Juniatha On the other hand , if I read in this-here thread of 2900 lives lost
On the other hand , if I read in this-here thread of 2900 lives lost
A quick web search suggests an 1800 lives lost, which is still a sadly huge number, much larger than any single transportation accident in US history. 9/11 was larger, but it wasn't an accident. The only disaster of any kind in the US with a significantly larger death toll was the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston.
One advantage of a steam locomotive over a steamboat is that the locomotive boiler is usually separated from the passeger accomodations, whereas the passengers are in relatively close proximity to the steamboat boiler. Locomotive boiler explosions were happening till the end of steam in the US, but it was rare that anyone besides the locomotive crew were killed by the explosions.
- Erik
P.S. The best to you as well for 2015.
Firelock
>> Ask the skipper if his ship is alive , he’ll tell you <<
Hum-hum-hum , *gee* , jep ..
>> Philly’s still in the US <<
at least one thing that’s reassuring !
>> Are ships alive ? The crew makes them alive <<
Sure they do , in a regular sense , yet I think that’s not quite the point , here ..
>> I couldn’t really even call it a ship anymore , just a big pile of steel <<
Well , I wasn’t there , however I guess a ship on its last trip to doom can hardly keep up a light atmosphere , it must take on a gloomy feel .. It’s the steel hulk not the fancy interior that makes a ship a ship , not a club room .
>> They are alive then. In a scrap yard? No.
That would hardly be surprising. So you’d neither expect inhabitants of a graveyard ..
>>Is a ship alive ? Is a steam locomotive alive ? What makes one living and the other not ? <<
Hmmmmm – three questions that must be left to personal conjecture .
Suggestion : if it suffers when ailing or mistreated , if it triumphs when winning a close case ..?
In that sense could a diesel locomotive be alive ? check for above mentioned ..
>> overcomes a person with a feeling of being at the grave side of a dear friend. <<
Uh-huh ..
>> an 1800 lives lost <<
Never mind if 1800 or 2900 .. they were too many .
Seriously , I wasn’t trying to compare 9/11 with anything , only I wanted to figure what a catastrophic incident it must have been if a steam boat boiler explosion would kill such vast number of lives !
(I wonder how it was possible at all so many could get killed in a boat blow up back then – just how many passenger *did* they take on board ? I mean , not even the total number of inhabitants of an average village along the Misses Hippy should have been that many or hardly .
>> locomotive boiler is usually separated from the passenger accommodations <<
Now *that* sheds a light on why on earth RRs did prefer locomotives pulling cars to integral railcars and then a passenger train worth its consist first had a bunch of baggage and mail running behind the locomotive , too , only then came the passenger cars !
Now I see ! ( *gee* )
Years ago , upon an invitation , Francesca and me went with Winna in her old Bill Mitchell body Camaro on a trip to Vienna and then Budapest to see a Formula One race at the Hungaria Ring . Having returned home , Winna got a call by a guy from Vienna who upon seeing her car parked near the Café Schwarzenberg instantly had urged her to sell it . At that time , Winna had finally found herself prepared to face rational facts and she agreed to sell the Camaro although she said it was the only car that had *never* let her down , it just ran and ran and ran , just like a truly faithful comrade ( camaro ) – well , she took good care for the car always to be checked and well kept . The day when the Vienna guy was to come to meet in the afternoon and ‘take the car away’ as Winna put it , she had noticed a slight inconvenience with starting , the engine hesitated and didn’t sound that well , so she took an opportunity to pass by Mike Barretta’s shop , a Munich car dealer and repair shop then specializing in ( classic ) US cars . When they wanted to take the car into the garage for a check up the problem had grown severely and the engine would hardly start . They got it in eventually , immediately taking a scrutinizing look at ignition and timing – it seemed ok . The four barrel carburettor was checked , finally they took it off for a thorough cleaning although Winna said the mpg ratio was good for a 350 engine still without later 70’s lowered compression and catalyser . It turned out there hadn’t been much to be cleaned and they put it back on , now sparkling like new , all connections back on they were to hook the engine up to the electronic analyser for a tune up with no expectation but for it to start readily . Not so ! The starter motor cranking – yet no single huff , nothing at all , it was like cranking an engine without fuel . Fuel ? Ridiculous , the air meanwhile smelled of unburned gasoline , yet they checked that , too , found there was fuel arriving in the carb alright , fuel pump and everything ok . They tried the old trick of putting some fuel down the carb’s throats – the engine swallowed it without a chuckle . So it was ignition after all ? Checking that all over again they couldn’t find no fault . Meanwhile Winna phoned the man she was to meet , reporting the car wasn’t ready ; he took it with patience , they agreed he’d wait at a Restaurant downtown .
