Titanic Tragedy

[betlee]

Isn't it ironic that this article is in the April 2012 Awake! Even after all these years

ship captains still fail at their duty to the passengers!

The Tragedy

The captain of the Titanic, E. J. Smith, knew the dangers posed by ice in the North

Atlantic. He had often sailed this route in the Olympic. Several warnings of icebergs were

sent by other ships, but some of these were overlooked or apparently not received.

Suddenly the Titanic’s lookouts warned of an iceberg ahead—but too late! The officer on

duty managed to avoid a head-on collision but could not prevent the Titanic from scraping

along the edge of the iceberg. That damaged the ship’s hull—and the sea flooded into

a number of its forward compartments. Captain Smith soon learned that his ship was

doomed. He sent out SOS messages and ordered that the lifeboats be lowered.

The Titanic had 16 lifeboats and four other collapsible boats. At full capacity, they could

hold about 1,170 people. But there were some matters worse, many of the boats pulled away

before being fully loaded. And most of them made no attempt to search for possible survivors

who had leaped into the sea.

[Musky]

Another ironic thing is if the lookouts had not seen the iceberg at all they would have hit it head on and although badly damaged, the ship would not have sunk, or at least not that fast so there would have been time for the Carpathia to reach them. Only the first and maybe second sections would have collapsed and flooded, but with the 80 foot tear on the starboard side that "grazing" the iceberg caused, six of the water tight compartments flooded. Too many for the ship to remain afloat.

Woulda, shoulda, coulda!

[betlee]

TOO LATE!

[trottigy]

Musky, I was thinking the same thing. I wonder what would happen if it had hit head on. were they going fast enough to push it under? I bet someone has done an analysis of it. I will have to look.

[Musky]

I have done a lot of research on the sinking in the past and the general consensus is that it would not have sunk if it hit head on, or at least would have taken several days to sink. It is a fascinating subject.

[Hammerhead]

May have sunk even quicker. Back then they did not have the technology they do now for making steel. In water at near freezing the steel used back then was very brittle and could shatter like glass. A head on collision in the ice at 15+ knots may have sank the Titanic immediately with no survivors. Just my .02

[Musky]

May have sunk even quicker. Back then they did not have the technology they do now for making steel. In water at near freezing the steel used back then was very brittle and could shatter like glass. A head on collision in the ice at 15+ knots may have sank the Titanic immediately with no survivors. Just my .02

Yes, there is that, like I said, fascinating subject, one of many things we'll never know. Remember, "God himself couldn't sink her" LOL

[Aelon]

New CGI of How Titanic Sank

[germany1983]

Very fascinating video. They must have put an awful lot of time in to make that. And the research too! Thanks for posting.

[Aelon]

Here is an Interactive Map Of Titanic's Course and Passenger Records

http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/titanic/

[retroHelen]

The White Star Line was founded by Thomas Henry Ismay who was born in the town just up the coast from us - Maryport - where our JW Jah Jireh residential home is. Thomas started building ships at Maryport, but later moved his business to the larger port of Liverpool further south of us.Thomas Ismay's son, Joseph Bruce Ismay took over the White Star Line after his father died in 1899. Maryport, with the help of his great nephew, Clifford Ismay, who lives locally, is putting on a small exhibition about Titanic at Maryport harbour venue 'The Wave' with some reproductions of the rooms on the ship and some props from the James Cameron Movie:

http://www.itv.com/news/border/2012-03-26/titanic-exhibition-to-mark-maryports-links-to-vessel/

White Star Line Vessels usually ended their names with ....ic - eg Oceanic, Adriatic, Olympic, Titanic etc and their funnels were beige/pale yellow with black top. Some depictions give the Titanic red funnels, but red with a black top was the colour of the Cunard Line (founded in my hometown in the 1700's) funnels and their ship names mostly ended with ...ia eg Corinthia,Carpathia, Olympia. Cunard Line, now also in Liverpool, did eventually buy out the White Star Line but this was in the 1920's.

[Musky]

The color of Titanic's funnels has been debated endlessly for many years. since there were no color photographs, none of the many different arguments can be proven 100%.

http://titanic-model.com/articles/paints/WEBPAGE_Photographic%20Records%20of%20White%20Star%20Buff/White_Star_Buff_Weighing_the_Evidence.htm

[Áine]

The color of Titanic's funnels has been debated endlessly for many years. since there were no color photographs, none of the many different arguments can be proven 100%.

http://titanic-model.com/articles/paints/WEBPAGE_Photographic%20Records%20of%20White%20Star%20Buff/White_Star_Buff_Weighing_the_Evidence.htm

Musky am I right in thinking that one of Titanics funnels was purely for show and served no purpose whatsoever ?

Her last port of call was here from Cobh... then called Queenstown, the exhibition there at the moment issues you with a look alike ticket for the titanic... after you have walked around the exhibition you can check your ticket to see if you were one of the survivors...

http://www.titanicexperiencecobh.ie/

[Musky]

Musky am I right in thinking that one of Titanics funnels was purely for show and served no purpose whatsoever ?

