Articles with the Tag Watertight Bulkheads

FAQ: Would Higher Watertight Bulkheads Have Saved Titanic?

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FAQ: Would Higher Watertight Bulkheads Have Saved Titanic?

 

No, probably not.

In the immediate aftermath of Titanic‘s allision with the iceberg, it became clear she had sustained significant damage. Flooding was reported in the forepeak tank, holds 1, 2 and 3, boiler room 6 and boiler room 5.  This extent of damage was beyond the ship’s capacity to survive and her watertight subdivision was overwhelmed, leading to her foundering about 2 hours and 40 minutes later.

Initially, water ingress in boiler room 5 was kept under control by the pumps.  However, as Walter Lord noted in his 1986 book The Night Lives On, boiler room 4 was subsequently found to be taking on water also.  This evidence is often overlooked.  (Sam Halpern’s excellent article ‘Where Did That Water Come From?‘ is highly recommended.)

 

Above: Olympic‘s watertight subdivision as-built.  The majority of the watertight bulkheads extended to the saloon deck, D, and the remainder to the upper deck, E. (Bruce Beveridge collection).

 

Edward Wilding, who was responsible for key design elements including the ship’s strength and watertight subdivision, was asked about this before the British Wreck Commissioner’s Court:

20953. (Mr. Laing.) Now I want to sum up, to see if I understand properly the flooding plan. If No. 6 boiler room and the compartments forward of it are flooded, am I right that the vessel, as she is designed, is lost – she must sink?
– If No. 6 boiler room and the three holds forward of it, and the forepeak are flooded, the ship is undoubtedly lost as built.

20954. If No. 5 boiler room is flooded in addition, supposing the bulkheads had been carried up to D, would that have saved her?
– It would not. There is a plan which I have put in which is marked E.

The Commissioner:  Will you repeat that question?

20955. (Mr. Laing.) If No. 5 boiler section is flooded carrying the bulkheads up to D would not save the vessel?
– No. There is another plan which shows it better than the one your Lordship has. Yes, that is the one. (Indicating.)

20956. And the last question is: With No. 4 [boiler room] section added on, no possible arrangement could save the ship?
– No possible vertical extension of the existing bulkheads.

Boiler room 4 represented the seventh watertight compartment back from the bow.  Unless the ship’s engineers had managed to bring the water ingress under control permanently using the available pumps, then Titanic would have been doomed regardless of how high her watertight bulkheads had extended.

Wilding reiterated the point three years later, before the Limitation of Liability hearings:

Q. Suppose there was damage in No. 4 boiler room… What height of bulkhead would have been necessary to prevent the ship from sinking?
– No height of bulkhead; it might have been extended to the funnel top and she would have gone down.

After the Titanic disaster, modifications to Olympic and Britannic included the stepped-up extension of the watertight bulkhead between boiler rooms 4 and 5 to the underside of B-deck.  The purpose of that particular change was to enable the ship to float theoretically with the first six watertight compartments up to and including boiler room 5 flooded but, even in that situation, the bow would have been submerged with the water up over the fore end of the superstructure.  

 
Above: Diagram depicting Edward Wilding’s ‘Condition B6’ with the first six watertight compartments – the forepeak, holds 1, 2 and 3, boiler room 6 and boiler room 5 – completely flooded.  (Sam Halpern collection) 

 

 

 

Errore di Progettazione o Scelta Tecnica? Titanrick

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Errore di Progettazione o Scelta Tecnica? Il Caso delle Paratie del Titanic con Mark Chirnside 

 

 

The second of my two recent podcasts with Titanrick for Curiositanic is now available (recorded in English with Italian subtitles). We discussed the watertight bulkhead configuration, why the watertight bulkheads were designed as they were and whether this design was flawed.  Another topic was the issue of Titanic‘s lifeboats and what happened to them.  We also looked at Britannic‘s size and what her true dimensions were.

This interview is not only a journey into the past, but also an invitation to historical reflection: understanding the Titanic means contextualizing information, avoiding anachronistic judgments and analyzing technical decisions in light of their time, also emphasizing the importance of research based on official documents, fundamental tools for distinguishing facts from legends.

