Why Titanic sunk.....

[photodog]

Those plonkers have just order hard a starboard, and the guy on the wheel spun it hard to port!!!! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[photodog]

..OH now hes just odered hard to port and hes spun it to Starboard!!!!

Wallys /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[Dyflin]

Pay attention at the back there and try to keep up,

"In 'Titanic', why does the helmsman turn the wheel to port when the Second Officer gives the order 'hard a starboard'?

In the film Titanic, the Second Officer gives the order 'hard a starboard' when the iceberg is sighted; the helmsman then turns the wheel (and the ship) to port.

The reason is that in the British Merchant Navy, steering orders used to be given as helm orders, that is, as though the helmsman at the wheel was actually holding a tiller. So 'hard a starboard' would mean 'put your helm or tiller hard a starboard'. This would turn the ship’s rudder to port and so the ship would turn to port.

This all changed with the Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act, 1932, which came into effect on 1 January 1933. This brought the British Merchant Navy into line with the rest of the world so that from that date all steering orders were given as wheel orders, and 'hard a starboard' did in fact mean 'turn right'."

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.17878

 

[Norman_E]

The real reasons are complex, and concern both the design of the ship, its excessive speed in waters where ice had been reported, and the orders given when the iceberg was sighted. The Titanic had three engines, two triple expansion, to port and starboard, and a Parsons turbine driving the centre propeller. The turbine was actually the most powerful of the three despite taking exhaust steam from the low pressure cylinders of the wing engines, at or just below atmospheric pressure and exhausting it into the condenser. Crucially although the (inadequately sized) rudder was put hard to port, and the port engine reversed, the turbine was stopped. That latter decision rendered the rudder ineffective and doomed the ship. A sister ship under construction at the time was completed with a larger rudder. Another factor was the height of the watertight bulkheads. It has been suggested that a high sulphur content in the steel of the hull rendered it brittle in cold conditions and allowed a massive hull fracture to develop. I am not sure if this is correct however as I don't think that the exploration of the wreck has revealed such a large breach as had been suggested.

 

[halcyon]

They have collected a sample of the hull, and done a full check and found the plating ok. If I remenber correctly, it was the rivet joint failing due to rubbing along the iceberg. They did a programme on it the other year, including a reconstruction of how it sank, and broke up on the way down.

Brian

 

[photodog]

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I did not know that!!

See you learn something new here every day....

So If I yell at the missus to turn to port when I really mean starboard, I can always claim after the crunch that I was following the pre 1932 Merchant Marine tradition!

Ta /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Beadle]

[The reason is that in the British Merchant Navy, steering orders used to be given as helm orders, that is, as though the helmsman at the wheel was actually holding a tiller. So 'hard a starboard' would mean 'put your helm or tiller hard a starboard'. This would turn the ship’s rudder to port and so the ship would turn to port.]

My SWMBO still uses that system:

At least she does about half the time.

Completely directionally dyslexic.

God help us if we ever see an iceburg

 

[Lakesailor]

"We need to turn left" is a good everyday way to get a decent result.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

[ QUOTE ]
"We need to turn left" is a good everyday way to get a decent result.

[/ QUOTE ]

To which my dyslexic brain would ask, Which left?"

 

[Sixpence]

Ex wife used to give directions ( orders ) from the passenger seat until one day she told me to turn left , then once I had turned she told me I had turned the wrong way
Apparently she had her legs crossed ( nothing new there ) and her left foot was on her right so it confused her
Traded in as soon as possible for a better model with improved twin hulls as a bonus

 

[Norman_E]

I now remember seeing it, thank you. There was also a recent program which showed that Titanic's hull probably failed at a point where a superstructure expansion joint acted as a stress raiser.

For me the fascinating thing about this sorry event was to learn about the ship's engines and equipment from a US technical magazine that had obtained all of the original specifications. The most striking tribute to the relative efficiency of the turbine was that whereas the two vast piston engines used steam with a pressure difference between inlet and exhaust of well over 200 PSI, the centre turbine engine had only about a 15 PSI difference to use, yet was the most powerful of the three, despite also being physically much smaller.
Titanic and her sisters were some of a small group of hybrid steamships, built at the peak of development of the giant reciprocating steam engines that had grown in size and power from the dawn of steam traction, but also at the beginning of the turbine era. The Navy had already built all turbine battleships, but the merchant marine were constrained by the regular need for astern propulsion in port manoeuvres, The Parsons turbine could not be reversed and all turbine ships needed separate reversing turbines. It appears that commercial operators were rather conservative when it came to adopting new technology.

 

[AlJones]

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Alfie168]

My Grandad was a White Star Line Boiler man/Engineer. He ended up as chief engineer on MV Britannic on which he served from the mid 30s until well after the war. This was Britannic 3, a Diesel boat which replaced Titanics sister ship Britannic 2 which was mined off Greece in WW1 when she was a hospital ship.

Britannic 3 was broken up in 1960 at Inverkeithing, about a year after my Grandad died. I do remember him, but I was only five when he died..so never got the chance to ask all the questions I would love to have asked him about his life at sea.

Tim

 

[oceanfroggie]

Cause they made a hole in it.

Actually had they steered rather than putting her into reverse they might have missed or just holed a few stern sections, cavitating with no rudder effect was unfortunate, but I recon calling her 'unsinkable' was a big mistake and asking for trouble.

 

[Whitelighter]

Neither White Star Line or Harland&Wolfe ever claimed the Titanic or Olympic where unsinkable. The actual claim was that due to the design the new ships 'should prove to be almost usinkable'. To show that things never change, the press of the day decided to omit the 'should prove to be almost' from the headline and ran with the much more dramatic 'Unsinkable'.

As with so many things printed in the press, despite its inacuracy this stuck and is incorretcly attributed as a hard and fast claim made by both the yard and the line.

 

[Beadle]

["We need to turn left" is a good everyday way to get a decent result. ]

Nah

Its a 50-50 chance

I've tried left/right helm up/down lee.windward.

None work.

Odd thing is if you give her a course to steer she steers as straight as an arrow - better than I can do.

What would happen if she ever flew an aeroplane - up/down, left /right - the mind boggles.

 

[MarkJohnson12345]

It leaked a bit.

Like mine

 

[duncanmack]

Well I remember ma granny tellin me that her dad helped build the bloody thing. He wuz a french polisher. It's nae surprise tae me that lettin they forrin jonnies work oan a big boat results in it sinkin.
Wan thing a cannie understand but, he wuz born and bred in Glasgow - how could he be french? Naebody hiz ever explaned that tae me. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[fflakey]

Maybe he was a coarse sailor.

From the book by Michael Green...

A coarse sailor is defined by the author as "one who in a crisis forgets nautical language and shouts 'For God's sake turn left.'"