Titanic Bursting at the Seams

[Aaron_2016]

When the Olympic was leaving Belfast she ran onto a mud bank and had to return to dry dock for inspection. This led me to believe there were concerns that 'these big new ships' could buckle and break their backs owing to their length.


Here are a few ships I found that ran aground and broke.

When the White Star officials were told that the Titanic had broken in two it may have entered their minds that the ship ran over the iceberg ledge and broke her back owing to her size. Survivor Mr. Daniel was reported to have said the following - "The officers who survived told me afterwards that the Titanic slipped up on the iceberg and practically broke in two. It tore out its bottom." Perhaps the iceberg collision fractured the ship in several places and caused seams to buckle open which gradually got worse as the ship began to bend and list over to port, which opened them even more until she broke in two.


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[Jim Currie]

Wrong Broompark, Aaron. The one that sank was the replacement for the one I was on....this one:

Built in 1959.

A ship does not break her back easily. She is designed as a girder. While working in a head -sea. she will flex like a cane as the ends then the center is unsupported alternatively as a giant swell passes through. That is termed "Hogging" and Sagging". She will only break her back if the ends or an end are unsupported for a considerable time and she is subjected to movement and varying buoyancy while she is aground. The pictures you show, Aaron, illustrate the case.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Cheers. The website Shipsnostalgia says the vessel MV Broompark was built in 1959. Later renamed Anastasia and then Eastern Mariner and then she unfortunately sank in 1981.


Pictures provided by Shipsnostalgia.com

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[Jim Currie]

Thanks, Aaron. Sad to see her like that.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Regarding the breaking of the ship's back, think in terms of the bending loads imposed on the hull girder as the ship went nose down forward and the UN-supported weight of the portion which rose out of the water back aft. This (Obviously) imposed bending loads on the hull girder far in excess of anything it could possibly survive.

>>Survivor Mr. Daniel was reported to have said the following - "The officers who survived told me afterwards that the Titanic slipped up on the iceberg and practically broke in two. It tore out its bottom." <<

(Raised eyebrow) Which officer? None testified to that under oath...anywhere. Beware third hand sources, especially since a lot of them wouldn't know the difference between an officer and a steward.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Lightoller said the Inquiry was a "whitewash" to protect the interests of the company and the Board of Trade, which means anything they said in regards to the collision and the sinking at the Inquiries should be taken very lightly. The surviving officers testified that she did not break in two, yet the occupants who were in the same lifeboats with them said she did break in two. Some key elements were in my belief intentionally whitewashed by the officers. From the accounts I have read it appears the crew believed the pumps would control the flooding and the ship would only sink to a certain degree, but would still remain afloat, then suddenly as the last boats were made ready for lowering there came a rumbling deep inside the ship and the liner broke in two resulting in her immediate sinking. As the officers did not believe the ship would sink before this occurred they quite possibly believed the break up caused her to go down which would bring into question the construction of the ship and her sister the Olympic and greatly damage the reputations of the company, their employees and the Board of Trade who cleared the liner as fit for service.


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[Michael H. Standart]

The people who testified to the break up VASTLY outnumbered those who said that it didn't happen and those who asserted that the ship sank intact...while I believe the were honest...were not only wrong, but not in a very good position to see what was happening in the dark.

It would seem that the people most hostile to the idea of the break up were Lord Mersey and the Board of Inquiry which was notably quick to change the subject if a witness testified to seeing the ship sink.

As to the officers believing the break up caused the sinking, I would have to ask again; to whom are we referring?

The ship was already sinking and by 12:25am in the morning, there was no real doubt that this was going to happen. Andrews had pronounced the ship's death sentence in light of he damage already observed. Nobody mentioned any possible threat of a break up. The knew the ship was going to sink regardless.

 

[Jim Currie]

Hello Aaron.

