What happened to the Forward Tower?

[Ioannis Georgiou]

The 20 year old data just leaves us with more questions and few answers. Mr. Ray saw water on E-deck forward shortly after 12.30 while the occupants in lifeboat 13 saw the ship's bow had settled down to E-deck after 1.30 on the starboard side.

I was talking about the length of time in which the bow settled down to E-deck around 12.30 and remained like that for over an hour as the occupants of lifeboat 13 saw the ship's head was still only down as far as E-deck more than an hour after Ray had seen the water on E-deck.
What happened afterwards is not what I was debating.

Ray was on deck and saw the first lifeboat lowering and then went down to his cabin. That was well after 12:30. Lifeboat No. 13 left before 1:30 a.m. (Barrett mentioned he left BR 5 and got immediately to boat No. 13 at 1:10 a.m., Dr Dodge mentioned how they watched 1 hour long how the ship sank deeper) so your timing does not really match.

Mr. Littlejohn
"Her forward E-deck ports were under the water"

And as we see he said E Deck portholes were under water which means D Deck was close to the water level.
The ship was still sinking even it slow a little down when the water level reached E Deck.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Ray was on deck and saw the first lifeboat lowering and then went down to his cabin. That was well after 12:30. Lifeboat No. 13 left before 1:30 a.m. (Barrett mentioned he left BR 5 and got immediately to boat No. 13 at 1:10 a.m., Dr Dodge mentioned how they watched 1 hour long how the ship sank deeper) so your timing does not really match.



And as we see he said E Deck portholes were under water which means D Deck was close to the water level.
The ship was still sinking even it slow a little down when the water level reached E Deck.

According to James Cameron's research Lifeboat 7 was the first boat lowered on the starboard side at 12.45. Ray went down to E-deck and saw the water covering the forward portion of E-deck. Wheat also saw the water flood the forward part of E-deck and noticed the water was confined only to the starboard side as he observed it wash up the corridor on the starboard side and down into the turkish baths below the grand staircase. The ship was listing to starboard at that point which would result in the forward lights on E-deck being submerged on the starboard side. According to James Cameron's research Lifeboat 13 was lowered at 1.40am and when they rowed away and watched her forward lights they could see her starboard bow was still only down as far as E-deck i.e. porthole lights submerged, just as they were when Ray went down an hour earlier. Therefore the theory that the bow continued to drop down continually without stalling or easing back is therefore in my opinion debunked.


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[marina_irc]

According to James Cameron's research Lifeboat 13 was lowered at 1.40am and when they rowed away and watched her forward lights they could see her starboard bow was still only down as far as E-deck i.e. porthole lights submerged, just as they were when Ray went down an hour earlier. Therefore the theory that the bow continued to drop down continually without stalling or easing back is therefore in my opinion debunked.


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That is eyewitness testimony only and is therefore insufficient to debunk any theory by itself.

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

According to James Cameron's research Lifeboat 7 was the first boat lowered on the starboard side at 12.45.

According to James Cameron's research Lifeboat 13 was lowered at 1.40am and when they rowed away and watched her forward lights they could see her starboard bow was still only down as far as E-deck i.e. porthole lights submerged, just as they were when Ray went down an hour earlier. Therefore the theory that the bow continued to drop down continually without stalling or easing back is therefore in my opinion debunked.

I did not know that Cameron did any research about the times the lifebaots were launched.

1:40 a.m. for No. 13 is way too late. By 1:40 a.m. Titanic had a list to port which affected the loading and lowering of the port side boats Nos. 12, 14, 10, 4 & D as well the starboard boats Nos 15 & C. There is no mention by anyone in No. 13 about a list to port during the loading and lowering.

That time for No. 13 is way off which I have also shown in a research series about the lifeboats a few years ago.

[Also from Beesley, Barrrett & Dr. Dodge we know that No. 13 left a little after 1 o'clock. At the British Inquiry Barrett mentions the time 1.10 a.m. and that he left BR 5 went up on E Deck and from there imediately to A - Deck making it in time into No. 13 which was then going to be lowered into the sea. If No. 13 was launched at 1.40 that means that Barrett took 30 Minutes from E Deck into No. 13!]

 

[Aaron_2016]

That is eyewitness testimony only and is therefore insufficient to debunk any theory by itself.

