Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
RMS Titanic would not have struck ice burg if Operator steered in right direction...?
- Thread starter Prof.
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Wait, I thought Titanic did try to go to the left of the iceberg and it struck the starboard side of the hull? 
Or did the article mean the helmsman made a mistake and initially went starboard and then later corrected, but by that time was too late and the ship struck the iceberg?
What I think is more damning is the fact Ismay persuaded the captain to continue to sail forcing more water into the hull then if they would have stopped as soon as they struck it.
Or did the article mean the helmsman made a mistake and initially went starboard and then later corrected, but by that time was too late and the ship struck the iceberg?
What I think is more damning is the fact Ismay persuaded the captain to continue to sail forcing more water into the hull then if they would have stopped as soon as they struck it.
Hindsight is always 20/20
You can't recreate all of the conditions, moods, stress, expectations and more that led to decisions at that moment in time. It is always easy to second guess everything when it isn't you under fire and you have no responsibility or accountability.
You can't recreate all of the conditions, moods, stress, expectations and more that led to decisions at that moment in time. It is always easy to second guess everything when it isn't you under fire and you have no responsibility or accountability.
Wait, I thought Titanic did try to go to the left of the iceberg and it struck the starboard side of the hull?
Yeah, I thought that as well. The article must mean something else.
True, but shouldn't common sense and logic tell you if you strike something to stop and inspect the hull for damage? It was the arrogant attitude of the Titanic being unsinkable that did ultimately sink the ship.
* if what this person says is true and all about Ismay saying continue on.
Perhaps, but common sense and logic don't always prevail in stressful situations. Plenty of bonehead things have been done because people panic and don't use common sense or follow procedures. Not all of them are of Titanic proportions (pun intended), but they suggest a pattern of people becoming disoriented and unable to function rationally in some situations of extreme duress.
Oh it wasn't that bad. Got to see Rose's boobs and the sinking scene was pretty well done.
The one thing I don't like is that they made a film of 9/11
I don't mind it if it stays on track of paying tribute to the heros of 9/11 and not stray off into a romance movie with the tragic event on the side( aka Pearl Harbor). I tried to watch World Trade Center last night on Netflix. From the scenes I watched, it looked like it was exactly what I thought it would be( honoring the heroes). Although I couldn't watch the rest because it got to me too much.
Ismay from what I have heard was an arrogant SOB. So it doesn't surprise me if he did tell the captain to continue sailing. Though I would hope the captain was hesitant about it.
Oh it wasn't that bad. Got to see Rose's boobs and the sinking scene was pretty well done.
2:194 is a very low boob to minute ratio.
Very interesting. Actually, I saw a program (on either Discovery of The History Channel) about the Andrea Doria, and they blamed a similar occurrence. The Andrea Doria was on a collision course with another vessel. Both vessels became aware of the danger. Unfortunately, when the captains of each ship tried to avoid the impending collision, one ship turned to port, the other to starboard.
As any driver knows, if you and another car are headed for a head-on collision, and he swerves right and you swerve left, you're still highly likely to collide.
As any driver knows, if you and another car are headed for a head-on collision, and he swerves right and you swerve left, you're still highly likely to collide.
Wait, I thought Titanic did try to go to the left of the iceberg and it struck the starboard side of the hull?
Or did the article mean the helmsman made a mistake and initially went starboard and then later corrected, but by that time was too late and the ship struck the iceberg?
I believe you're right about the starboard side striking the iceberg.
As I remember reading some time ago (I don't have a source, sorry), the command was given to steer the ship "Hard a'starboard." In nautical terms of the day, this was a reference to turning the handle of a tiller-style rudder hard to the right, meaning the blade of the rudder would turn to the left. The end result is that the ship would steer to the left.
Perhaps someone overheard the order "hard a'starboard" and, not knowing what it meant, assumed it was an order to turn to the right. Just speculation on my part.
QFT - but they are pretty nice.
Well that might explain why in the movie the command was to starboard and the helmsmen turned the wheel left......
( I thought it was just a script error).
In the end, the tragedy happened for three reasons:
1) Captain Smith did not heed seriously the warnings about icebergs in the north Atlantic Ocean that other ships in the area had broadcast using Morse code with the new wireless radio sets.
2) The ship traveled WAY too fast in the iceberg danger zone and as such could not steer fast enough to avoid hitting any iceberg seen visually.
3) The poor quality of the steel used to construct Titanic in the first place meant if the ship hit any obstruction the structural damage could have been substantial anyway.
