Why Titanic started moving again

[Rio Amazoco]

Are you serious?! All the people aboard did probably not weigh more than 200 tons. This is next to nothing considering the weight of the ship and the water accumulating in the flooded compartments.

 

[Bosgood90]

we’re talking weight displacement, the Ship could stay afloat with 4/5 compartments. My boat has trim tabs, to push the bow down for a smoother ride using the water flowing under the stern as counter balance. the Water had to spill over the bulkheads of the remaining compartments, what Was the weight in the 5th compartment that was too much and by what tonage? if it was only a few tons too much then theres your weight displacement for the counter balance of all the passengers. being a Dick with a simple question isn’t logical without the facts. Would cramming 2200 people into one watertight compartment from e deck down fill that compartment?

Are you serious?! All the people aboard did probably not weigh more than 200 tons. This is next to nothing considering the weight of the ship and the water accumulating in the flooded compartments.

 

[marina_irc]

I’m curious of the weight of 2,000 people and if they were all clustered in the far stern of the ship, could that weight of the fifth watertight compartment been displaced and allowed them to maintain afloat until a rescue could arrive. I assume the boilers were all compromised and continued movement was unlikely.

2,000 people weigh approximately 135 long tons, conservatively, in 1912. The rate of flooding was 7 long tons per second. Clustering all of the passengers right aft would have counterbalanced the downward force of water in the forward part of the ship for at most 40 seconds. Conservatively.

 

[Bosgood90]

If the counter balance was enough to keep E deck above the waterline then it would have kept from spilling over into the 6th watertight compartment? Those engines alone are a massive weight in the back, the bow is mostly rooms And storage.

 

[marina_irc]

If the counter balance was enough to keep E deck above the waterline then it would have kept from spilling over into the 6th watertight compartment? Those engines alone are a massive weight in the back, the bow is mostly rooms And storage.

No. The ship was fore and aft trimmed correctly so the only relevant factor is the admission of water in compartments 1–5. The spillover would happen, if we are extremely generous, forty seconds later… Those compartments have a moment arm with greater than two orders of magnitude more moment than the passengers concentrated on a single point right after would have
(more than a 100 times).

If Titanic had had counterflooding pumps she might have materially impacted her sinking rate, but the ship would still be going to the bottom because she would lose her reserve buoyancy and because only a couple of aft compartments could be counterflooded while keeping power on. And she might lose transverse stability anyway and a bunch of other unknowns.

Using passengers to rebalance trim is possible, but the ratio of passengers to the size of the ship must be MUCH greater. Two thousand people on a day steamer could probably do this just like they caused the “Eastland” to capsize, but a day steamer is a 2,000 ton ship, not a 55,000 ton ship.

I’ve helped rock a small coastal research vessel off a sandbar by directing undergrads to run back and forth under instruction from the vessel’s master before. That was 30 young adults on an 80 ton vessel. Titanic is simply too big.

 

[Zirnitra]

mathematically impossible....counterflooding on titanic was at that time just pure sci-fi. in reality even if titanic had counterflooding pumps,there could be only two rooms flooded,propeller shaft room 1 and 2,thats almost edge of stern next was elecric engine/dynamo roomand these would be nessecary to spare,sure they could flood turbine room so (byebye to middle propeller) but also no access to circuit breakers as they were situated above turbine room?? and if watertight door fail on any of sides would be tragedy,either engine room or dynamo room flooded.

if titanic 16 compartments were yet divided by central bulkhead we could have 32 compartments ..still 16 but each compartment could have left side/right side. in case of collision only left side could be flooded,thus half of these four or five compartments. the flooding would be for half of cargoholds 1,2,3 and half of boiler room 6 and 5 ( and possible 4) but this had big drawback,separating boilers with wall with no door means the stokers would need climb the ladders from one side of boiler room to another,so more work to do... so i consider this as scifi aswell.

