The equipment and facilities were minimal, and key positions were outsourced! Was the Titanic destroyed by shoddy work?

More than 111 years ago, on April 10, 1912, the world's largest and most luxurious cruise ship, the Titanic, left the Ocean Terminal at Southampton, England, and began its maiden voyage to New York. This ship was the second of three Olympic-class cruise ships built by the British White Star Line, and was also the largest, newest, and most luxurious top-level cruise ship in the world at the time . It was reported at the time as "unsinkable."

Image source: Wikipedia

At 23:40 on the evening of April 14 (Sunday), the Titanic collided with an iceberg in the waters east of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and five watertight compartments began to take on water.

Two hours and forty minutes later, the "unsinkable" ship broke into two and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 3,800 meters. Of the 2,224 people on board, only 710 were rescued and 1,514 died - most of them were wearing life jackets and were frozen to death by the -2°C seawater within half an hour after falling into the water.

01

The confidence of "unsinkable"

One of the design highlights of the Olympic-class cruise ship is that it has 15 watertight bulkheads running across the hull, dividing the entire ship into 16 watertight compartments.

The design concept of the Titanic's watertight compartments

Image source: Wikipedia

These watertight compartments adopted the most advanced design at that time: the watertight doors were kept in the open position by friction clutches at ordinary times. Once there was a danger of flooding, they could be operated from the bridge to lower the watertight doors. Once the watertight doors were lowered, they could not be opened again from the cabin and could only be opened remotely from the bridge. Secondly, there was a float next to each watertight door. Once water entered the cabin, the float would rise and the watertight door would automatically close. Finally, there was a manual closing device next to the watertight door, which could be closed tightly by just lifting the lever lightly. Once the watertight door opening device was activated, the alarm would sound for a few seconds to warn the crew working at the location, and they could escape to the deck above along the steel ladder provided for such emergencies.

According to calculations by Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Olympic-class cruise ship, the Titanic and Olympic would not sink if any four of the 16 watertight compartments were flooded, or even if four consecutive compartments in the bow were flooded. However, in order not to affect the passage of passengers in the upper cabins, the watertight bulkheads were not installed to the top. The A and B compartments at the bow and the six compartments K, L, M, N, O, and P at the stern were all watertight only up to the D deck. The seven compartments C, D, E, F, G, H, and J in the middle of the hull even only extended to the lower E deck.

Titanic watertight compartment Image source: Wikipedia

Thus, once the number of compartments flooded exceeds four, seawater will overflow the top of the bulkhead and spread to other watertight compartments. In addition, there is a passage on the left side of the hull that is equivalent to two-thirds of the length of the entire ship, the "Scotland Road", which is used for internal passage of crew members and has no watertight doors. In the sinking of the Titanic, this passage accelerated the speed of flooding in other compartments.

02

Lifeboat: equipped according to minimum standards

When the Titanic was born, due to the rapid development of technology, in just over 20 years, the ocean liner suddenly became a behemoth of more than 300 meters, and various safety standards were still not up to par. For example, the idea of ​​lifesaving at that time was still to use lifeboats to transfer people to the rescue ship, so there was no need to carry a large number of lifeboats.

In 1894, the British Merchant Shipping Act required merchant ships of 10,000 registered tons or more to carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 9,625 cubic feet.

Titanic lifeboat in New York Harbor Image source: Wikipedia

The Titanic and its sister ship Olympic were originally designed to carry 62 lifeboats, but in order not to affect the scenery and vision of first-class passengers walking on the deck, the number of lifeboats on the Titanic and Olympic was configured in accordance with the minimum standards stipulated by shipping regulations. In fact, only 20 lifeboats with a volume of 11,328 cubic feet were carried. Among them, in addition to the 16 standard lifeboats stipulated in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, 4 foldable lifeboats were added, but it was still not enough to carry all the passengers and crew on the ship.

The original second officer of the Titanic was David Blair. However, before the ship set sail, the White Star Line transferred the more experienced first officer Henry Wilder from the Olympic to the Titanic as first officer. The crew of the Titanic was demoted one level, with the original first officer William Murdoch being demoted to first officer and the first officer Charles Lightoller being demoted to second officer.

When the Titanic arrived at Southampton from Belfast (where it was built) to prepare for its maiden voyage, David Blair left the Titanic and took with him the key to the cabin locker, which contained the only pair of telescopes on board that were assigned to the lookout.

03

Controversial outsourcing operators

Jack Phelps, the radio operator of the Titanic, was praised for sticking to his post and sending a distress message. However, his performance that night did not stand up to scrutiny.

In the spring of 1912, icebergs in the North Atlantic drifted particularly far southward. On the night of April 14, many ships in the Newfoundland Grand Banks stopped sailing after dark. The Californian, the ship closest to the Titanic, also stopped and waited for daybreak, and issued an iceberg warning to passing ships.

Jack Phelps was busy sending the previous day's backlog of expensive business telegrams for first-class passengers (at the time, all radio operators on ocean ships were employees of the Marconi Radio Company, not the shipping companies themselves, so sending commercial telegrams was their priority).

