Titanic II - Expected Completion in 2016
- Thread starter 62caddy
- Start date
Funny how that worked--in the early days, they added more (even fakes, like Titanic, Olympic and Britannic sported) to make the things appear "more powerful" to reassure the travelling public. Then, by the 50's with modern liners, the public favored the safety suggested by modernity that went along with single funnels (with lines remodelling and removing funnels, reducing three to two or even one). (Not that the number actually has any bearing on it, one way or another.)
Lucky you, both Samaria and an Empress boat!
I priced out that QE2/Concord package in '82 and decided that, for the money, I'd rather have a house. :yes:
(But all these years later, I rather wish I'd allowed myself that extravagance.)Not sure a modern photograph would match the painting. You'd have to retouch bowler hats, vests, corsets, and a generally well dressed public over speedos, flip flops, stained t-shirts and whatever else "the people of Walmart" generation are sporting on its arrival.
shelly_d
Not An Audiophool
I.R.Brainiac
Super Member
I've often wondered how someone from the past would react if they were suddenly here.
They would have a hard time processing the general shabbily dressed persons appearance with the fact that we almost all live better than kings did in many ways.
I.R.Brainiac
Super Member
Brilliant!Make it the 2nd voyage.
Shelly_D
If Thomas Andrews had designed the original Titanic with a full double hull instead of a double bottom, she would probably have remained afloat. After the disaster, Harland & Wolff changed Britannic's design to include a full double hull. I believe Titanic's other sister ship, Olympic, was refitted with a double hull.
The way she broke up on the surface says to me that overall, she was a ship too-big for what they knew at the time, with the materials available (I've read the steel was not of great quality, either). A giant on the cusp of the time when giants were feasible, just missing it by a few years. Obviously stresses were involved in her sinking that would far outweigh what anybody would have envisioned in operation, but she literally fell apart as soon as she got to a fairly shallow angle in the water.
And if we all flew in black boxes with wings, no one would die in airplane crashes. The Titanic compartmentalization was more than adequate for the time. It likely was overkill actually. She really was a brilliantly built ship.
Although she is viewed as a huge disaster, from an engineering perspective she was an example of everything that can go RIGHT in ship building. The full double hull of the Brittanic was advertising. That is all. There really was no need for it from a practical perspective. It was a huge expense and makes the ship both bigger in a way that adds no revenue, and increases operating costs. But White Star and Harland and Wolfe needed to do something dramatic, otherwise people would not sail on her.
THere is always a trade off between safety and cost. It is extremely unfashionable to say so, but the designers of the Titanic got it right. The ship did it's part. It stayed afloat for more than enough time to get everyone safely off of her. The issue was that the operators didn't include enough lifeboats.
Actually, you are looking at this from the wrong perspective. It is actually an indication of how well she was designed. If you look at almost every sinking of a major passenger ship, the one thing they all had in common was they turned over (capsized) before they sank. Titanic was hit only down the starboard side, yet she stayed afloat and UPRIGHT for 2 1/2 hours, with five starboard side water tight compartments open to the sea. Incredibly well designed and built ship!
Since disproved by an expedition that recovered some key parts of the hull, frames and rivets, and tested them. They found the metal was perfectly OK, up to and beyond the standards of the day, rumours about the metal being too soft or brittle were just not true.
All they had to do was cap the existing watertight compartments so they wouldn't flood over the top.
The operators didn't spec enough lifeboats - a point at which someone should have cried "foul."
The operators didn't spec enough lifeboats - a point at which someone should have cried "foul."
The regulations back then did not force shipping lines to have enough lifeboat places for all souls on board their ships. They could have provided for it - but it wasn't against the law not to. Thus the shipping lines saved some money by not providing for what was thought to be a very unlikely event.
I think they really just got lucky with that, as it doesn't appear the ship had longitudinal wateright compartments, at least not ones that closed, so water was freely able to swash around evenly in the hull as it flooded in. I don't think any ship should have had such a catastrophic breakup on the surface as she did, with that angle of descent. But I'm not a maritime engineer.
Absolutely agreed with BigErik. Within the context of the day, little expense was spared in making her one of the most seaworthy vessels of her day. She clung on for dear life far beyond even the designer's expectations considering the amount of damage. Lifeboat accomodation actually exceeded British Board of Trade regs at the time. Needless to say the regulation was outdated- written at a time when the largest ship imaginable was under 10,000 tons; Titanic was 46,000.
Recent metallurgical tests have revealed the steel used in construction had far lower carbon content than had been believed. It was actually very good metal. No cost cutting there, better metal could not have been made in 1911 with the purification techniques of the time.
The common element of a disaster of this magnitude is for a number of factors that align perfectly at exactly the right time, any one of which would've made all the difference.
Recent metallurgical tests have revealed the steel used in construction had far lower carbon content than had been believed. It was actually very good metal. No cost cutting there, better metal could not have been made in 1911 with the purification techniques of the time.
The common element of a disaster of this magnitude is for a number of factors that align perfectly at exactly the right time, any one of which would've made all the difference.
The point of breakup was an inherently weak part of the ship's design- the expansion joint. A ship must have expansion joints built in, otherwise a ship would break apart in rough seas alone.
At this angle, the pressure amidships is estimated to have been in the millions of pounds per square inch. Keep in mind, most of the machinery- engines, boilers and so forth were being raised out of the water compounding the problem. The machinery represents a tremendous percentage of the entire weight of the ship. No ship could be designed to withstand such stress at such an attitude.
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The editors at Shipbuilder magazine, a technical journal of the day, agreed with your position. The special article they ran in 1911 about Titanic made particular note of the watertight bulkhead design and the electric doors that sealed the compartments off. They described the ship as "virtually unsinkable".
You may be right about the double hull being window dressing, and the added mass reduces payload and increases fuel consumption, but I still wonder if a second hull would have kept more of the rivets from popping loose when Titanic met the iceberg. The articles I've read suggest that she would probably have stayed afloat if the gash hadn't penetrated boiler room #6.
Or if the captain had ordered full reverse, and headed directly for the iceberg.
Actually, ordering engines full astern was what exactly what they should not have done: It reduced the ship's steering ability and the center prop does not operate in reverse. Lack of propwash past the rudder (from the center prop), plus the reversal is what reduced turning ability, thus the collision.
Most reconstructionists agree, had they remained full ahead, the ship would most likely have missed the berg entirely.
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