also driving titanic engines other way would not help, even if we stop or reverse port engine and keep full throttle on turbine and starboard engine,ship will not turn faster at all,it will still collide but with more compartments because ship would drift and probably engine room/turbine room could be holed along last three boiler rooms, titanic could have mid-section flooding,bow would be unharmed but loss of engines and power.. imagine to be stuck on titanic with no engines no lights in middle of ocean and no way to call for help (sure emergency radio set could help but it had limited range so only very few ships could hear you)

i did read alot of this forum threads,studied inquiries and all other stuff related to driving titanic after collision..also this might not just explain why they did postpone the lifeboats launching but explain it somewhat,you cannot launch boats while ship is still moving. also the launch of lifeboats could be postponed by one more factor - they were not yet aware of situation and people were reluctant to abandon warm cabins for cold lifeboats. even if she dumped the steam,titanic did not get rid entirely,still needed for lights and radio and pumps,perhaps there was sufficient eoungh left to drive it further at slow speeds,they only dumped excess steam,not all. some people say titanic was going for 3-5 minutes after impact,some say 10-15 minutes . i did read somewhere that titanic stopped at 00:15-00:20 . as for progress of flooding because of restarting engines,there was very little to none at slow speeds and captain had eoungh brain to not go full throttle after impact, i am fully sure that titanic did not go half ahead at all,maybe for while then was reduced to slow ahead or dead slow but this could not cause rate of flooding to increase.

i can say as naval architect that in case of titanic the flooding of boiler room 6 along flooding three cargoholds was fatal,if atleast one of cargoholds was dry she would not go down. simply ship had taken too much damage,there was no any hope to save it,not in this situation..titanic could stay afloat with just three cargoholds flooded and eventually the forepeak compartment (whole compartment not just the tank that was empty) same goes for stern, if titanic had two propeller shaft rooms flooded with electric dynamo room flooded, she could still stay afloat but if water reach turbine room it would be all over.

 

[marina_irc]

You perhaps should realise then that the reference to counterflooding pumps was very much a reductio ad absurdum.

 

[Zirnitra]

eventually the counterflood would be done with buckets LOL. . anyway counterflooding would not save the ship because there would be secondary factor that would make breakup faster and violent. once you flood the propeller shaft tunnel rooms you make stern even more heavy,,the breakup angle would not be 11-13 degrees but 5-8 degrees and ship demise would be much sooner.. counterflooding only works on big ships and usually military ships... the broken stern probably could stay on water longer because water could not reach the top of breakup area and maybe could even stay afloat all time,

 

[marina_irc]

eventually the counterflood would be done with buckets LOL. . anyway counterflooding would not save the ship because there would be secondary factor that would make breakup faster and violent. once you flood the propeller shaft tunnel rooms you make stern even more heavy,,the breakup angle would not be 11-13 degrees but 5-8 degrees and ship demise would be much sooner.. counterflooding only works on big ships and usually military ships... the broken stern probably could stay on water longer because water could not reach the top of breakup area and maybe could even stay afloat all time,

I don’t understand what the point of this comment is.

 

[Zirnitra]

read it again. but ill elaborate, counterflooding would not save the ship and it could only make sinking sooner than it was because breakup would be on smaller angle because extra weight on stern because of two prop shaft rooms flooded

 

[marina_irc]

read it again. but ill elaborate, counterflooding would not save the ship and it could only make sinking sooner than it was because breakup would be on smaller angle because extra weight on stern because of two prop shaft rooms flooded

I don’t understand what you wrote, but in fairness, you clearly didn’t understand what I wrote, either.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Counterflooding on military vessels is usually used to correct list and prevent a loss of transverse stability. Counterflooding compartments in the stern of a vessel may reduce the trim angle, but remaining reserve buoyancy would be reduced due to increased overall sinkage, and it may also reduce transverse stability. Similar ideas have been (excuse the pun) floated in the past such keeping the WTDs between uncompromised compartments open to allow water to flow freely aft to keep the bow up. This always resulted in a loss of transverse stability and the ship capsizing.

 

[marina_irc]

Counterflooding on military vessels is usually used to correct list and prevent a loss of transverse stability. Counterflooding compartments in the stern of a vessel may reduce the trim angle, but remaining reserve buoyancy would be reduced due to increased overall sinkage, and it may also reduce transverse stability. Similar ideas have been (excuse the pun) floated in the past such keeping the WTDs between uncompromised compartments open to allow water to flow freely aft to keep the bow up. This always resulted in a loss of transverse stability and the ship capsizing.

I’ve noticed that few people appreciate just how rare “Titanic” sinking without capsize was.

 

[Zirnitra]

if titanic capsized it would be even worse disaster.little or no survivors. to sink titanic by capsizing you all just needed open portholes on most of first and second class cabins,water would flood top sections with lower sections partially flooded,it could then roll over. we know that actually some portholes were open and some cabins did get flooded this way. but capsize did not happen.