Where is the evidence that "Lightoller said the Inquiry was a "whitewash" to protect the interests of the company and the Board of Trade"? I can only find reference to him writing: "it was very necessary to keep one’s hand on the whitewash brush". Keeping one's hand on a tool does not necessarily mean you used it.
It often escapes the devotees of Lightoller that the man seems to have been a walking disaster if not, in fact, a war criminal. However, there can be no doubt that one of his prominent traits was self-aggrandisement. If you listen to his 1936 BBC, you might be forgiven to think that Hans Christian Andersen wrote his script.
You add: "which means anything they said in regards to the collision and the sinking at the Inquiries should be taken very lightly. "
If the officers were the only ones giving evidence, then I would agree with you. However, the officers all knew that very many experienced and highly trained Able Seamen also witnessed the end. Since many of them gave different interpretations of what happened, it follows that what the officers stated was what each of them believed was true.
You must be careful about repeating 3rd hand evidence. In fact, there was not one single survivor who could confidently comment on the pumping ability of Titanic. It was the belief of many, probably encouraged by comforting crew members, that the pumps could cope. It would have been very late on when that bubble burst.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Mr. Lightoller said in his book:


"In Washington it was of little consequence, but in London it was very necessary to keep one's hand on the whitewash brush. Sharp questions that needed careful answers if one was to avoid a pitfall, carefully and subtly dug, leading to a pinning down of blame onto someone's luckless shoulders.....A washing of dirty linen would help no one.......The Board of Trade had passed that ship as in all respects fit for sea in every sense of the word, with sufficient margin of safety for everyone on board. Now the Board of Trade was holding an enquiry into the loss of the ship, hence the whitewash brush. Personally I had no desire that blame should be attributed either to the Board of Trade or the White Star Line, though in all conscience it was a difficult task.......I think in the end the Board of Trade and the White Star Line won.....I know when it was all over I felt more like a legal doormat than a mail boat officer."

I believe that is a strong accusation by Lightoller that the company and the Board of Trade used him as a legal doormat and possibly the other surviving officers to officially deny the ship had broken in two.


In regards to the officers believing the ship would not sink:


Boxhall was told that the ship was sinking by the Captain who was himself told by Andrews. That would make his testimony third-hand and would rely on Boxhall having to remember what the Captain had told him in regards to what Andrews had told the Captain. We therefore can't give that conversation much credibility. Boxhall left the ship very close to the end. He was asked:

Q - Were you convinced, when you took to the boat in which you left, that the Titanic would go down?
A - I was quite undecided about it.

This was the general belief I think from the crew e.g.

Seaman T. Jones said:
"I thought they were only sending us away for an hour or so, until they got squared up again."
Q - Until they got what?
A - Until they got her pumped out.
Q - Can you tell me anything that indicated that the crew of the ship felt that the ship would not sink?
A - Yes, sir. The firemen brought up their bundles, not because they thought the boat was going to sink, but because they wanted to take them out of the water, as the water was coming in.
Q - They were confident that the ship would not go down?
A - Yes, sir; the last I saw of them they thought so. That it would not sink.


3rd officer Pitman said:
"I quite thought we would have to return to the ship again, perhaps at daylight. My idea was that if any wind sprang up we should drift away from the ship and have a job to get back again."

He shook hands with Murdoch's as he left the ship.

Q - When you shook hands with Murdoch and bade him goodbye, did you ever expect to see him again?
A - Certainly; I did.
Q - Do you think, from his manner, he ever expected to see you again?
A - Apparently not. I expected to get back to the ship again, perhaps two or three hours afterwards.


Lightoller said:

"I did not think it was a serious accident."
"I told them it was merely a precaution and that very likely they would all be taken on board again at daylight."
"No one believed the ship was actually in any danger. I'm afraid that my own confidence that she wouldn't or couldn't sink rather conveyed itself to others, for there were actually cases were woman absolutely refused to be put in a boat."

His belief was so strong that he ordered the forward gangway door to be opened and possibly did not believe the ship would sink low enough to allow water to enter the gangway door. His orders to partly fill the lifeboats could also suggest his belief that the ship was not really going to sink.


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[Michael H. Standart]

Aaron, what I asked was; "As to the officers believing the break up caused the sinking, I would have to ask again; to whom are we referring?"

They already knew the ship was going to sink. So stipulated and agreed on.

Where is the evidence that they believed that the break up caused the sinking? Everything I've seen indicates that the break up came as a shocking surprise.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Aaron, what I asked was; "As to the officers believing the break up caused the sinking, I would have to ask again; to whom are we referring?".

Survivor Mr. Daniel did not say which officers he spoke to, so we can only speculate which officers they were. His account published in newspapers simply read: "The officers who survived told me afterwards that the Titanic slipped up on the iceberg and practically broke in two. It tore out its bottom."


