OT 15 April Titanic.

harry wrote:
 

I thought it was too big to sink.


I always found it strange that there wasn't enough wood or other
light-weight materials onboard that could have been scavanged to make
ad-hoc rafts or other floatation aids.

Weren't there enough bathtubs in the staterooms that could have been
used as one-person mini-boats?

I can possibly agree with the wood theory, but removing tubs, plugging
drain holes and getting them launched is quite the fantasy.  

Weren't the tubs of the time heavy metal things that probably would have
just sunk like a rock anyway.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

My guess would be badly damaged as in torn apart and traumatized. Other
wise they probably would have been talking about decomposition.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

Lots of hungry fish in the sea.

Charlie

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
 

The ship was carrying lots of cargo, so I'm sure there would have been
lots of wood crates, etc.


I'm sure the tubs had plugs or stoppers as standard equipment.

And I'm sure there were plenty of axes and other tools on a ship like
that.

And I think the staterooms were on the upper levels of the ship (not far
below decks).

And I think there was enough time to hack or break out the tubs (didn't
the ship take more than 2 hours to sink?).

And -> I would think there would have been enough life-or-death
motivation to make all this happen.

most passengers didnt believe there was real danger, after all it was
advertised as unsinkable, and it went down fast.

recent news said most passengers thought it was safer to stay onboard

Wow, if only you were aboard, no lives would have been lost.
Considering this took place 100 years ago and you've never seen the
ship, you sure made a lot of suppositions.   What wee the tubs made
from?  Used to be cast iron, but on the ship, I have no idea.  

On 4/14/2012 9:12 AM, Home Guy wrote:

another major problem is that the situation was downplayed until the
latter minutes and no one actually thought she would sink.

--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email

Sounds like the Costa Concordia all over again.

m

The only problem is that survival in arctic waters is a matter of a couple
of minutes
Most if not all of the people who ended up in the water, went down a few
minutes later.
    Hypothermia is a very fast killer
    http://www.startribune.com/local/146536735.html
 

"Attila.Iskander" wrote:
 

What part of "finding enough wood or other junk to use as a raft" don't
you understand?

I can't believe the number of people that don't understand the concept
of assembling a pile of floating junk to sit on during the 3 to 6 hours
that the survivors in lifeboats had to wait until they were picked up.

The Titanic hit the iceberg at 11:40 pm, and the stern went under at
2:20 am.  The first survivors were picked up at 4:10 am, and the last at
8:30 am.

For the others here that claimed that "people stayed on the ship -
believing it wouldn't sink" - ya, well, when the bow is so low and about
to go under, and you've got maybe an hour to make a crude raft, do you
still think that people on the ship are still thinking that the ship
won't sink???

  I can't believe that you would think that would work given the fact
that it isn't fact that people were killed by drowning, but rather by
the cold. How is one supposed to get to the floating junk but swim to
it? Even if it was right next to the ship, how do you traverse the space
between the top deck (or any other deck you could get out of) and stuff
in the water? You think you could rappel maybe?
    Then if you could get past that hurdle, if you are sitting on a
whole bunch of flotsam and jetsam, how do you keep it from sinking from
just the addition of your weight?
    


   The timelines don't indicate anywhere near enough to time to do that
after it became that apparent.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

Kurt Ullman wrote:
 

(put a blank-line between the lines you're quoting and your first reply
line to make your reply more readable)


The ship was easing itself slowing into the water bow-first.  There was
plenty of opportunity to assemble a crude raft on deck and then ease it
into the water with you sitting on it.

Even if you get wet, as long as you stay above the water you can easily
survive 3 to 6 hours.


That depends on what you can get for your raft.  I don't know how much
cork, life-rings, life jackets, maybe even buoys they had on the ship.
 

It took what - 2.5 hours between hitting the ice and going under.
Plenty of time to scavange the ship if you KNOW that you're not getting
into a life boat.

And the lights stayed on until about the last 2 minutes.

Always easy to be a Monday-Morning Quarterback.
 

wrote:

Geeez, if HG wants to play the coulda, woulda, shoulda,
game, long before building life rafts, they could have
just made sure all the life boats were filled to capacity or
beyond.  Most went off only partially full, nowhere near
capacity.  That would have saved hundreds of lives for
sure.

Even if you did have some kind of personal life raft
made out of whatever you could find, just a little
bit of thought would suggest that getting it into the
water with you would have been another story.
Before the boat sinks, it's 50ft or more from the
deck to the water.  With the boat going under, you
would think that with all the debris being kicked around,
water turbulence, etc, launching would be problematic.
How do we know that some people didn't try that
but it didn't work?

Unless you stay warm AND DRY, which is very hard to do on ANY kind of raft,
your odds of survival are low.



The problem is not to be sitting, it's how you get to be sitting without
being immersed or soaked in arctic waters.


But not really relevant.
Many that made it into the boats,  didn't survive those few hours.
How do you think that people sitting soaking wet on a raft would do  ?



 

On 4/14/2012 9:43 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

The comment did come from someone who lives in fantasy land...

On 4/14/2012 8:43 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

there was plenty of stuff to grab onto not to mention they had on life
vests.  The main problem was the 29 degree water.  A person only last a
few min at that temp even if they are in good shape.

--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email