Regards
Juniatha
JuniathaWell *I* do with one example I witnessed personally , otherwise I will leave it to everyone’s own .. uhm .. thought / believe / observation / feeling or what ever you prefer . So here’s mine or, actually a friend of mine ...
I too have observed this to be true.
When I was working as the Acting General Manager in Louisiana, we had a Ford F-150 pickup, which had not been particularly well cared for. One day a couple of the staff were trying to start it, and couldn't get the starter to engage. Just for fun, I got in, thinking that maybe flicking the key differently would get a stuck Bendix drive to engage. Primed the carb once (pedal to the floor and release) - the truck started instantly, so quickly I didn't hear the starter motor work.
Turned it off, the staff driver got in and turned the key -- nothing but whine. I went underneath and found the starter hanging from a loose single remaining bolt. Got a replacement for the missing bolt, tightened up both against worn threads that I could Loctite later, got in and turned the key ... running immediately just as before. Key off, staff got in -- starter ground and ground, but the truck would not start.
In short, we traded places three times. They couldn't start the truck at all; I could start it immediately ... in alternation. There is no mechanical principle I know that could explain this scientifically...
Juniatha,
I agee that 1900 was still too many, could have made my intent clearer in the first reply.
The Sultana boiler exlosion took place at the end of the Civil War, and was carrying Union soldiers back to their homes (which is why it was so crowded). The obscurity of this accident was largely due to the timing, had it occurred a few months later it would have likely been a much bigger story.
The railroads learned the lesson from "The Best Friend of Charleston" very quickly, shortly thereafter it was standard practice on some roads to have a flat car loaded with bales of cotton behind the locomotive. My point was that locomotive boiler explosions were not rare, but were much less likely to kill passengers than steamboat boiler explosions and thus less publicized.
Addendum to the Sultana disaster:
A major percentage of the passengers had just been released from Confederate prison camps, so they were not in the best of shape to handle a survival situation. Also, the ship's LEGAL capacity was only 350. Those people must have been packed in like subway standees.
I agree that, having served aboard an active steamship, seeing the museum ships is sort of like visiting a crypt. Cold boilers and silent pumps elicit a shudder, not awe. Likewise, a stuffed and mounted steam locomotive is like a grave site. However, either beats having nothing at all. (Perjorative comments about NYC mid-50s management deleted.)
Chuck
In relation to the Sultana;
The guy who was counting the people getting on the boat actually left to go out for lunch. So will never know the official death toll. Based on the count before he left, most conclude that there were between 1500-2300 passangers on board when she went down.
They were packing enough people on the boat to cause it to visibly list as the soldiers went to one side (This was captured in one of the last photos of the Sultana, taken the day before she went down).
The boiler on the Sultana had developed a bulge a day or two before the explosion. They kept her running to keep raking it in, the people in charge knew the risks.
The whole disaster could have been avoided.
As a side note, the era of the steam powered Canadian lake freighter ended about 10 minutes ago when the 730' freighter, the SS Montrealais, docked in Montreal bringing to an end her career that began in 1962.
She was also the last traditional Canadian built lake freighter of Seawaymax size that was still operating as a straight decker (No onboard unloading machinery marring her lines).
Not so long ago, you couldn't of gone along the St. Lawrence Seaway and shipping lanes on the Great Lakes for very long without seeing such a vessel.
