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Old 25-03-2013, 05:44   #1
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Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

I had to switch off ('cause I'd just painted a wall and had to watch it dry!) but I was just watching a bit of "INSIDE THE TITANIC". There's so many glaring fopa's n' fibs that it's just ridiculous to think this is classed as an educational documentary. Plus I just viewed many,many post's on Channel5.com . I'm not to be taken seriously but if I were to try to convince you that this was even remotely a decent doco' full of fact's, I would tell you that it IS true as I had a great,great,great uncle who was employed by the White star line as 'chief navigational engineer' and my family past his story down to me: My great,great,great uncle was crosseyed, had parkinsons, walked with a limp as he lost a foot due to polio and sometimes dribbled down the left side of his face. Unfortunately for him he lost his shoe, his eye glasses and his handkerchief just prior to starting his contracted work on Titanic. Great doco though....."BAAAAHAAAHAAHAAA,HAAAHAAA"
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Old 25-03-2013, 10:02   #2
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

I have never seen the 1990s movie Titanic. Why would I? I know how it ends, and the charming Kate Winslet disrobes in plenty of other movies.

Titanic happened 101 years ago. It was the space shuttle Challenger of its day: immensely complex, made of inappropriate materials (brittle steel plate) using inappropriate techniques (riveting) and with insufficient materials data (where the ice limit was and the effect of a collision on not quite closed-off bulkheads, like "what happens when you freeze an O-ring" missing data that doomed Challenger.

I'm not sure if anything more can be learned from Titanic, other than people love to fetishize a disaster.

Endlessly. See "Marilyn Monroe".
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Old 25-03-2013, 11:03   #3
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

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I have never seen the 1990s movie Titanic. Why would I? I know how it ends, and the charming Kate Winslet disrobes in plenty of other movies.
Ditto.
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Old 25-03-2013, 12:53   #4
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

Talk about bad information. Riveting was the standard construction method for almost all ferrous boats of that era. The rivets were mild steel cause they had to be malleable and were not the same strength as the plate. They were still plenty strong, however, and wouldn't have resulted in enough water intrusion if they had just sheared off. Arc Welding was in its infancy.

Steel is flexible, Iron is not. Most of the structural problems with Ferrous boats was because of the brittleness of iron not steel. The steel plating that was used in the Titanic was a fairly new alloy but had been used in shipbuilding for a decade with great results. Titanics sister ship Olympic survived 30 years of service and two major collisions.

The watertight bulkheads that were not water tight because they weren't sealed at the top and the ultimate reason that the ship sank. These types of sealable bulkheads were an innovation but not taken to its logical extension. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable because it was designed to have a significant number of of these compartments flood but the buoyancy of the rest of the boat would keep them from overflowing into undamaged compartments. If the Titanic had rammed the iceberg head on it may have survived. The glancing blow opened up just enough compartments to sink the ship, IIRC.

Accurate Iceberg tracking really didn't happen until the age of satelites. Up until then, iceberg locations were by passing ships sighting and forecasts from previous experience. There was no radar so it was just a lookout with a mark 1 set of eyeballs for berg avoidance. The lookout did his job but the ship was travelling too fast to avoid the collision.

The real reason for the Titanic sinking was economic hubris on the part of the captain and owners. Speed sells and they wanted to be able to charge premium ticket prices that speed enabled. To get a fast passage, they set a course that took them into iceberg territory and a speed that made maneuvering to avoid a collision doubtful.
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Old 25-03-2013, 13:00   #5
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

+ 100 to Roverhi , -50 to S/V Alchemy.

Titianic sank because it hit an iceberg at 20 knots , nothing to do with its construction ( which was average to good for the time).

Titantic was not an engineering marvel nor state of the art ( The Cunards were faster etc) , in fact it was quite a conservative ship designed more for opulence then engineering greatness. The nut behind the wheel was the problem as usual

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The real reason for the Titanic sinking was economic hubris on the part of the captain and owners. Speed sells and they wanted to be able to charge premium ticket prices that speed enabled. To get a fast passage, they set a course that took them into iceberg territory and a speed that made maneuvering to avoid a collision doubtful.
No thats not quite right though. The North Atlantic passage for liners goes quite close to the ice line, ( as it does today in Qm2, which follows the same route), but in 1911 the ice was unusually far south , well some icebergs were. The Titantic was not a fast ship , she was not built to wrest back the blue riband for example, White Star gave up on that.