Titanic radio room Image source: Wikipedia

At that time, the Californian was very close to the Titanic, and the telegraph signal of the iceberg alarm was too powerful. Phelps' ears were almost deafened by the earphones, so he sent a telegram to the Californian's radio operator, "Keep out! Shut up! I'm working Cape Race!" So the Californian's radio operator turned off the telegraph and went to bed.

04

Braking and steering – a fatal maneuver

The Titanic received six iceberg warnings on April 14, but still maintained normal speed. At that time, regular cruise ships on the North Atlantic route signed lucrative mail delivery contracts with postal services of various countries - this is the origin of the name "mail ship".

The Titanic's name was prefixed with RMS, which stands for Royal Mail Ship. Usually only excellent, fast, large regular liners could sign such contracts - therefore, the captains of the mail ships at that time would put time arrangements as the primary consideration and strictly abide by the schedule. North Atlantic mail ships often traveled at full speed, and danger warnings were generally regarded as "suggestions" and did not require immediate action.

"Titanic" sinking picture source: Wikipedia

The Titanic's telescope was locked in David Blair's cabin. The lookout discovered the iceberg too late. After the bridge received the alarm, there were two options. The first option was to slow down and reverse at full speed, facing the iceberg with the bow, and then hit it. In this way, a watertight compartment at the bow would be flooded, and the passengers would be frightened during the collision, and some might even fall out of bed and get injured, but the ship would not sink. At that time, people generally believed that the risk of icebergs at sea was small, emergency evasion was common, and even head-on collisions would not bring catastrophic consequences.

Before the Titanic incident, the last time a mail ship hit an iceberg was in 1907, when the German mail ship Crown Prince Wilhelm hit an iceberg directly in the waters near Newfoundland. Two compartments at the bow ruptured and let in water (the ship had 17 watertight compartments, all of which were closed within 30 seconds after colliding with the iceberg), but it still arrived safely at the Port of New York.

The Titanic's second option was to turn the rudder to its full potential and accelerate to full speed, exerting the full effectiveness of the rudder and taking a chance to avoid the iceberg.

In May 1912, Titanic's sister ship Olympic conducted a sea test for the British investigation team to check how fast the ship could complete two turning points, in order to estimate how long it would take Titanic to turn after discovering the iceberg. Afterwards, according to the distance and forward speed of Titanic at the time, if Titanic had gone ahead at full speed and turned the rudder, it would have been very likely that Titanic would have gotten out of the way of the iceberg. But on the night of April 14, Murdoch, who was on duty on the bridge, panicked and ordered full rudder while ordering full reverse. In this way, Titanic finally scraped the iceberg.

In fact, the breach in the Titanic caused by the iceberg was not very large. The chief engineer of the shipbuilding company, Harland & Wolff, later calculated the total area of ​​the breach based on the water inflow rate and concluded that it was about 1.1 to 1.2 square meters. This view was confirmed many years later by the results of ultrasonic detection.

When the Titanic hit the iceberg, the steel plate was squeezed by the iceberg, leaving a very narrow crack, but the length was 91 meters. On the other hand, the small area of ​​the crack also proved that if the Titanic had turned the rudder 3 to 5 minutes in advance and maintained the original speed, the collision could have been avoided.

05

Titanic's Legacy:

Culture and maritime security

The sinking of the Titanic shocked Europe and the United States. The British Parliament and the US Senate formed special inquiry courts and investigation committees to conduct detailed investigations into the course and causes of this tragedy. Subsequently, countries quickly changed a series of maritime safety rules. First, the number of lifeboats must meet a basic principle - to be able to accommodate all people on board.

Secondly, the US government passed the Radio Communications Act of 1912, which required that radio communications on passenger ships must be turned on 24 hours a day and equipped with a secondary backup power supply to avoid missing distress signals. The act also stipulates that ships must maintain contact with neighboring ships and coastal land radio stations. In addition, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea stipulates that the launch of red rockets from ships must be interpreted as distress signals.

During the remainder of 1912, the U.S. Navy sent ships such as the scout cruiser Chester to conduct iceberg patrols in the Grand Banks area of ​​Newfoundland.

In 1913, the iceberg patrol mission was taken over by the U.S. Customs and Excise Department (the predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard). On January 20, 1914, the contracting governments signed the first version of the "Safety of Life at Sea Convention" (SOLAS). Under the treaty, the International Ice Patrol was established. This organization is a subordinate department of the U.S. Coast Guard and still detects and reports icebergs that may threaten shipping in the North Atlantic.

Image source: Made by the author

The Titanic disaster shocked the world and became an enduring cultural element in the West for more than a hundred years. Some writers, psychologists and literary critics believe that the sinking of the Titanic is "like a complete Greek classical tragedy". Writer Stephanie Barczewski described the disaster as "one of the most fascinating single events in human history". She also pointed out many factors that make the story of the Titanic sinking continue to be popular: "The construction of this huge ship symbolizes human ingenuity and ingenuity.

The destruction of the giant ship in its brief struggle with the forces of nature represents the possibility of human failure." Some historians regard the sinking of the Titanic as a sign of the end of the Western "Hundred Years of Peace and Prosperity" (1812-1912) after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and the beginning of the "real 20th century" - two world wars, turmoil, disputes, and massacres.

Author｜Salt Dip Science Writer

Review | Wang Hongpeng, Associate Researcher, China Science and Technology Museum