So over half a century after the era of steam ended on Canadian railways, it has now concluded on Canada's inland waters as well.
Leo_AmesAs a side note, the era of the steam powered Canadian lake freighter ended about 10 minutes ago when the 730' freighter, the SS Montrealais, docked in Montreal ...
At least we got to see her one more year than we expected.
And she goes out, I believe, as the fastest Canadian ship on the Lakes.
Indeed, it was nice that she got another season thanks to a variety of factors like the strong grain harvest, ice delays, and slowness with Equinox deliveries from China,
I managed to catch her 4 or 5 times this year, including her final two downbound trips on the Seaway (I didn't get to see her though on her final upbound trip on her way to Thunder Bay to load her last cargo).
Going to especially miss her since her and her sistership, the Quebecois (which ended her career two years ago), have always been my two favorites.
I would agree. My Grandfather was a ‘horse whisper’ and the owner of a farrier shop in East Orange New Jersey. This is back in the day where Clydesdales and Shires was the only horse-power for moving heavy loads. If one of his men got into ‘trouble’ with a horse, it was his job to go in and change out the shoes. He was never kicked. With my dad, who grew up in the ‘golden’ age of horse-less carriage (his first car was a Dodge Brother truck), learned that cars get to know you and respond: “Like a good horse, it knows the way home, listen and trust.”
So yes, Winna's Camaro had something to say about the situation. If you see a gray hair dad patty the dash of his red Trans Am some day, or a young lady (daughter) give a pat to the fender of a Saturn as she walks away, just letting our pones know they are loved.
Just to keep on the topic of trains, that red Trans Am is called Phoebe Snow (after the lady in white who rides on the road of anthracite.)
It's amazing that any straight-deck Lake boats remained in service as long as they did since they depended on Hullett unloaders (also nearly extinct) or other similar devices to empty their loads.
The Canadians appreciate them and have even been building some new ones recently (Four for Algoma Central, two for CSL), since it maximizes cubic capacity for grain which is a cargo that's easily unload from a straight decker. And they often backhaul iron ore back into the lakes.
Hamilton, Indiana Harbor, and Lorain are some locations that still have bridge cranes that can unload ore from straight deckers.
Sadly, the Hulett is extinct other than two disassembled examples in Cleveland that likely will never never be reassembled and displayed.
One of the flat deck lake boats I always look for every summer is the Arthur M. Anderson which was lengthened and had a self unloader crane built into her hull. She is an old school boat of the United States Steel line.
The Arthur M. Anderson became famous in the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in lake Superior in the 1970s. On that voyage the Anderson was enroute with the Fitzgerald when the November winter storm hit the Lake. The Fitzgerald lost the second of its "radar" units. The first was inoperative at the start the voyage down bound from Duluth MN.
The Fitzgerald radioed the Anderson for guidance on the trip by reporting the radar navagation information needed. Un-intentionally Near Carabou Island the boat grounded - the lake waves were so large it is believed the Fitzgerald hit lake bottom at Six Fathom Shoal and started violently taking on water.
The Fitzgerald quickly sank in the violent storm taking all hands. "She just went off of the 'radar'" Captain Cooper said - so the Anderson proceded to turn around in the storm and look for survivors. This was no small task considering the violence of the waves.
Another boat, William Clay Ford also braved the storm and searched. The Ford was scraped recently and her pilot house "stuffed and mounted" at or onto the Dawson Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River. Visitors can stand at the ships wheel and watch the other lake traffic go by and observe all the period navagational instruments.
About ten years later I was filming a NKP 587 a 2-8-2 steam trip to Montpielier, Ohio. After a locomotive runby I happened to talk to one of the local residents who had come out to see the steam train. It was Captain Cooper of the Arthur M. Anderson who spoke to me about the night of the Fitzgerald sinking and the contested testamony about Six Fathom Shoal - that it was not believed to exist and that the "Fitz" could not have hit it. Considering professional liability and blame he was not sure the truth would ever come out.