After the Titanic sinking, the other ships in the White Star Line had to undergo substantial upgrades to improve structural integrity and to provide enough lifeboats for everyone on-board.
1) Captain Smith did not heed seriously the warnings about icebergs in the north Atlantic Ocean that other ships in the area had broadcast using Morse code with the new wireless radio sets.
2) The ship traveled WAY too fast in the iceberg danger zone and as such could not steer fast enough to avoid hitting any iceberg seen visually.
3) The poor quality of the steel used to construct Titanic in the first place meant if the ship hit any obstruction the structural damage could have been substantial anyway.
After the Titanic sinking, the other ships in the White Star Line had to undergo substantial upgrades to improve structural integrity and to provide enough lifeboats for everyone on-board.
Lady Patten said:
First, utter nonsense.
Second, even then the Titanic could not stand still, once it had "stopped" it continued to drift with the current.
Thirdly... hasn't she ever heard of Thomas Andrews?
But that's what happened. In one respect it can be considered fortuitous that Thomas Andrews was aboard, given his inspection of the damage, his estimation of Titanic's survivability under the circumstances was remarkably, and I mean remarkably accurate.
That's a fair point to make, but it should also be remembered that at the time, it was common practice to maintain service speed even in such circumstances.
There was a greater number of factors against the Titanic than the speed though to be honest.
It should perhaps be remembered though, that "poor quality" is a relative term, the steel wasn't considered poor quality back at the turn of the 20th century, the same steel served its sister ship just fine, a ship which itself endured 3 major impacts (colliding with HMS Hawke in the Solent, sinking a German U-boat by ramming it, and sinking the Nantucket Lightship, itself in the chilly North Atlantic).
And the fact the rudder was too small for the size of the ship. This was brought to light by Smith crashing Olympic into the HMS Hawke. Nothing was done though after that collision.
There was more than that though. The bulkheads didn't go to the top of the ceiling. As a result, the water that came in eventually rose over the bulkheads into the next section. The weight of the water ultimately split the ship in two.
There was another expedition (2 years ago?), that found a secondary debris field. In that field, they found a complete section of the bottom (from port to starboard) that came from the center of the ship. There is another expedition happening this month (just passed?) that is looking for more info. Apparently, there's more that nobody has seen/filmed yet.
There was some speculation that if they did steer to the starboard and hit it head on, the titanic would have been damaged, but would ultimately have survived.
Yeah, I saw that documentary about it. Contrary to some reports of the ship splitting from the top down, the ship broke from the down up based on how the metal at the ends were.
We better get all the evidence about the sinking, etc before the ocean does its thing and corrodes the structure enough where it collapses.
I remember seeing from a documentary many years ago that when the first parts of the Titanic were salvaged, the first they they analyzed was the structural steel used in constructing the ship in the first place.
What they found shocked a lot of people: the quality of the steel--which had a good amount of impurities in it--made the steel physically brittle when soaked in the type of very cold water encountered in the North Atlantic. As such, when the ship hit the iceberg it broke up at a surprisingly fast rate.
What they found shocked a lot of people: the quality of the steel--which had a good amount of impurities in it--made the steel physically brittle when soaked in the type of very cold water encountered in the North Atlantic. As such, when the ship hit the iceberg it broke up at a surprisingly fast rate.
I don't think it did break up quicker than was expected though, Thomas Andrews calculated, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, the remaining length of time the Titanic had before foundering, and he knew nothing of the supposed brittleness of the Titanic's steel.
It should be remembered that it was separation of the steel plating at the rivet point that allowed the water to enter (not cracking, or breaking nor a cut/gash of the steel plates), and this was likely (though not conclusively, who's to say that the impact wouldn't have been severe enough to hole a modern ship for example?) due to the reduced ductility of the steel plate, and poor quality rivets and riveting techniques, even though both were of a quality par for the course of the time.
Much is made of the brittleness of the Titanic steel, but how much of a factor was it truly in the disaster? Had the Titanic's strength being as compromised as is suggested by some, then surely the 39,000 tons of water that flooded the bow would've broken her back far sooner, and if she really was as brittle as suggested, one could reasonably expect there to be substantially more damage to the wreck of the bow, given its estimated impact speed into the seabed of somewhere in the region of 30 knots, in water that was presumably even colder.
But as William Garzke of Gibbs and Cox stated;
"the steel used in the Titanic was the best available in 1909-1914" when the ship was built. In fact, they add that when 39,000 tons of water entered the bow, "no modern ship, not even a welded one, could have withstood the forces that the Titanic experienced during her breakup."