FAQs
(Speculation)
Why didn't the builders extend the watertight bulkheads higher up inside the hull? Didn't water flow over the tops of the watertight bulkheads, one after another, until the ship filled with water and sank?
Several trade-offs had to be made in the design of passenger steamships for reasons of economic viability. The designer had to compromise between watertight integrity through internal subdivision and freedom of access for passenger comfort. The Great Eastern, launched in 1858, was probably the ultimate example of true watertight subdivision (in addition to 15 transverse watertight bulkheads and a double hull, she had one longitudinal bulkhead that created a total subdivision of 32 compartments), but the multitude of bulkheads made it nearly impossible to move freely with the passenger accommodation area.
Walter Lord best explained the rationale to slowly abandon the safety examples set by the Great Eastern:
But the engineers did not have the last word for very long...the perfect ship was no longer the vessel that best expressed the art of the shipbuilder. It was the ship that made the most money...Passengers demanded attention; stewards could serve them more easily if doors were cut in the watertight bulkheads. A grand staircase required a spacious opening at every level, making a watertight deck impossible...Stokers could work more efficiently if longitudinal bulkheads were omitted and the bunkers carried clear across the ship. A double hull ate up valuable passenger and cargo space; a double bottom would be enough...One by one the safety precautions that marked the Great Eastern were chipped away in the interests of a more competitive ship...When the "unsinkable" Titanic was completed in 1912, she matched the Great Eastern in only one respect: she, too, had 15 transverse bulkheads...But even this was misleading. The Great Eastern's bulkheads were carried 30 feet above the waterline; the Titanic's, only 10 feet.
The Great Eastern, though a marvel of safety engineering and a survivor of two major disasters, was never a financial success and spent only 5 years of her life as a passenger liner. The largest ship in the world spent her final years moored in Liverpool as a floating amusement park and billboard. This lesson was not lost on other steamship companies. Given the fierce competition of the late 1800s-early 1900s for transatlantic trade, it was not possible for any steamship company to sacrifice speed or comfort for guaranteed safety and survive economically. Trade-offs had to be made and with a remarkable run of half a decade without a major disaster at sea, the issue of safety eventually fell under risk management.
The builders at Harland & Wolff incorporated many safety features into the design of the Olympic-class ships, while maintaining their economic viability. They had two seemingly conflicting requirements for their design – provide for first-rate passenger comfort, while exceeding all existing and anticipated safety requirements. The internal subdivision for Titanic is one of the results of their efforts.
As stated elsewhere, the force of the impact and length of the damage sustained in the collision with the iceberg doomed Titanic from the outset. Five compartments were completely opened to the sea during the collision and it would not be long before the hydrostatic head would overcome the weakened bulkhead separating Boiler Rooms 5 and 6. The loss of buoyancy represented by the flooded compartments began to pull Titanic down by the head, allowing the sea to find new sources of ingress into the hull. When the forecastle and forward well deck went under, deck openings (such as the Nos. 1/2 and Bunker hatches) allowed water to enter the hull and flow longitudinally along the non-watertight C and D decks. Titanic almost reached a state of equilibrium after the damaged compartments filled completely with water, but the rate of flooding increased again once the laden weight of the bow pulled the forecastle and well deck openings under the surface of the sea. Downflooding into undamaged watertight compartments from the non-watertight decks then progressed through openings cut for ventilation, cabling and personnel access. The smooth manner in which the ship settled during the first two-and-a-half hours of flooding belies the popular misconception that first one compartment filled up, then spilled water over the top of the watertight bulkhead to fill the next compartment aft, and so on. The rate of flooding increased dramatically when Boiler Room 4 filled with water.
After the inquires into the Titanic disaster had run their course, the work stoppage on hull 433 was lifted and work begun anew, albeit with major changes in the new ship's design. One of the most significant modifications incorporated was the extension of 5 of the total 15 watertight transverse bulkheads in the centre of the ship all the way up to B deck (the remainder went up to E deck), dissecting much of the First Class accommodation. Even with the increased subdivision, though, Britannic sank in much the same manner as Titanic– with her head pulled down by the loss of buoyancy represented by the flooded compartments, water found its way aft into undamaged compartments through multiple deck and hull openings (of which open portholes played a significant role). Even if Britannic had survived to see service as a civilian passenger liner, it is quite possible that because of the inconvenience inflicted by the increased subdivision, she would not have been as popular as Olympic among the affluent passengers that the White Star Line specialised in catering to. Decreased revenues can be just as fatal to a liner as a collision with an iceberg or a German mine.
