Actually, it was.
Father Brown was able to administer both the sacrament of baptism and last rites to the vessel before it sunk He had considerable difficulty anointing the propeller with oil.
The ship would never have heeled over; there was too much water in the compartments after the first few seconds. Had the tear been higher, mostly above the water line, that might have worked. To get a ship to turn, you have to have forward movement, and the Titanic would have gone even more dramatically in the direction of the strike due to the drag on the torn hull, regardless of the position of the rudders.
Actually, they tested this out on a documentary once, using a water tank and a plexiglass model designed to simulate the Titanic’s internal structure (what with the watertight compartments and whatnot).
As I remember, from what they gleaned from the test, with the watertight doors open, the ship would have sunk more evenly…for awhile. But then it would have capsized, and sooner than the ship sank IRL.
Anyway…I seem to remember that quite a few more people could have been saved if they’d done a better job loading the liferafts. Weren’t some of the first ones launched only 1/2 to 1/3 full?
I always find it amusing when someone still puts forth the idea of loading the passengers onto the iceberg itself. This is ridiculous.
[ul][li]Titanic would have had to come about 180°, steam back over to it, and slowly & carefully ‘dock’ right along side it (while flooding)[/li][li]This would have been unlikely since the boilers & engine room flooded almost immediately[/li][li]How exactly, would the passengers have been ‘unloaded’ onto an iceberg from the ship without any gangways (those are at the ports not on the ships)[/li][li]What makes you think the iceberg would have been even remotely the right height and/or shape (i.e. flat, smooth etc.) to make this possible[/li][/ul]
As for hitting the berg head on instead of glancing against it, I think the physics has shown that that would have been the equivalent of an irresistable force hitting an immovable object. IOW, absorbing that much energy would have cracked & buckled a lot more rivets and hull plates as well as breaking the keel. Titanic would have sunk even faster.
Not quite. The tear was below the level of the watertight bulkheads, but extended through too many of them. As a result, too many of the compartments started flooding. This flooding was therefore enough for the ship to tilt far enough forward for the “ice tray” effect you suggest to come into effect. With water then flowing into one compartment after another as the ship sank further, it was doomed.
Had the tear actually just been above the first couple of compartments, they’d have flooded as planned and the ship would have tilted forwards. But the verticle position of the damage wouldn’t have mattered: just those compartments could have flooded any old how and it’d have floated.
As it was, those compartments flooded and so did some of the others. Then disaster.
As Captain Smith wrote in his final log entry: “I would like to conclude by noting that the events of this evening have been not entirely negative. I am happy to report our persistant fire in Coal Bunker 14 has now been extinguished.”
DocCathode writes:
> Father Brown was able to administer both the sacrament of baptism and last
> rites to the vessel before it sunk . . .
Father Brown was not aboard. The Thinking Machine was.
I heard that some exremely good work with counterflooding might have made the ship sink much slower. If the ship’s designer (forgot the name) hadn’t panicked, he might have been able to organize it.
Yep. At first nothing much seemed to be happening to the ship so a lot of the passengers apparently didn’t believe that it was really sinking. The mood on deck was described as “jovial” and many waited for a later lifeboat, apparently thinking there would be plenty of time and lifeboats later.
IIRC, many of the early half full lifeboats debated returning to the sinking ship, but failed to do so out of fears of being sucked down with the ship or overturned by panicked survivors in the water. I think a few folks were plucked out of the water, but not many.
In addition, I have heard that much care was taken to ensure that passengers from the Third Class compartments weren’t put in lifeboats already occupied by those from the First. Some reports state that the doors to the lower decks were locked to ensure that Third Class passengers didn’t try and charge for the available lifeboats.
The Maritime Museum in Nice has a lot of information on this that I haven’t seen elsewhere so I can’t vouch for it’s authenticity. It would fit with Victorian values though, and would certainly account for the equivalent mortality rates (some 75% of Third Class against some 40% of First - remembering that 3rd was much more heavily populated). See here.
defaultValueu]I??1ve heard that much care was taken to ensure that passengers from the Third Class compartments weren’t put in lifeboats already occupied by those from the First. Some reports state that the doors to the lower decks were locked to ensure that Third Class passengers didn’t try and charge for the available lifeboats.
[/QUOTE]
This has been vastly exaggerated by the “rich people bad/poor people good” crowd. No locks passageways were found on subsequent expeditions; and one of the reasons the Third Class passengers had a hard time getting to the boats was that they were so far belowdecks—the First and Second Class passengers had far fewer dark, confusing corridors to navigate. I have never heard a report that different classes were not allowed in the same lifeboats. How would one have even been able to tell, with so many in nightclothes and life jackets?
Remember, too, that a lot of First Class men gave up their lifeboat seats to women and children.
If this is a joke … 
If it’s for real … :eek:
Capt. Smith’s log entry, April 12, 1912:
“Dammit, we’ve run out of ice. How am I supposed to drink my whiskey and soda without ice? I’d kill for some ice about now . . . In other events, a First Class passenger, a Miss DeWitt Bukater, has filed complaints about an apparent stowaway, known only as ‘Jack,’ harrassing her. Must deal with this swiftly. Hate this bloody ship. Wish I’d gotten that berth on the Lusitania.”
Could the ship have made any headway toward the Californian? Could the first lifeboat rowed like the devil and gotten to the Californian to let them know the story?
If? I would have thought my post would have set off the alarm on the irony meter.
Yes, it was a joke.
Considering that the Californian was under full steam and several miles away while Titanic was crippled and flooding, no Titanic could not have made headway. As for your second question…
You’re kidding, right?
Well, my irony meter registered zilch 
. But yes, I was pretty sure it was a joke … just hedging my bets.
Thomas Andrews. And I don’t recall that he panicked at all. Most accounts have him standing in one of the lounges, just sort of in shock. He refused to even try for a lifeboat.
The most glaring example of the lifeboats going away short-handed was Boat 1, which had a capacity of 40, carried only 12. The famous fashion designer, Lucille, aka Lady Duff Gordon was on board, along with her husband, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, their servants and some crew members, I believe.
The really sick thing is that Titanic had MORE lifeboats than was recquired by law. And still not enough for all.
I don’t have a reference handy, but as I recall, the Californian was about 15 miles away from the Titanic. There was no way people in rowboats were going to cross that distance in the time they had (assuming they even knew the Californian was out there, which is doubtful).
I also believe that the Californian had stopped for the night. Most ships did back then because of the danger from - wait for it - icebergs.
Yes, as I recall from A Night To Remember the California was essentially stopped. I suspect that the ship, being a rather small, and I think old, freighter couldn’t make more that 7 knots or so and the 15 mi. trip would have taken a couple of hours. Given the time taken to realize that something was wrong and the need for caution in iceberg territory, it would have arrived after the Titanic had sunk. More people would have been saved and those in lifeboats and in the water might have been spared considerable exposure. However, finding boats and swimmers in the dark while worrying about icebergs wouldn’t have been all that easy. The California could have been of great help in rescue but moght not have reduced the scale of the disaster by all that much.