She was built to be one of the most opulent, that was her biggest attribute.

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Old 25-03-2013, 13:04   #6
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

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I have never seen the 1990s movie Titanic. Why would I? I know how it ends...
Why live out the rest of your life? You know how it ends.
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Old 25-03-2013, 13:16   #7
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

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I have never seen the 1990s movie Titanic. Why would I? I know how it ends, and the charming Kate Winslet disrobes in plenty of other movies.

Titanic happened 101 years ago. It was the space shuttle Challenger of its day: immensely complex, made of inappropriate materials (brittle steel plate) using inappropriate techniques (riveting) and with insufficient materials data (where the ice limit was and the effect of a collision on not quite closed-off bulkheads, like "what happens when you freeze an O-ring" missing data that doomed Challenger.

I'm not sure if anything more can be learned from Titanic, other than people love to fetishize a disaster.

Endlessly. See "Marilyn Monroe".
It's interesting to compare the performance of the Titanic and the Costa Concordia. As far as I know, the two ships sustained quite similar degrees of damage, and the Titanic stayed afloat afterwards for considerably longer post-accident. She certainly stayed afloat for long enough to evacuate the ship - if she had had enough lifeboats. That is the fundamental design flaw.

From all this we could conclude that the design and safety of ocean liners has not improved at all in 101 years, except to increase the number of lifeboats onboard.
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Old 25-03-2013, 13:21   #8
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

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It's interesting to compare the performance of the Titanic and the Costa Concordia. As far as I know, the two ships sustained quite similar degrees of damage, and the Titanic stayed afloat afterwards for considerably longer post-accident. She certainly stayed afloat for long enough to evacuate the ship - if she had had enough lifeboats. That is the fundamental design flaw.

From all this we could conclude that the design and safety of ocean liners has not improved at all in 101 years, except to increase the number of lifeboats onboard.
Had the Costa not been grounded, tests have shown that she would have settled, remained afloat and developed only a slight list. The primary reason for her trouble ( again beside the nut at the wheel) is that she listed in shallow water and basically "fell" over.

Titantic sustained a longer gash, but lower average water intake per hour ( from what I read). Features like the firemans passage , were great safety compromises in steam ships like her. ( not to mention the huge boiler spaces)

Its not in any way comparable an Accident. Modern cruise ships are built to far higher and much more exacting standards. We have far more of them on the seas and they are far far bigger then Titantic. Deficiencies in the number of lifeboats and the nonsense of Women and children first ( which led to half empty boats) contributed to the disaster. ( as opposed to a structured zones approach which is now adopted)

Not to mention that there were 2000 on Titantic and over 4000 on Concordia, the vast majority were evacuated from the Concordia , even though the extreme list was far harder to handle then anything on Titantic


The Concordia sinking was primarily a giant failure of command, both during and after the collision, Titantic was a gigantic example of hubris. The tradegy was far far greater in that regard.

THere isnt a ship built that some nut at the wheel cant sink!

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Old 25-03-2013, 13:31   #9
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

The brittleness of the Titanic's steel was not realized until many decades later.
Welded construction didn't really come into play until around World War II -- and some early welded ships had some spectacular problems. Look at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, USA, for an example from the height of riveted construction, two decades after the Titanic.

The sinking had many contributing or aggravating factors, such as the Board of Trade not basing lifeboat requirements upon capacity, an apparently relatively ineffective rudder, lack of binoculars and gear for the forward lookouts, a design that didn't bring the water tight compartments as high as they could have been, and the lack of night time radio watch by many ships (in the infancy of radio when dedicated Marconi employees were used to operate wireless telegraphy equipment and radio was far from universal). The Titanic also operated in an era before we had life boat drills -- but even many years later we see crews and passengers who don't do well in real emergencies, even in the past few years.
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Old 25-03-2013, 13:38   #10
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

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The brittleness of the Titanic's steel was not realized until many decades later.
Welded construction didn't really come into play until around World War II -- and some early welded ships had some spectacular problems. Look at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, USA, for an example from the height of riveted construction, two decades after the Titanic.

