pressure on the bow to allow the boilers, under the right conditions, to roll off their beds. Now, I'm not saying that I agree with this, but it is a theory. Can anyone provide evidence of this or the contrary? I would be much obliged. Thanks.

--Mark