That would mean Phillips did send the fatal ice warning to the bridge, because we only have the account of one man and the supposition of another that it was not. Therefore we can't rule out that the message was sent to the bridge. Regarding the settling of the ship. I did not present only eye witness accounts, as I showed earlier the layout of the ship as additional proof to the settling of the ship, which is why I said the open corridors on E-deck and open portholes broadside were very likely contributing factors to the bodily sinking, as well as the addition of numerous eye witness accounts. Without them we can speculate for years how the Titanic settled, broke and sank. The survivor accounts are key to settling all debates, hence the publication of survivor accounts on every topic by most members as the only form of proof. e.g. When the ship stopped, did she go slow ahead, did she damage 6 compartments, did she strike the iceberg, what orders were given on the bridge, how did she settle down, why did she settle down to port, why did she roll from side to side, why did the first funnel crash to port and the second funnel crash to starboard, why did she break in the manner the survivors described. Without their accounts we only have theories and suppositions on what we think might have happened. Survivor accounts are key in understanding what really happened, as we can rule out scenarios based on what they saw and heard, and rule in scenarios based on what they saw and heard.


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[Rob Lawes]

Aaron

We keep going over this over and over again.

You yourself rule out survivor testimony for various reasons and use supposition to support your beliefs.

As we repeatedly say, Survivor testimony is notoriously unreliable. It it were to be wholly believed, air accident investigators would simply ask witnesses what they saw and stop at that. The police wouldn't bother with forensics they'd just arrest the first person who matched a description.

Some of the points you raise above can not be settled by witness testimony alone. If you are trying to gauge what a person did then yes I'd agree the foremost tool you would have is witness statements however, if you are asking why she settled to port, you are now trying to determine the mechanics of a scenario. Witness testimony in that case is far more unreliable because what they thought they saw, what they knew or understood at the time and a number of other factors would cloud there judgement. To understand how an event physically occurred you need to understand what is and what isn't mechanically possible.

Experiment, see what happens, find out what is and isn't possible. Then and only then will you have a better understanding.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Aaron

We keep going over this over and over again.

You yourself rule out survivor testimony for various reasons and use supposition to support your beliefs.

As we repeatedly say, Survivor testimony is notoriously unreliable. It it were to be wholly believed, air accident investigators would simply ask witnesses what they saw and stop at that. The police wouldn't bother with forensics they'd just arrest the first person who matched a description.

Some of the points you raise above can not be settled by witness testimony alone. If you are trying to gauge what a person did then yes I'd agree the foremost tool you would have is witness statements however, if you are asking why she settled to port, you are now trying to determine the mechanics of a scenario. Witness testimony in that case is far more unreliable because what they thought they saw, what they knew or understood at the time and a number of other factors would cloud there judgement. To understand how an event physically occurred you need to understand what is and what isn't mechanically possible.

Experiment, see what happens, find out what is and isn't possible. Then and only then will you have a better understanding.

I don't rule anything out. I knot the contradictions together and speculate what really happened e.g. If person A saw one thing and person B saw another, I can't choose which was right or wrong, I therefore am left with supposition that makes both work together i.e. one was seated differently and viewed the ship from a different perspective which resulted in the apparent contradiction. Observed separately they don't match, but analysed together they can work together. It's relatively easy to piece all available accounts together to make sense out of them based on their respective positions in and around the ship and by analysing the layout of the Titanic and path the water took we can understand why the survivors saw what they believed they saw.


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[marina_irc]

That would mean Phillips did send the fatal ice warning to the bridge, because we only have the account of one man and the supposition of another that it was not. Therefore we can't rule out that the message was sent to the bridge. Regarding the settling of the ship. I did not present only eye witness accounts, as I showed earlier the layout of the ship as additional proof to the settling of the ship, which is why I said the open corridors on E-deck and open portholes broadside were very likely contributing factors to the bodily sinking, as well as the addition of numerous eye witness accounts. Without them we can speculate for years how the Titanic settled, broke and sank. The survivor accounts are key to settling all debates, hence the publication of survivor accounts on every topic by most members as the only form of proof. e.g. When the ship stopped, did she go slow ahead, did she damage 6 compartments, did she strike the iceberg, what orders were given on the bridge, how did she settle down, why did she settle down to port, why did she roll from side to side, why did the first funnel crash to port and the second funnel crash to starboard, why did she break in the manner the survivors described. Without their accounts we only have theories and suppositions on what we think might have happened. Survivor accounts are key in understanding what really happened, as we can rule out scenarios based on what they saw and heard, and rule in scenarios based on what they saw and heard.


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No, that's not correct. We use survivor accounts to determine facts in aggregate. For example the time the ship took to sink tells use how many compartments must have been flooding and where -- because that is very well defined with hundreds of corroborations. But individual details reported only by five or six people can then be ruled inaccurate based on the known facts of science. Furthermore, even the aggregate survivor testimony can be dismissed if appropriate now that we have the wreck to analyze. Survivors were simply wrong about a lot of things, and worse you regularly ignore the survivors who don't fit your theory. Why didn't the ship sink in one piece and then break up below the surface? Using your standard of evidence, there is no way to disprove that even though all naval architects know it is ridiculous.

