Why did the “Titantic” sink?
I was 10 years old when the film “A Night To Remember” – about the sinking of the “Titantic” – was released in 1958. In a lifetime passion for movies, this was one of the first that I remember seeing and made an indelible impression on my young mind. Indeed, when many decades later I wrote a biography of a night fighter ace, I entitled one of the chapters “A Night To Remember”.
But why did the ‘unsinkable’ “Titantic” manage to hit a huge iceberg on a clear night on its maiden voyage? This week, the granddaughter of the officer depicted in the film by Kenneth More revealed that Second Officer Charles Lightoller kept a secret. A simple – but understandable – confusion between practices in sailing ships and steam ships meant that the liner actually turned into the iceberg rather than away from it. I find this explanation as credible as it is tragic.
You can read more in this article. As for why the liner sank so quickly with such appalling loss of life, see this piece.
September 25th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I read about that the other day. Really interesting revelation. I remember when they found the Titanic at the bottom of the sea in the 80’s. Sparked a lifelong interest in the ship for me.
January 23rd, 2011 at 5:08 am
Possible, but far more the case as to why the iceberg was not avoided is the forward momentum of a ship of this size combined with the decision to put the engines full astern – the effect was to disengage power just when it was needed, leaving the ship dead in the water and moving forward still for the most part in a straight line on its original course. The stopping distance was half a mile or more.
Further, there were three propellors. Even if there had been two or four, these could not be directed separately as on later ships so that two were still full ahead and the other two full astern, which would have accelerated any turning movement. With three, even that would not have been an option as the centre one would have been ineffective.
In some ways it is as academic as the 3 out 5 watertight compartments argument – that the ship could survive with 3 out of 5 of the front compartments breached, but not with the number that were breached – would be less relevant if the turning movement had been slightly more successful. If the ship had turned more, the iceberg would have struck not near the bows but further back in the boiler rooms or worse still the engine room which was a massive void rising high and with no internal bulkheads. With that full of water there would have been no power even on the emergency generators and a sure sinking without radio contact (recall that the CQD/SOS was not issued for nearly half an hour).
The lifeboats issue is also an irrelevance. Had the ship had the necessary number, it would still have taken an age to fill them, given early reluctance to board (and the time the lower deck passengers took to reach the boat decks, even disregarding any allegedly locked gates en route). In the 2 hours 40 minutes from strike to sink, only a portion, say 1 hour or just over, was used to fill the boats (apart from the collapsibles). Filling say 36 would have been chaotic with so few crew (most of the crew were engine or boiler room, or catering or ‘hotel’ types, the actual sailing crew was minimal). The whole premise of Titanic’s lifeboats was that they were there to save those on other ships, or ferry folk to and from other ships close by! Had Carpathia got there sooner and this been known or worse still visibly evident, this might have actually fatally delayed people leaving Titanic at all in the first 30 minutes they did leave, not realising how quickly the she would go from a relatively level keel to a sloping, then a near vertical position. Carpathia would also have had trouble taking the full load on board before the sea got choppy, so another 1,500 would have had to ride on her open decks. Californian had minimal space to take on numbers if passengers, even had she been able to be there.
Just one of many, many theory books. Lightoller was a first class man who served in WW1, and in WW2 brought back 100 from Dunkirk in 1940 in his pleasure boat. The Night to Remember film is arguably over sympathetic to him being British-made. James Cameron’s later film draws attention to the mistake Lights made in ordering Women and Children Only instead of Women and Children first, which resulted in some boats leaving part empty.