The sinking had many contributing or aggravating factors, such as the Board of Trade not basing lifeboat requirements upon capacity, an apparently relatively ineffective rudder, lack of binoculars and gear for the forward lookouts, a design that didn't bring the water tight compartments as high as they could have been, and the lack of night time radio watch by many ships (in the infancy of radio when dedicated Marconi employees were used to operate wireless telegraphy equipment and radio was far from universal)
There is no evidence that the quality of the steel had anything to do with the accident.

Ships radio stations at the time , played basically no role in navigation, they were put on board to allow wealthy passengers communicate with the shore and radio operators at that time were not effectively part of the ships company. Only after the SOLAS convention was radio upgraded to play a part in navigation and safety. Hence there was no standard on radio watches once passengers went to bed.

Titantic sank as would have virtually all her peers ( and a good many boats today) becuase she side swiped an iceberg at speed . end of story ( and ship).

Her rudder was adequate for her size and she passed her sea trials,

Again titantic didnt sink because of her design. she sank despite it.

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Old 25-03-2013, 14:00   #11
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

I actually like seeing Kate Winslett naked in Titanic.
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Old 25-03-2013, 17:33   #12
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My GRAND FATHER was a engineering officer on the Titanic. Fortunately he was only on the delivery voyage from Ireland to England. This ship was state of the art for her time, just as cutting edge as a Boeing Dreamliner is today.

I read and watch everything I can on the Titanic. But the more things change the more they stay the same. Cost politics and profit still rule.
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Old 25-03-2013, 23:15   #13
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

WHOA! What have I started. I initially just wanted to get a laugh but I've opened a can of worms. Alas, I'll enter the boiling pot. As with all large disasters there is no 1 single factor that leads to it. In "my opinion" TITANIC was doomed before her keel was even laid down by the corageous & competitive designers and those wealthy folk paying the bills. The great Eastern, built some 50 years earlier had a double hull, unlike Titanic. The only section of titanic's hull which had a double skin was the keel to accomodate fresh water tank's. So here's my theory-1: Lifeboat numbers were cut to save cost and so as not to clutter the upper deck. 2: The supposed water tight bulkheads were not engineered to be full proof, they were modified however in OLYMPIC and BRITTANIC after Titanic sank. More lifeboats were also added to OLY' & BRITT' including huge davits which gave the crew the ability to swing boats completely over the ship (from portside to starboard ect), should the ship begin to list to either side. 3: The rudder was large enough (barely) but due to titanics centre propeller, it's performance was severely compromised if the centre prop' was not in use. 4: The design of the decks above the water tight compartments/water line were also poor as they consisted of large open spaces and long corridors. 5: Poor quality metals were used to construct the hull, namely the rivetts and without testing procedures in place they weren't to know. The other factor to consider is the bravado of those crew members of the day, including the captain. Their relative lack of experience with such a large ship and dealing with thousands of passengers, also the lack of appropriate legislation concerning large vessels in emergency situations. It is unfortunate that not much has changed in 200 years or so and we humans are still guided soley by the almighty dollar.
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Old 26-03-2013, 02:15   #14
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

Technologists seem to have endless discussions of the Titanic's metallurgy, construction, and physics as they relate to the casualty....

JOM Article on The Titanic: Did a Metallurgical Failure Cause a Night to Remember?

Metallurgists' Book Blames Rivets for Titanic Tragedy | LiveScience

http://www.rmutphysics.com/charud/sp...ic/titanic.pdf


'Another Rivetting Article...' - an Historical Rejoinder to Metallurgical Studies of the Titanic Disaster | Friedrich Newman - Academia.edu

The RMS Titanic 100 Years Later

https://sites.google.com/site/alleng...ossiblereasons

Titanic's Doom

Titanic Sinking Tied To Engineering, Structural Failures (DIAGRAMS)

How did the Titanic Sink? [Mechanical Engineering]
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Old 26-03-2013, 02:42   #15
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Re: Most inaccurate TITANIC doco' EVER!

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I actually like seeing Kate Winslett naked in Titanic.
I actually like naked ladies on boats.
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