 

[Rob Lawes]

Off the top of my head, you have discounted elements of the sworn testimony of Hitchins, Fleet, Lee, Boxhall and Lightoller to quote a few.

Honestly, this and other discussions are set to go around in circles forever until you start to include actual, real physical evidence.

You theory of flooding just doesn't hold water (pun intended). We are at the point where if even someone with a Masters Degree qualifications in ship stability and dynamics cannot patiently explain why your ideas are seriously flawed with respect to the flooding then I don't know what's next.

Perhaps the best question to ask is what would it take to convince you to modify your views on the way the ship sank?

 

[Aaron_2016]

well defined with hundreds of corroborations. But individual details reported only by five or six people can then be ruled inaccurate based on the known facts of science. Furthermore, even the aggregate survivor testimony can be dismissed if appropriate now that we have the wreck to analyze. Survivors were simply wrong about a lot of things, and worse you regularly ignore the survivors who don't fit your theory. Why didn't the ship sink in one piece and then break up below the surface? Using your standard of evidence, there is no way to disprove that even though all naval architects know it is ridiculous.

Afraid your wrong. I don't dismiss any accounts and I don't provide any theories that are not already presented by the survivors themselves. You say there are "hundreds of corroborations" which detail the ship sinking in the matter you believe it sank. There are not. I have read many accounts over many years of research and by piecing them altogether we can clearly see the ship did not sink in the manner that is often pushed out by the common narrative. Don't be fooled by following the crowd. Do the research yourself. Never take anything you read in books and documentaries as gospel truth. They are suppositions based on their own hypothesis. A broken wreck on the sea floor which has not been thoroughly explored will only provide a limited amount of clues, and those limited clues are still being debated by historians to this day.


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[Aaron_2016]

Off the top of my head, you have discounted elements of the sworn testimony of Hitchins, Fleet, Lee, Boxhall and Lightoller to quote a few.

Honestly, this and other discussions are set to go around in circles forever until you start to include actual, real physical evidence.

You theory of flooding just doesn't hold water (pun intended). We are at the point where if even someone with a Masters Degree qualifications in ship stability and dynamics cannot patiently explain why your ideas are seriously flawed with respect to the flooding then I don't know what's next.

Perhaps the best question to ask is what would it take to convince you to modify your views on the way the ship sank?

I did not discount them. I assessed them and noticed the contradictions and speculated the cause for each of them. Regarding the bodily sinking. It is perfectly simple. Mr. Wheat saw the water wash up the corridor on E-deck and down the main stairway and Mr. Joughin saw the water wash into his room at the far end of the corridor and noticed the corridor was relatively dry when he felt the ship listing more to port. This should ring alarm bells to all researchers that the forward trim was not as dramatic as they think it was. We have numerous accounts that the ship sank bodily by her broadside and that portholes on the port side were open in large numbers.

We have accounts which suggest a bulkhead door or wall may have failed which would naturally filter the water out of the adjacent flooded room and into the newly breached room with the possibility that a chain reaction was taking place. We know that the survivors who saw her sink broadside were close to the ship's port side, and we know that the majority of the lifeboats who rowed towards the mystery ship off the port bow would have looked back at the ship and they would only be able see her bow lights owing to their limited perspective looking back. So from their point of view they would only see her bow lights sinking lower and lower and come to the false assumption that she was sinking by the head because that was the only part they could see from their perspective looking back, while the survivors who could see her broadside on the port side could see her settling down bodily lower and lower with only a slight trim to the bow until there came an explosive sound.

The ship broke and the survivors rowing away from the bow would turn and see her forward half lurching downward as it broke and her bow lights extinguished and they would not be able to tell that she had broken because they could see her stern which was still fully lighted rising upwards and they would falsely believe she was still intact and rising up like a skyscraper. Those closer and on the port side could see her sinking rapidly in the middle with her bow and stern rising upwards. Depending on when each person turned and looked, or turned and buried their head away, they would all see a different stage of the break up and sinking. It is perfectly easy to piece the accounts together.

I am not the one selecting and neglecting accounts. I have been told that the survivors who saw the lights remain lit in the stern after she broke were mistaken and the survivors who saw the bow rise were mistaken and how the bow was fully flooded and how the open portholes did not play a significant role in the sinking. I find all of their theories baseless and not believable. I therefore put the survivor accounts above their hypothesis. When I state what the survivors say e.g. bow rising, I want to hear and learn how it was possible, listing all possible scenarios that would result in the bow rising. I don't want to hear how it was impossible with outlandish statements that the survivors were wrong and how we should ignore their accounts, or how Mr. Joughin was drunk and not worth listening to. We don't know if he was drunk. That is pure supposition based on no hard evidence.

