Did This Guy Doom The Titanic?

Great Debates
21

Or, perhaps, anything that could happen that would be devastating enough to sink the ship would kill a large number of passengers.

Another thing to think about: if Murdoch had simply reversed the engines, and not turned, he would have hit the iceberg head on, probably ending his career. But the ship would not have sunk, and his own life would have been spared along with many others.

One more thing: many accidents that happen on ships render lifeboats useless. The Eastland, for example, had to add more lifeboats after the Titanic disaster, and they reinforced the upper decks to hold the additional weight of the boats. This caused the ship to be top heavy (it had already had some problems with this before all the additional weight was added), and it rolled over in the Chicago River, killing over 1000 people. It happened so fast there was no time for any lifeboats to launch. On the Andria Doria, the boat’s list made it impossible to launch any lifeboats on the port side, reducing the number of available boats by half.

22

In fact, Titanic’s sister ship, the RMS Olympic, served for many years as both a commercial passenger liner on transAtlantic routes and (during WWI) a troop transport. The only major incidents during her operational lifespan were due to the massive displacement of the hull drawing in smaller craft. The other Olympic-class liner in the White Star Fleet, the RMS Britannic, was sank off the coast of Greece after the hull being breeched by a mine. Despite design improvements, it too took on water and flooded lower compartments of the hull past buoyance. The fact that portholes on the lower deck were open for ventilation also contributed to the flooding of the hull although this was probably incidental. Only 30 passengers and crew were lost owing to the efforts of Greek fisherman, but of course the much warmer water of the Mediterranean and proximity of resuers probably likely contributed to the much lower death count; the time the boat took to sink was about half the time of Titanic’s demise.

It sounds stupid that Titanic wasn’t equipped with lifeboats for the entire ship’s complement, but it was literally regarded as unsinkable, and the necessary space and weight required for the sufficient number of boats was considered prohibitive. And it’s well accepted that the sinking of Titanic was largely the result of embrittlement of the hull from the frigid water. Olympic, which suffered multiple collisions with craft in the warmer mid-Atlantic, never showed any signs of undue fracture failure. Titanic was doomed by a lack of knowledge of metallurgy and fracture mechanics in the day in which it was built. Other factors may have contributed to or aggrevated the impact, but in fact Titanic was designed and should have been able to survive the impact that sunk it.

Precisely.

Stranger

23

I think if my ancestor Thomas Andrews had designed top-caps for the bulkheads, it would have stood a better chance… or indeed not sunk at all, since it was water flowing over the compromised chambers into the ones that hadn’t been breached that finally brought her down. I believe they did this for the Olympic, post-disaster.

I can’t for the life of me work out why they didn’t cap the bulkhead chambers - but then I can’t work out why it was anathema to the Greeks to have more than three actors on stage. The past is a foreign country.

24

Do you mean literally that the rudder should have been larger on larger ships or is that a nautical term meaning something else?

Thanks,
CP

25

The rudder should have been larger.

26

You are so right about that. I think this was my point about the explanation for why there weren’t enough lifeboats…it seems so OBVIOUS now that there should be enough boats for everyone, doesn’t it? And yet, they may have had a very logical reason…or at least, a reason that seemed logical at the time. Who now can really understand that moment in history?

27

And if she had two screws instead of three she’d’ve turned faster, too. The center screw kept pushing her forward.

28

Exactly. Murphy’s Law was in full force and effect in 1912, too, and the missing binoculars were only one part of the equation. Icebergs were farther south than usual that year; the Titanic was on her maiden voyage and the White Star Line management was eager that she make headlines with a speedy run; the radio operator on the nearby Californian shut down early that night (in part because of the rudeness of the Titanic’s radio operators, who were swamped with outgoing messages), and thus did not hear the stricken liner’s SOS; as Stranger wrote, the Titanic’s hull may have been unusually brittle due to the cold; Capt. Edward J. Smith (not “Edwards,” ExTank) may have ignored or downplayed iceberg warnings, etc. etc. etc. A whole lot of bad luck all around.

The Titanic actually had more lifeboats than were required by the laws of the day, which were based on an obsolete formula about tonnage, IIRC. Incredible as it now seems, no ship in 1912 was required to have a lifeboat seat for every single person aboard.

I’ve been interested in the Titanic disaster for a loooooong time.

29

Actually, I’ve seen a few things like that in my lifetime. For example- rear seatbelts. Why on earth did we think that people in the back of the car would be OK without them, and not go flying around as a very heavy projectile in a collision? (And smoking in enclosed public spaces, too.)

30

:smack:

:smack:

:smack:

I know that. :smack:

31

I also heard that the signal rockets that the TITANIC fired off were the wrong color (white), instead of red. The red ones were left behind. I’d say the biggest screwup was running at top speed at night-after 5 warnings about icebergs were received. Question: at the Offical Inquirey held after the disaster, did White Star lines accept any blame for the disaster? Or was it judged an “Act of God”?