I alway enjoy seeing the Arthur M Anderson on the lake and marvel that she is still sailing today.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was another boat that I enjoyed seeing in my youth - the name reminded me of the US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, so I always noticed the "Fitz." It was a new steel boat, a big one, built right in Detroit in the 1950's, it was launched sideways in the Rouge River. I think one of the visitors attending the launch died of a heart attack on that occasion. Some feel it was an ill oman for the boat.
The Fitz today is on the bottom of Lake Superior broken in half in 300 feet of water. The crew is still on board and will remain preserved in the frozen water.
"Oh drop me deep! and among the raging waters let me sleep!"
Dr. D
Dr DThe Ford was scraped recently and her pilot house "stuffed and mounted" at or onto the Dawson Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River.
Been quite a while ago now since she disappeared. Off the top of my head, I'd say that Ford donated the pilothouse off the William Clay Ford back in the late 1980's before selling the rest for scrap (They offered the entire ship, but the group didn't feel like they could handle that).
So far, she's the only one to be scrapped out of 8 close sisterships known as the AAA class, a victim of the 1980 recession and Ford's desire to move to self-unloaders as Huletts and such were retired (Which they did by acquiring two Cleveland Cliff vessels that had been converted in the late 1970's, including Cliff's own AAA boat that now sails for Interlake Steamship).
A shame that she died so young. Not long before the recession hit, they even lengthened her and she easily had decades of life left in her. She's the 2nd longest lake freighter so far to have been scrapped, with only the Fitzgerald's sistership that was lengthened in the 1970's, longer than she was (Bethlehem's Arthur B. Homer).
Sadly, the 2nd AAA scrapping appears to be coming up with the expectation that the American Steamship Co. will scrap the American Valor, a former fleetmate of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which has been idle since the latest recession struck.
7 out of 8 AAA's were lengthened, 7 were converted to self-unloaders, 2 have been barged over the past 20 years and remain sailing (Including the one that wasn't lengthened), 1 has been dieselized recently and will be around for decades to come, 1 has been scrapped, and the three former US Steel boats are still steaming and hopefully will be repowered when the EPA forces an end to American steam on the Great Lakes in 2020 thanks to a ban on Bunker C.
Dollar for dollar, I'm not sure that there has ever been a better value for a Great Lakes fleet than these 8 ships.
S. ConnorThe whole disaster could have been avoided.
Perhaps not -- I suspect the bulge repair was not the major significant cause of the severity of the disaster. The 'visible heeling' was also observed as the boat tacked back and forth across the current, starting to go upstream in the relatively strong flow present at the time -- and the boiler water was 'shared' through cross-connections laterally. So when the boat heeled on one cross-tack, the water level in the now-'uphill' boiler could run down dramatically, and then when returning across, water would be promptly re-admitted on what might by then have been highly overheated portions of boiler structure. It would not surprise me to find some part of the structure would become so overheated that the Leidenfrost/Eisenhoffer effect would slow the rate at which the boiler iron could be cooled down by returning water flow. Or, short of that , to have the boiler iron thermally cycled repetitively within a comparatively short time ...
Meanwhile, at all times the net volume of water contained in the boilers was doing its 'sloshing' under full temperature and pressure, ready to produce the progressive acceleration of water mass (due to distributed nucleate boiling) that typifies 'fulminant' boiler explosions. With plenty of room for the water to accelerate before striking the inner shell at many points in the structure. Perhaps the initial point of failure that caused the phase change started at the repaired 'bulge', but more than one of the boilers 'went off' during the explosion, indicating that the effect might have been more 'distributed'.
I also suspect a great deal of the actual death toll was related to the subsequent fire ... and the weakened condition of so many of the victims.
Don't forget that back then, not that many people knew how to swim either. Some that might have otherwise survived probably drowned. That was a major factor in the massive loss of life aboard the General Slocumb on the East River years later.