The wreck itself provides very little clues so there is practically no forensic evidence to go by. So far I know boiler room 1 and 2 did not explode and the ship's middle section broke into pieces either on the surface or during the descent. We can also see markings on the port side of the bridge which suggests the first funnel fell over to port which means Gracie's account that the funnel fell to starboard is incorrect and that he was possibly looking at the second funnel falling which Thayer said had fallen over to starboard. Other than this, the wreck holds little value, until it can be thoroughly explored i.e. counting the number of portholes open, and searching to see if the bulkhead walls and doors were sealed, or re-opened, or burst open. Without that forensic analysis we have nothing to work with, except the survivor accounts.

Until the forensics become available (if they ever do) we can only assess the survivor accounts and piece them all together with explanations made for each of the contradictions made.


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[Kyle Naber]

Don't be fooled by following the crowd. Do the research yourself. Never take anything you read in books and documentaries as gospel truth.

Maybe there's a crowd for a reason in the first place. Maybe National Geographic trusts credible people for a reason. Idk I might be wrong though...

 

[marina_irc]

Aaron, please show me the same respect I have shown you and do not say I am mindlessly following consensus history. I regard that as very impolite.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Aaron, please show me the same respect I have shown you and do not say I am mindlessly following consensus history. I regard that as very impolite.

You said my assessment of how I research the evidence was not correct in your opinion. You also said - "You regularly ignore the survivors who don't fit your theory." That is incredibly insulting and not true. I said before I ignore nothing and the only theories I provide were presented already by the survivors themselves hence the reason why I debate them. The fact that other members liked your post tells me a lot of their agenda i.e. insult and push out all opposition. You said the handful of accounts I present are not valid because there are "hundreds of corroborations" which say otherwise. That is clearly not true, and I suspected that you just assumed there were - hence the idea that I believed you were following the general narrative of how she sank. You also said - "Using your standard of evidence, there is no way to disprove that even though all naval architects know it is ridiculous." Using my standard of evidence = observing the wreck = very few clues because it hasn't been explored. Observing the layout of the ship = assessing where the water travelled. Observing the survivor accounts = Piecing together everything everyone said and sorting out the contradictions with plausible explanations for each of them. Those are my standards. I think all naval architects would do exactly the same as me. They work with what they've got.

When I see members present a hypothesis which ignores the accounts who saw the ship settle bodily, and the bow rise up, I point out what a number of survivors witnessed. Instead of debating logically what was happening, I am told the survivors are wrong and I am presented with their hypothesis that the bow was fully flooded without forensic proof. Since I am not convinced by their suppositions I continue to repeat the accounts, and will continue to do so until I am convinced.

What will convince me? Exploration of the wreck. Detailed survey of all the boiler rooms and a record of which portholes are open. With dozens (maybe hundreds) of portholes open the pattern of water rushing in and tipping the ship over would be radically different.


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[Kyle Naber]

You said my assessment of how I research the evidence was not correct in your opinion. You also said - "You regularly ignore the survivors who don't fit your theory." That is incredibly insulting and not true. I said before I ignore nothing and the only theories I provide were presented already by the survivors themselves hence the reason why I debate them. The fact that other members liked your post tells me a lot of their agenda i.e. insult and push out all opposition. You said the handful of accounts I present are not valid because there are "hundreds of corroborations" which say otherwise. That is clearly not true, and I suspected that you just assumed there were - hence the idea that I believed you were following the general narrative of how she sank. You also said - "Using your standard of evidence, there is no way to disprove that even though all naval architects know it is ridiculous." Using my standard of evidence = observing the wreck = very few clues because it hasn't been explored. Observing the layout of the ship = assessing where the water travelled. Observing the survivor accounts = Piecing together everything everyone said and sorting out the contradictions with plausible explanations for each of them. Those are my standards. I think all naval architects would do exactly the same as me. They work with what they've got.

When I see members present a hypothesis which ignores the accounts who saw the ship settle bodily, and the bow rise up, I point out what a number of survivors witnessed. Instead of debating logically what was happening, I am told the survivors are wrong and I am presented with their hypothesis that the bow was fully flooded without forensic proof. Since I am not convinced by their suppositions I continue to repeat the accounts, and will continue to do so until I am convinced.

What will convince me? Exploration of the wreck. Detailed survey of all the boiler rooms and a record of which portholes are open. With dozens (maybe hundreds) of portholes open the pattern of water rushing in and tipping the ship over would be radically different.


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Is this not thorough enough?