 

 

 

 

Titanic: Solving the Mysteries

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Titanic: Solving the Mysteries

 

 

In January 2017, British television aired a programme entitled Titanic: The New Evidence, which later aired in America under the same title. It sparked a media frenzy around the world. During the programme, it was postulated that new photographic evidence had recently come to light proving that Titanic suffered severe hull damage from a coal bunker fire, and that the damage could be seen from outside the ship on the day she left for her trials, 2 April…

Following the subsequent media storm, when many demonstrably untrue statements were reported as if they were fact, I joined a team of researchers and historians in contributing to a collaborative research paper, which we published online as: ‘Titanic: Fire and Ice (Or What You Will)’ (see press release).   Later, in November 2019, the research paper formed part of a monograph published in the book Titanic: Solving the Mysteries.

 

 

Our research paper is very detailed and with citations to the sources used.  However, the below headline summary highlights our conclusions against each of the key claims (given in bold below)

The smudge [alleged mark of fire damage on Titanic’s bow] and its location. The inaccurate supposition that the smudge is evidence of damage to the Titanic’s hull led to the start of an investigation based on bad data. Other photographs do not show any kind of damage. While it is stated in the show that the coal bunker fire was ‘directly behind’ the smudge, its actual location was over fifty feet away from it. There is no damage visible near the actual location of the coal bunker fire.
The fire. One press account that has known errors is used in the programme to indicate that the fire was never extinguished. This disagrees with testimony given at the inquiries, which state the fire was out by Saturday, April 13 – the day before the iceberg was hit.
Financial pressures and substandard ships. This claim does not match the historical record. Examina-tion of letters to and from Harland & Wolff officials and the Board of Trade representatives referred to in the programme show they are not evidence of substitution of lower-quality steel and cutting corners.
Withholding information, and the decision to hold to the schedule. The situation was not unusual, considering that coal bunker fires were not entirely unheard of on coal-powered ships. Eyewitness testimony indicates that while a bunker fire was the exception rather than the rule, it was handled in line with typical procedures of the day. Since the fire was not regarded as extremely serious, telling passengers would only have made them nervous. If the fire was serious, there would have been clear evidence available to all aboard.
Covering up the fire at the British Inquiry. There is no evidence of a coverup at the British Inquiry. Some of the ‘facts’ stated in this portion are inaccurate. Testimony read during the programme were taken out of context, and do not represent the full extent of the inquiry’s questioning of various eye-witnesses on the matter over the course of multiple days.
The fire began to spread – a deteriorating situation. This is inaccurate. Multiple first-hand accounts by survivors said that it was extinguished on Saturday, and had cooled enough so that the bunker could be entered, and black oil rubbed on the ‘dinged’ bulkhead.
Titanic was short of coal. Inaccurate. Titanic had a reserve steaming time of up to 1.8 days at 21 knots, and even more at slower speeds.
Thomas Andrews believed the ship would survive. Inaccurate. Thomas Andrews told Captain Smith that Titanic was doomed 45 minutes before the rush of water Barrett saw, which the programme said was due to the collapse of the fire-damaged bulkhead.
The fire played one final, deadly role in the disaster: the fire-damaged bulkhead gave way, causing the ship to sink, and the enormous loss of life. Since the ship was doomed from the moment of the collision, whether or not the bulkhead collapsed was more or less immaterial to the timing of the disaster. Lives were not lost because it allegedly collapsed early.
There was a culture of coverup at the White Star Line, and the whole matter was buried. The claims made in the show on this point have nothing to do with reality. ‘YAMSI’ and other code words were routinely used to route traffic to the correct individuals or departments at White Star Line offices.

When hard evidence is factored in, there is only one viable conclusion: the coal bunker fire aboard Titanic was not a primary factor in her contact with the iceberg, or in causing her to sink after the she struck the ice. It played no part in the significant loss of life.

 

Above: On 3 January 2017, I participated in a discussion of the ‘coal fire’ and various other claims on an episode of Talkback, hosted by William Crawley on BBC Radio Ulster.  The episode is not currently online but may be available through the BBC archives.