The other survivor accounts I posted above are just to show that the surviving officers and crew did not believe the ship would actually sink until the moment she broke or at least very close to the moment that she broke in two. Even Boxhall who was told the ship was sinking by the Captain and was in one of the last boats to leave the ship and saw the propellers in the air was still "undecided" that she would actually go down. He rowed away from the ship because he thought the people would jump off the ship and swim towards his boat and swamp it. One would have thought his choice to row away was his belief that the ship was going down, but he testified that he was "undecided" that she would go down even then.

As this was moments before she exploded and broke in two I have to assume that the break up was the moment they realized the ship was going to sink. Just before she broke the crew attempted to lower the last starboard collapsible boat in the traditional manner with the davits which I believe implies they were not expecting the bow to submerge at any time soon, otherwise they would not have attempted such a thing and instead would have simply released the boat and waited a few moments for the water to approach the boat deck assuming they believed the ship was going to fully sink. Mr. Ismay said the Chief Engineer told him the pumps would hold the flooding. I believe that was likely the general belief of the crew once word of this was passed around the ship. As survivors spoke of a large explosive sound before the ship sank and another during the sinking, and how the bow took a sudden and violent lurch downwards after one explosion and broke in two and sank almost immediately, I believe that in the minds of the surviving crew this was the moment they realized the ship was going to sink and nothing could save her. If they had testified that they did not believe the ship was sinking until they heard the explosive sounds and witnessed the ship break in two then the construction of the ship would have been heavily scrutinised and that was something the Board of Trade and the company could certainly have done without.

In 1912 a gentleman's social status and word of honour was key in the credibility of their accounts. The surviving officers word of honour and the shipping company they represented meant that their testimony had to be very defensive and the good thing was their testimony would automatically overrule everyone else's. This is why I believe they saw the ship break but were not allowed to testify that she did.


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[Ioannis Georgiou]

Thomas Andrews told several people that the ship was going to sink. He would have not said so if this was not the case.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Mr. Ismay spoke to the Chief Engineer about the damage - "I asked if he thought the ship was seriously damaged, and he said he thought she was, but was quite satisfied the pumps would keep her afloat." If the Chief Engineer was confident the ship would survive and would only partially sink to a degree and still remain afloat then his confidence may have made the Captain think that Thomas Andrews was exaggerating the damage and possibly had more faith in his Chief Engineer. The collision was so slight and the Captain was ordering the lifeboats to row towards the other ship several miles away, off load the passengers, and return to the Titanic to pick up more. This tells us that the Captain thought there was plenty of time to evacuate the ship with possibly many hours to survive. I believe they thought the ship was flooding in several compartments and in that sense she was sinking, but they were confident she would not sink altogether.


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[Ioannis Georgiou]

(Boxhall British Inquiry)
15610. Did you hear the Captain say anything to anybody about the ship being doomed? - The Captain did remark something to me in the earlier part of the evening after the order had been given to clear the boats. I encountered him when reporting something to him, or something, and he was inquiring about the men going on with the work, and I said, "Yes, they are carrying on all right." I said, "Is it really serious?" He said, "Mr. Andrews tells me he gives her from an hour to an hour and a half." That must have been some little time afterwards. Evidently Mr. Andrews had been down.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Boxhall told the UK Inquiry what the Captain had told him, in regards to what Thomas Andrews had told the Captain. As Jim Currie stated - "You must be careful about repeating 3rd hand evidence." We don't know if the Captain was quoting Andrews directly, or if Boxhall was trying to piece together in his mind what the Captain might have said at that particular time. However it did not seem to alarm Boxhall because he still did not think the ship was going to sink even when he got into the lifeboat shortly before the ship went down. "I was quite undecided about it." The Captain may have dismissed the advice Thomas Andrews gave him and asked for a second opinion from his Chief Engineer who was perhaps more positive and optimistic that the ship would survive or at least float long enough for help to arrive. This is possibly why Captain Smith was heard ordering the boats to row towards the other ship, discharge their passengers, and then return to the Titanic for more. Those orders would be a complete contradiction to what Thomas Andrews had told him in regards to the ship going down in an hour to an hour and a half. He possibly had more faith in his Chief Engineer or was very optimistic himself that the ship would float much longer than Andrews' estimations of her survival.


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