Shouldn't Murdoch have aimed the ship directly at the berg? Wouldn't it have been better to crush the bows and trust in the collision bulkhead to keep the ship afloat, rather than risk exposing the side to longitudinal damage that opened multiple watertight compartments?
Aside from the fact that deck officers are trained to avoid hazards at sea, the speculation that Titanic's First Officer should have aimed for the berg carries with it no guarantee that the ship would have survived the impact had he done so. Famed Polish-born English novelist Joseph Conrad (who, incidentally, was an accomplished seaman and held a Master's certificate) provided some witty yet insightful comments on the idea of ramming the berg in his 1912 essay Some Reflections on the Loss of Titanic:
I am well aware that those responsible for her short and fatal existence ask us in desolate accents to believe that if she had hit end on she would have survived. Which, by a sort of coy implication, seems to mean that it was all the fault of the officer of the watch (he is dead now) for trying to avoid the obstacle. We shall have presently, in deference to commercial and industrial interests, a new kind of seamanship. A very new and "progressive" kind. If you see anything in the way, by no means try to avoid it; smash at it full tilt. And then – and then only you shall see the triumph of material, of clever contrivances, of the whole box of engineering tricks in fact, and cover with glory a commercial concern of the most unmitigated sort, a great Trust, and a great ship-building yard, justly famed for the super-excellence of its material and workmanship. Unsinkable! See? I told you she was unsinkable, if only handled in accordance with the new seamanship. Everything's in that. And, doubtless, the Board of Trade, if properly approached, would consent to give the needed instructions to its examiners of Masters and Mates. Behold the examination-room of the future. Enter to the grizzled examiner a young man of modest aspect: "Are you well up in modern seamanship?" "I hope so, sir." "H'm, let's see. You are at night on the bridge in charge of a 150,000 tons ship, with a motor track, organ-loft, etc., etc., with a full cargo of passengers, a full crew of 1,500 cafe waiters, two sailors and a boy, three collapsible boats as per Board of Trade regulations, and going at your three-quarter speed of, say, about forty knots. You perceive suddenly right ahead, and close to, something that looks like a large ice-floe. What would you do?" "Put the helm amidships." "Very well. Why?" "In order to hit end on." "On what grounds should you endeavour to hit end on?" "Because we are taught by our builders and masters that the heavier the smash, the smaller the damage, and because the requirements of material should be attended to."
And so on and so on. The new seamanship: when in doubt try to ram fairly – whatever's before you. Very simple. If only the Titanic had rammed that piece of ice (which was not a monstrous berg) fairly, every puffing paragraph would have been vindicated in the eyes of the credulous public which pays. But would it have been? Well, I doubt it. I am well aware that in the eighties the steamship Arizona, one of the "greyhounds of the ocean" in the jargon of that day, did run bows on against a very unmistakable iceberg, and managed to get into port on her collision bulkhead. But the Arizona was not, if I remember rightly, 5,000 tons register, let alone 45,000, and she was not going at twenty knots per hour. I can't be perfectly certain at this distance of time, but her sea-speed could not have been more than fourteen at the outside. Both these facts made for safety. And, even if she had been engined to go twenty knots, there would not have been behind that speed the enormous mass, so difficult to check in its impetus, the terrific weight of which is bound to do damage to itself or others at the slightest contact.
And again in Certain Aspects of the Admirable Inquiry Into the Loss of the Titanic, also written in 1912:
With ludicrous earnestness he assured the Commission of his intense belief that had only the Titanic struck end-on she would have come into port all right. And in the whole tone of his insistent statement there was suggested the regret that the officer in charge (who is dead now, and mercifully outside the comic scope of this inquiry) was so ill-advised as to try to pass clear of the ice. Thus my sarcastic prophecy, that such a suggestion was sure to turn up, receives an unexpected fulfilment. You will see yet that in deference to the demands of "progress" the theory of the new seamanship will become established: "Whatever you see in front of you – ram it fair. . ." The new seamanship! Looks simple, doesn't it? But it will be a very exact art indeed. The proper handling of an unsinkable ship, you see, will demand that she should be made to hit the iceberg very accurately with her nose, because should you perchance scrape the bluff of the bow instead, she may, without ceasing to be as unsinkable as before, find her way to the bottom. I congratulate the future Transatlantic passengers on the new and vigorous sensations in store for them. They shall go bounding across from iceberg to iceberg at twenty-five knots with precision and safety, and a "cheerful bumpy sound"--as the immortal poem has it. It will be a teeth-loosening, exhilarating experience.