One of the leading reasons for the high death toll of the General Slocum was that Captain Schaick put the ship at full speed to try avoid oil refineries lining the bank of the East River and try to beach her at Riker's Island. The wind fanned the flames. Also there was a poorly trained crew and useless safety equipment as government inspections weren't very stringent at the time. Also, the life belts were filled with iron bars to make the required weight of kapok that was required. Schaick and officials of the line that operated the ship were indicted for first degree manslaughter but only Schaick was convicted, but later was seen as a victim himself as he was not responsible for lax government inspectors and the lifebelt makers.
Overmod S. Connor The whole disaster could have been avoided. Perhaps not -- I suspect the bulge repair was not the major significant cause of the severity of the disaster.
S. Connor The whole disaster could have been avoided.
Perhaps not -- I suspect the bulge repair was not the major significant cause of the severity of the disaster.
When the boiler went, it was likely at that point of the bulge, but that's besides the point. Lets get to what I want to say, and the point I was making in my previous post:
Had the ship been docked for the repairs it needed, it would not have been out on the water to roll and mess with the water levels within the boiler. Had the Sultana been in for repairs, it would not have had the chance to sink that night.
It was up to the owner to see to it that his boat was in good enough shape to safely carry passangers, he knew the condition of the boiler. He failed to do that. Therefore, in my eyes, it is him who is at fault for this disaster.
Of course, if it hadn't been the Sultana, it would have been another ship. We learned from this disaster and moved on, making changes and pehaps saving more lives in the long run.
-S. Connor
Mr. Connor, you make a good point of learning from the Sultana and moving on.
In a way, it reminds me of the Titanic. What happened to the Titanic could have happened to any of the other "Ocean Greyhounds" of the time, the Lusitania, the Mauritania, the Olympic, the Campania, or any others.
All were similar to Titanic in that none had enough lifeboats for all aboard, all kept their speed up in spite of ice warnings relying on lookouts to spot the trouble in time, all pretty complacent that modern shipbuilding made a major catastrophe unlikely. Titanic was the unlucky one.
Man's a funny critter. Sometimes God has to swing a two-by-four to his head to wake him up to the realization he's doing something he really shouldn't be doing.
Firelock76Mr. Connor, you make a good point of learning from the Sultana and moving on. In a way, it reminds me of the Titanic. What happened to the Titanic could have happened to any of the other "Ocean Greyhounds" of the time, the Lusitania, the Mauritania, the Olympic, the Campania, or any others. All were similar to Titanic in that none had enough lifeboats for all aboard, all kept their speed up in spite of ice warnings relying on lookouts to spot the trouble in time, all pretty complacent that modern shipbuilding made a major catastrophe unlikely. Titanic was the unlucky one.
Strange you should mention learning from Titanic and moving on.
As part of the repercussions from the Titanic, White Star purposely overdesigned the boat systems on Gigantic/Britannic ... with the understanding that there wouldn't be another accident that would sink a ship that size in only two to three hours. Due to the war, Britannic was finished as a hospital ship and sent to help with the aftermath of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. With thousands of injured soldiers aboard, she hit a mine and sank in about 35 minutes, heeling over dramatically so that the boats on one side could not be deployed.
How many people were killed?
THAT is in my opinion the legacy of Titanic.
Sadly, Britannic's watertight integrity was compromised by a poor decision of the nursing staff. Otherwise, the damage she incurred should've been survivable, even with the watertight door that failed to drop like it should've between two of the boiler rooms. No fault of the ship, it simply isn't possible to construct an unsinkable ship.
Lost in the disaster with the Titanic is that she was a fine vessel that was extremely well built and should be remembered as one of the heroes of that tragic night instead of being viewed as responsible. She was simply a victim of extremely bad luck and recklessness. If only more of her crew could've lived up to what the ship accomplished that night instead of sailing at high speed into iceberg infested waters that they were warned about, sending lifeboats out nearly empty, and so on. She'd probably be almost forgotten about today.