Yes, funnel number four was just to even out the design. It did contain ventilators for the smoking rooms and the decks. There was also a fire ladder that ran from the boiler room to the top of the funnel. But It was mainly for symmetry. Mauretania and Lusitania (pretty much the main reasons why the Olympic Class vessels were conceived) had four funnels. White Star wasn't going to go one less! That simply wouldn't be cricket.

[retroHelen]

Yes photographs and paintings of White Star line ships don't give an idea of the colour of funnels because print colours rarely match real life. Artist's tints don't give true colour as they paint according to how light hits the object, so they allow for shadows and sunlight - pale when rising/ redder when setting and light buff is a weird colour to reproduce. Black and white photographs give no idea. Red was a different company colour though, so that is a definite NO-No! What my husband and I have is a collection of 70 ships bought at auction from when the Maryport maritime museum closed for a while. These models were special commissions for ship companies of the ships they were to build or had built or for ship officers, constructed by the company of Basset Lowke who specialised in these one off commissions (as well as lesser detailed metal and wooden kits for model-makers). Our ships are all early 1900-1930 including the White Star Line. My husband came home with a bag of bits with his large purchase and said: "Here you are. Enjoy!" So I have spent weeks trying to match tiny lifeboats and rigging, anchors and flags to which model they had fallen off at auction! Once they are fixed up we are getting display cases made for them as they had been left out wherever they were stored and developed a thick layer of dust and fluff and I had to carefully vacuum around them with a soft hair brush and the vac nozzle covered with gauze, so I didn't suck anything vital and I don't want to have to do that again in a hurry! My favourite model is of 'The Great Eastern' - the biggest iron-clad ship of it's time by Isambard Kingdom Brunel - Sail and paddle-steamer - and was used to do the vast task of laying Telegraph cable between here and America. My personal opinion as regards the colour of the White Star Line funnels, possibly used on the Titanic, based on the old wood and metal models we have is like the postcard:

The models we have are sister ships of the ships that just preceded the Titanic, Brittanic and Olympic and some smaller ferry ships that were RMS and White Star Line.Some models are in First War -wartime 'battleship grey' (when the ships were used as troop-carriers/hospital ships) so that's no help!

[Musky]

When we were working on James Cameron's version of "Titanic". we discussed many of the finer details of the ship. Cameron was obsessed with details and getting everything exactly right, as authentic as possible. Which added a fortune to the production costs. After the set was constructed in Mexico and we had already shot several scenes, he found out that the company that manufactured the original carpeting for Titanic was still in business, so he had all the carpeting on the Titanic he had built to film on torn out and we had to wait until it was replaced with carpeting from this company. The same thing happened with the dishes and a few other things.

When lowering the lifeboats on the set, he noticed that the lifeboat "digits" or small winches, didn't vibrate and shake like some survivors described it, so he had them removed and replaced with digits made by the same company that made them for Titanic at the same specifications and metal properties. He is a genius, but also very anal! LOL

He was fortunate that the movie did so well and vindicated his extravagant, over-spending!

[Greenfield]

Chuck, are you saying you once had a job having to do with movie sets?

[Musky]

I was a color timer in the film lab (CFI) that did Titanic and many other Cameron films. Sometimes we had to go to the sets to check lighting if we were getting color variations in the dailies (rushes). My Brother was head of the department and Cameron wouldn't do a film without him. Later on Technicolor bought CFI and we were moved to their location on the Universal lot. I left it in 2003 and since then Technicolor has all but shut down their Laboratory because of digital production replacing film. Many of my old workmates have lost their jobs because of it. Over 450! Just in Hollywood.

[rocket]

It would be nice if you received royality for your work, for every showing, just like the boys and girls who say the lines.

[Musky]

It would be nice if you received royality for your work, for every showing, just like the boys and girls who say the lines.

Yes, but that would never happen. Post-production work is largely ignored. It paid very well though, that is the only part I miss.

[Aelon]

http://www.smh.com.au/business/clive-palmer-plans-to-build-titanic-ii-20120430-1xtrc.html

[purplefan]

I live just round the corner from where the TITANIC Was built.

The dry dock is huge! And the new visitor centre is Great.

There is a lot of myth surrounding the Titanc.

The white star line NEVER claimed the ship was "unsinkable",

Also a sad fact is that when the ship was sinking and the with star line heard about it.

They fired all the workers on board so they would not have to pay them.

A lot of the crew who survived did not get any pay from the owners, and had to apply for

money through the disaster fund.

If you like i could take some photographs and post them

[rocket]

We love pictures. 600 X 600 max, 500 kb max.

[Hallett 82]

. . . . . Also a sad fact is that when the ship was sinking and the white star line heard about it.

They fired all the workers on board so they would not have to pay them.

A lot of the crew who survived did not get any pay from the owners, and had to apply for

money through the disaster fund.

100 years on and workplace ethics have not changed a bit!

The world is now watching while the mega-rich and powerful protect themselves at the expense of hard working people who got them to where they are.

[purplefan]

That is so true, it is incredible to think that one half of the world is rich while the other is starving.

Many in Africa work for Less than a Dollar a day, while the fat cat bosses sit in their ivory towers getting rich

of the sweat of others.

What an injustice.