Another Titanic Question

[ralph124c]

@robby

Nitpick here: Murdoch ordered “hard a-starboard” which is the traditional order for a left turn on ships with tillers, because a turn to the left (port) required putting the tiller over to the right (starboard). They were still using traditional rudder orders aboard the Titanic, despite the fact that the helmsman was operating a wheel.

The same order aboard a modern U.S. Navy ship is “Hard left rudder.”

As a former naval officer, I can’t really disagree with Murdoch’s orders after the iceberg was spotted.

He was trying to either avoid the iceberg entirely, or at least minimize the force of impact if the ship did hit it. Yes, the two orders made both actions somewhat less effective, but he was likely trying to make the best of a bad situation.

One thing he might have considered was only ordering the backing bell for the left screw (propeller), which might have helped the turning motion, but would have reduced the overall backing force, of course.

I was trained on a single screw ship (a submarine) with a large rudder. In a similar situation, I would likely have ordered: “Hard left rudder!” along with “Back Emergency!”

Regarding Murdoch’s actions: reversing the engines on the Titanic was a big job. Had the simply ordered “full ahead” on the right side propeller, and full stop on the left, would the turning proceeded faster?

[Morgenstern]

Question. When a rudder is turned hard to either direction, does it stall much like an airplane wing does at a high angle of attack? Could that have played a part in the ship not responding quick enough to miss the collision?