Instead, she stayed afloat with mortal damage for nearly 3 hours (And significantly longer than her designer's estimation of how long she had to live). She saved many lifes that night and did something extremely uncommon, she sunk on an almost even keel rather than capsizing (Probably due to many unsung heroes in her engineering department, I suspect, that were handling her ballast tanks and flooding compartments throughout the tragedy to keep her on an even keel until the end).As such, lifeboat operations were able to continue right up until the final moments and her crew needed every second of that.
And her sister ship survived three collisions, survived WWI after serving the British as a troopship and earning the nickname of Old Reliable, and was an extremely popular ship that safely carried many thousands of passengers until going to scrap in the mid 1930's because of the Great Depression and her age.
Firelock76All were similar to Titanic in that none had enough lifeboats for all aboard
That didn't seem so reckless at the time like it now appears. The thinking was that the wounded ship herself would be their lifeboat, staying afloat long enough thanks to her watertight compartments that help summoned by her new wireless would be on the scene in time to safely evacuate to before the end arrived.
Her lifeboats were essentially meant to transfer passengers and crew to another vessel, rather than accommodate everyone onboard simultaneously.
Unfortunate and definitely the wrong decision in hindsight, but one that does have a bit of logic had it worked out as intended.
There's also just plain luck as in some ships are lucky, some are not. The Titanic was an unlucky ship. The Ile de France, The Queen Mary, the Olympic were lucky ships. The Normandie was not. Luck, circumstance, an incompetent captain as in the case of the Titanic? I believe that had Arthur Rostron been the captain of the Titanic, it would not have hit the iceberg as he was highly competent and would have slowed down had ice been reported. He commanded the Carpathia which rescued the survivors and later commanded the Mauretania and he brought her in to Southampton like clockwork so often the dockworkers called her "the Rostron Express" My point is that luck can me made and the Mauretania was one of the luckiest and the Titanic was not.
The U.S.S. Forrestal was known when I was in the Navy, as an unlucky ship. We used to call her "The forest fire," and you did not want to be transferred to her.
I wouldn't say the Titanic was an unlucky ship. It was poor seamanship that killed her. In all fairness to Captain Smith he was doing what everyone else did, as I mentioned earlier. Needless to say that was the end of THAT practice.
There certainly have been unlucky ships, the USS Chesapeake springs to mind. Stopped and shot up by an Royal Navy frigate in 1807, one of the incidents that led up to the War of 1812, and then shot up and captured in that war by HMS Shannon. To my knowledge there's never been another USS Chesapeake.
The old USS Saratoga was supposed to be a hard-luck ship as well. Some World War Two navy vets I knew told me something always happened to the Saratoga whenever she sortied, usually battle damage at the start of the mission that kept her from completing the mission. When she was sunk as a target ship in the Bikini bomb tests no-one shed any tears.
Firelock76 I wouldn't say the Titanic was an unlucky ship. It was poor seamanship that killed her.
What killed her, really, was a poor decision based on unfamiliarity with a ship her size with her particular drive characteristics. The deadly mistake was to call Hard Astern, with the Parsons turbine incapable of operating in reverse (thus eliminating more than 1/3 of the expected shp) but its prop contributing to turbulence destroying much of the rudder's steering integrity, and no meaningful directional thrust from either of the reciprocating main engines' screws.
Even assisting the turn with the 'off' engine at some fraction ahead would almost certainly have ensured the ship would clear the berg... in hindsight. But that would have required thinking outside the seamanship box for smaller vessels that had no center screw...
Perhaps ironically, if the ship had hit the iceberg head on, it would almost certainly not have sunk, let alone gone down so short a time that relief from so short a distance away could not have reached her. It was the grazing near-miss that opened the long tear... and the sulfur in the rivets that allowed them to pop so easily...
Firelock76 I wouldn't say the Titanic was an unlucky ship. It was poor seamanship that killed her. In all fairness to Captain Smith he was doing what everyone else did, as I mentioned earlier. Needless to say that was the end of THAT practice.