32

I remember the Captain of the California being questioned about the white signal rockets. There seem some argument about the significance of the color.

33

Before Elendil’s Heir corrects me, it was the Californian whose Captain sat in the ice field watching the signal rockets while the Titanic sank.

34

If I remember correctly didn’t they tell the ships giving ice warnings to Shut Up!

35

Lord, Captain of the Californian, testified he thought the rockets may have been company signals.
See in frame UPDATES, LORD UNDER OATH.

36

Think about babies…people used to just hold them in the front seat of the car! About 35 years ago, my parents drove us from Chicago to Florida when my sister was 6 months old. We had a regular sedan, so us 3 older kids were in the back seat…no room for a car seat for her. I’m sure mom just held her the whole way, zooming down the interstate at 75 MPH. :eek:

37

Yeah that wasn’t unusual at all up until maybe the early 80’s.

38

I’ve read that, at the time, there was no uniform color code for rockets. Many countries, and individual ship lines, had their own colors.

Captain Lord always maintained that it was not he, or his ship, that was in sight of the Titanic as she sank. Based upon the Titanic’s final resting place on the ocean bottom, Dr. Robert Ballard re-examined the question in his 1987 book, The Discovery of the Titanic. While I won’t rehash the entire argument here, Dr. Ballard makes a pretty convincing case that it was indeed the Californian that spotted the Titanic’s rockets.

There are conflicting accounts as to whether the California’s boilers were hot or cold; Capt. Lord testified that when the lights of the (maybe/maybe not) Titanic were first spotted, he was talking with one of his officers (presumably an engineer) about keeping the steam up. His wireless operator, Cyril Evans, was the sole operator on board the ship, and turned in around 11:30 PM after working a 12+ hour day.

And yes, Titanic wireless operator Phillips told Evans of the Californian something like, “Shut up! Shut up! I am working Cape Race!” around 10:30 PM as Evans tried to relay an ice warning, and Californian’s position and status. Remember, this was done in Morse, as voice wireless was a ways off yet in 1912.

Best Case, Californian: she may have been as far as 21 miles away from the Titanic; if she had had to bring up enough steam for propulsion, she still may not have arrived in time to do more than fish some recently deceased frozen people out of the water.

Worst Case: Californian: she may have been as few as 13 miles away, with enough steam already up for propulsion, and in prime position to save damned near everyone.

Either way: Capt. Lord and his officers saw rockets of some sort, and did nothing. They didn’t wake up Evans and ask him to try to raise the unknown ship. His junior officers, spotty at Morse, did not summon Capt. Lord and have him read the Morse messages they were receiving (quite possibly, even probably) from the Titanic.

They wrote down what they had seen and done that night in statements, as though they knew they had screwed up, and wanted to try to cover their collective asses. They initially gave false, and contradictory statements when questioned.

I think Stanley Lord was lucky to Captain anything bigger than a rubber ducky ever again.

ralph: that’s a damned good question, and I can’t say I know for sure. I do know that the British Board of Inquiry was generally believed to have a vested interest in pointing the finger somewhere else than the White Star Line (a prestigious, financially important company), and the Maritime Board (the folks who set the rules and regulations regarding lifeboat capacity and navigation practices when in vicinity of ice).

Senator William Smith of Michigan convened hearings beginning Friday, April 19th, the morning after the Carpatihia docked at New York. The principle drive behind his hearing was less with blame than highlighting deficiencies in maritime regulations,and getting reform enacted. Remember, as well, that the White Star Line was actually owned by J.P. Morgan of International Mercantile Marine, a U.S. company. So I’d think there really wasn’t much impetus to point fingers too strongly there, either.

39

From a book I read while still working at the Library at least twelve years ago, Lord was hired to Captain by a company who “respected his care for the well being of his company’s vessels.”
Sorry for the lousy cite.

40

Actually, I believe that the centerline turbine, while it couldn’t be reversed, could be and probably was stopped — something that James Cameron got right.

This brings up one of my favorite "what-if"s regarding the Titanic tragedy: What if Murdoch, instead of ordering back full on all engines, had only ordered back full on the port engine? ISTM that this would have resulted in a much faster swing (most accounts agree that the ship didn’t begin to turn until shortly before the impact), since a) the starboard screw would still be driving that side forward, and b) there would have been the added force of the centerline screw’s wash on the rudder. Once the swing was well underway, he could have then ordered all stop or all back full. Like a person who slams on the brakes when his car is beginning to skid, Murdoch’s reflex action was probably the worst possible response to the situation.

Granted, I’ve never served as a watch officer on a dinghy, let alone a liner. And granted that Murdoch paid the ultimate price for whatever mistakes he may have made. But I’m fascinated with those moments when history (for want of a better word) is balanced on a knife edge, and this is an especially memorable one.