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A letter in The Times from an eminent naval architect triggered a thoughtful article in The Engineer on compromise, risk and safety following the Titanic disaster

The Titanic sank on 15 April 1912, and the subsequent enquiry by the US Senate was obviously of great interest to our predecessors: every issue of the following month contains articles covering the proceedings. One aspect where we sympathise with the editorial staff of the day is their despair over the coverage of the disaster in the newspapers: it seems that sensationalism, over-simplified reporting and inaccurate leaks were as much of an issue a century ago as they are now.
This particular article, which can be read here, discusses a letter published in The Times by Sir William White, who was a reknowned naval architect and former Chief Constructor at the Admiralty, during which time he was chief designer on 245 warships; he was also a consulting architect on the liner Mauretania, the fastest ship in the world until the launching of Titanic’s sister-ship, Olympic.
White, who had overseen inquiries into several ship losses, had written to The Times concerning the energy dissipated when the Titanic struck the iceberg, and the questions that raised over the engineering of the ship. This, he had said, was likely to be the most important consequence of the enquiry, rather than the issue of provision of lifeboats, which had dominated discussions of the tragedy — as indeed it still does.
‘The general public, impressed by a single idea, has clamoured restlessly for more lifeboats,’ the article said. ‘To it the only fact of importance is loss of life, and since in this particular case more lives might — we ask attention to the word “might” — have been saved, it demands more boats.’ But for engineers like White, it adds, attention should go in ‘other and better directions’, particularly how to avoid collision with icebergs altogether, and to ensure that if they do occur, they don’t sink the ship.
“The general public, impressed by a single idea, has clamoured restlessly for more lifeboats
This, it says, is a matter of compromise. If the Titanic had been going more slowly than its speed of 21.5knots, it would have had more time to steer to avoid the iceberg, and if it had hit, it might not have caused as much damage. ‘But that a modern liner should travel at so low a speed as ten or eleven knots for a whole night is inconceivable,’ it says. ‘It would not be tolerated; passengers would rather run the very distant risk of colliding with an iceberg.’
White had said — and The Engineer agreed — that the answer was to improve the water-tight subdivision of ships. The use of transverse compartments — that is, running the width of the ship — in the Titanic had obviously not worked; future designs should include longitudinal compartments, running from bow to stern, as well.
The Engineer agreed. ‘For ourselves,’ it said, ‘we would rather see the number of boats reduced to the minimum required for service, and the safety of the vessel itself raised to the maximum, than see a vessel below the maximum of safety loaded with boats.’
Thanks to the excellent work coordinated by Mr James Cameron, we now know two important things (not considered in this short story): 1.-The fact that THANKS to the Titanic’s transverse bulkheads, the ship conserved an excellent lateral balance and didn’t rolled over to the damaged side (just see how badly the much more “modern” and “advanced” Costa Concordia behaved, preventing an entire side from properly launching the life boats!) 2.-The fact that the PARTIAL height bulkheads allowed water to spill over, and therefore permitted the front half of the ship to become flooded and producing the tremendous breakage in two halves, that left less time before sinking than if the bulkheads would have been opened, allowing the water to more slowly enter the entire lenght and avoiding the breaking in two of the hull.
RMS Olympic was never, at any time, the fastest ship in the world. She was the *largest* on several brief occasions, but the entire purpose of her design was that you didn’t cross the Atlantic quickly, you had all manner of amenities/luxuries on board (Like, in third class, your own cabin rather than just a wooden bunk.) and this is what attracted custom in spite of the slower speed.
Different movies blame the speed, the size of the rudder the helmsman putting the engines into reverse whilst trying to steer around the iceberg and the shortage of binoculars, but that’s dramatisation.
There were two enquires. One in New York and the other in London. They both concluded that the fatal blow was that the bulkheads couldn’t take the pressure and burst.
At that point the chief engineer was rigging up some more effective vacuum lines to pump out the water quicker that it was spilling over into section, but when the bulkhead burst, they knew they had lost the battle.
No idea from where the above was quoting ref the helmsman came from, but the idea of the sailor at the wheel actually putting the engines to astern is quite false, he is just a sailor, though probably a specialised Quartermaster, that is someone who steers the course set by following a (magnetic ) compass bearing. The officer of the watch-and no doubt in the conditions at the time there would have been various other officers on the bridge-normally changed every four hours
Complacency is the root cause of this accident and that of the space shuttle Challenger.
Like the view that sensationalism by the then ‘meja’ drove events after the collission?
So nothing new there! When (and how) will and can true professionals [and may I include we Engineers in this group?] get rid of this malign influence upon too much of our affairs?
Add the completely technically barren politicians, influenced by the so-called ‘popular press’ (most Right?) and we have a perfect storm of frightening dimension?
Engineer, Titanic – & how about, Iceberg Calving Season, as recently reminded with the Big One approaching Newfoundland? Enough reason to take a longer route to the South, & to proceed with caution and better lookout.
Series of linked causes in this disastrous chain, not hindsight.
Amara Maafi: complacency the cause?
One of my clients at that time was the Co which carbonized viscose fabric(s) to create the material which became the nozzles, etc on the booster rockets. These were made by Morton Thaikol -and my links at my client knew the Engineers at MT well. They were not at all complacent about the “O” ring at low temperature issue: and had warned NASA and their own seniors et al repeatedly. They were over-ruled. I did have occasion to remind my clients -themselves deeply distressed at the episode- of what my Prof said during my undergraduate studies. “try to break Nature’s laws, and both detection and punishment will be immediate.”