While the decisions made with the seamanship of the Titanic were catastrophic, if my memory serves, Captian Smith was the senior Captain of the White Star Line and posessed a good seamanship record or he would never have been given the Titanic assignment.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Wizlish Strange you should mention learning from Titanic and moving on. As part of the repercussions from the Titanic, White Star purposely overdesigned the boat systems on Gigantic/Britannic ... with the understanding that there wouldn't be another accident that would sink a ship that size in only two to three hours. Due to the war, Britannic was finished as a hospital ship and sent to help with the aftermath of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. With thousands of injured soldiers aboard, she hit a mine and sank in about 35 minutes, heeling over dramatically so that the boats on one side could not be deployed. How many people were killed? THAT is in my opinion the legacy of Titanic.
Actually, only 30 souls on HMHS Britannic were lost-all due to the fact that two of the lifeboats were launched while the ship was still underway and got sucked into the props. She was also outfitted with five large crane davits that were fitted with five lifeboats each. Four of the five davits were located just fore and aft of the number 4 funnel and were designed so that in the event the ship started listing, the lifeboats on the high side could be launched using the crane on the low side. Thus only the boats fitted with the standard davits had to be floated off.
The primary reason that the ship sank so quickly (if at all) was that the crew ignored Admiralty requirements that all portholes and watertight doors be kept closed while sailing in the war zone. If they had followed orders, the ship may well have remained afloat.
Another major contribution of the Titanic incident was the shifting of the shipping lanes further south.
awalker1829 Wizlish Strange you should mention learning from Titanic and moving on. As part of the repercussions from the Titanic, White Star purposely overdesigned the boat systems on Gigantic/Britannic ... with the understanding that there wouldn't be another accident that would sink a ship that size in only two to three hours. Due to the war, Britannic was finished as a hospital ship and sent to help with the aftermath of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. With thousands of injured soldiers aboard, she hit a mine and sank in about 35 minutes, heeling over dramatically so that the boats on one side could not be deployed. How many people were killed? THAT is in my opinion the legacy of Titanic. Actually, only 30 souls on HMHS Britannic were lost-all due to the fact that two of the lifeboats were launched while the ship was still underway and got sucked into the props.
Actually, only 30 souls on HMHS Britannic were lost-all due to the fact that two of the lifeboats were launched while the ship was still underway and got sucked into the props.
Precisely my point.
She was also outfitted with five large crane davits that were fitted with five lifeboats each. Four of the five davits were located just fore and aft of the number 4 funnel and were designed so that in the event the ship started listing, the lifeboats on the high side could be launched using the crane on the low side. Thus only the boats fitted with the standard davits had to be floated off.
A significant part of the reason that everyone got off properly -- even though the ship acquired just such a significant list very early, which would have made launching even with the rotary davits impossible from the 'uphill' side.
I had thought that it was current thinking that water coming in through the 'detectable' breach proximately caused by the mine would have been inadequate to produce the sinking in so short a time -- watertight doors blocked open or otherwise. What I understood is that the combination of concussion and flash produced by the mine's explosion caused a progressive coal-dust explosion around the bunker spaces (which apparently all communicated around the ship rather than being isolated by firewalls), with the overpressure starting the seams in so much of the plating that water was taken on everywhere, a bit like a 'death of a thousand cuts' if the cuts were inflicted all at once. (Of course, once you have a sizable amount of water entering, the opened doors would have augmented a tendency for the water to gather preferentially and produce the observed progressive list or roll...)
Is that because it put more of the potential 'rescuing ships' so much further south that they could not arrive in time?
I think it means that as a result, shipping lanes move further south in winter to avoid icebergs.
54light15I think it means that as a result, shipping lanes move further south in winter to avoid icebergs.
I see what he means now. I was reading 'contribution TO the Titanic incident' rather than "contribution" to general welfare from the incident itself.
The problem with the watertight doors was that the ship's engineering crew had them open so as to ease the process of watch changing. Keeping them closed would have complicated the access to certain areas. Thus they were raised when the watch was changed. Had the watertight doors and portals been kept closed per Admiralty regulations, the ship may have remained afloat.
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