OT 15 April Titanic.

[Frank]

Many stories have come to us from the tragic sinking of the great ship The Titanic...some are not as well known as others.

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellman's mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the "Titanic" was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after New York. To date the largest shipment ever exported to Mexico.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about the stuff, were eagerly awaiting delivery and were disconsolate at the loss.

So much so thatthey declared a National Day of mourning which they still observe today. It is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

[Man-wai Chang]

... because there were not enough escape pods!

[krw]

It took 20 days for the news to reach Mexico? Incredible!

[Home Guy]

Again, how many times do I have to point out that the idea of making a raft is to stay above the water???!?!?!

If the boat is on an even keel.

I don't know if you noticed or paid attention in history class, but the boat began sinking bow-first. It made a rather shallow and easy entry point into the water from the deck about an hour after it hit the iceberg.

[krw]

Rafts *don't* stay above the water. Wood will only "float" about 10% of its weight. If you can't displace water you're not going to stay dry. ...but I wouldn't expect you to understand any of this, even after many have tried to explain it to you.

Those in the life boats didn't think it was very "easy".

It's truly amazing that you always have all the answers but none who were actually there did.

[Caesar Romano]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 01:51:41 +0800, Man-wai Chang wrote Re Re: OT 15 April Titanic.:

But there was plenty of room for Bruce Ismay. He was on one of the first lifeboats launched.

After the disaster, Ismay was savaged by both the American and the British press for deserting the ship while women and children were still on board. Some papers called him the "Coward Of The Titanic" or "J. Brute Ismay" and suggested that the White Star flag be changed to a white liver. Some ran negative cartoons depicting him deserting the ship. The writer Ben Hecht, then a young newspaperman in Chicago, wrote a scathing poem contrasting the actions of Capt. Smith and Ismay. The final verse reads: "To hold your place in the ghastly face of death on the sea at night is a seaman's job, but to flee with the mob, is an owner's noble right."

[Ed Pawlowski]

Not knowing the exact circumstances, he may or may not have done the right thing by getting off the ship. As a businessman, he may have save lives by getting the hell out of the way and letting the heroic crew do their jobs without his hindrance.

What he was guilty of was reducing the number of lifeboats.

"To accommodate the luxurious features Ismay ordered the number of lifeboats reduced from 48 to 16, the latter being the minimum allowed by the Board of Trade, based on the Titanic's projected tonnage."

May have been legal, but it certainly was not the right thing to do. The laws and thought process were certainly different in 1912, not just for ships, but for industry in all forms.

[RobertPatrick]

Caesar Romano wrote in news: [e-mail]:

hmmm, there is a different version here.

or

Seems that Hearst hated him. Hearst published that Ismay was at fault.

[Jules Richardson]

Hmm, didn't the Olympic (Titanic's sister[1] ship) have a similar (possibly identical) number of lifeboats? As far as I know, nobody kicked up a stink then; people weren't particularly worried about it until after Titanic went down.

[1] IIRC, some of the "Titanic" footage from newsreels and the like immediately after the Titanic disaster is actually of Olympic; the ships appeared more or less identical.

cheers

Jules

[HeyBub]

Well, there you are. Safety glasses, seatbelts, and the like wouldn't have done the Titantic passengers one sliver of good.

In retrospect, the crew COULD have over-loaded the lifeboats. On a calm sea, surely you wouldn't need the same freeboard as in 12-foot swells. Particularily since the crew knew, or should have known, that help was only a few hours away.

The RMS Carpathia acknowledged Titantic's distress call at 12:11 a.m. and made maximum speed (17 knots) from 58 miles distance. The captain of the Carpathia rousted a second black gang to stoke his boilers and turned off all heating and hot water on the ship to conserve steam. The Titanic sank at

2:20 am. The Carpathia arrived on the scene at 4:00 a.m., one hour and forty minutes too late.

[Ed Pawlowski]

In a practiced situation there would have been a lot of things done differently. There was probably no lifeboat drill like you have today (even that regulation was changed just a few months ago due to the Concordia). It was the first time for the crew on the ship and some confusion and panic on what to do with the boats.

The California was even closer, but the Marconi operators on the Titanic told the Marconi operator on that ship to STFU as he was interfering with their transmission. He shut down for the night after issuing a warning just before the Titanic hit the berg. Today, that would not happen that way, there would be radio contact.

>

[Ed Pawlowski]

On the Concordia, there was no drill yet. It was scheduled for the NEXT day. That is no longer allowed and must be done the same day.

Cruises don't interest me so I have no first hand experience.

[Kurt Ullman]

I haven't been on a cruise yet (both in the US and in Europe) where the drill wasn't completed before departure. Usually about 30 minutes or so before so we could have it, go back to the cabin, dump off our life preserver, and still have time for a couple of beers before the band started up on the pool deck.

[Jules Richardson]

[Attila.Iskander]

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.

That's nice. 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 ?

[Attila.Iskander]

Always easy to be a Monday-Morning Quarterback.

[Attila.Iskander]

And how many times do we need to point out that

1) It would be difficult to assemble a raft on a sinking ship 2) It would be difficult to float the raft from a sinking ship 3) It would be near impossible to get the raft away from the sinking ship, and thus not getting it sucked down WITH the ship 4) It would be nearly impossible to go from ship to raft without getting soaked. A soaking that would result in hypothermia in minutes, whether you are in or out of the water 5) Going unprotected into arctic water can case heart failure the moment you go in. It will also cause death within less than 10 minutes if you don't have special gear to keep you warm (gear that did not even exist at the time of the titanic)

And the part were the boat is sliding under the water a t increasing speed, is a place where there is so much suction that just about anything within reach will go under WITH the boat, people and UNMANEUVERABLE rafts included.

There is a huge gap between your ignorant theories and reality.

[trader4]

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?

[krw]

Why don't they just wait until they get back?

[Fake ID]

Their schedule made more sense given that the ship sailed a continuous loop and passengers would join and leave at different ports from one another.

OT: I wonder what on the Titanic would float. Empty wine barrels? Hot air baloon?

m