Why did the Titanic sink?
Did the titanic really have to sink?

We all know the last hours and minutes of titanic.
From discovery channel, several movies, news etc.
Especially eyewitnesses who survived the event said,
“Titanic nose dipped, then broke in half, and sank within minutes.'

I have worked on ships before with sizes up to 1000tons only. Our job was unloading those ships filled with soybean. There I learned that loading and unloading a ship the wrong fashion can break even those 1000ton ships in half and sink them within seconds. We had captains jumping around in circles and shouting if we refused to move the crane forth and back as they wished. That only for the fear, the ship could break apart. Now reconsider, these are just 1000tons compare to the megatons titanic was.

So what happened in the last hours?
Titanic striped an iceberg and was sliced open on the length of I guess four compartments.
The compartments in the front.
The damaged compartments were sealed and no water could flow evenly from front to back.
The ship was loaded in the wrong fashion. Then nose dipped lifting its back out of the water.
The stresses on the ship were then big enough to literally snap the ship in half.
By that time titanic was only loaded with probably (eventually)  just one third of its full capacity.
Also it took several hours for titanic to come so far.

I had the discussion with one of my students and I challenged common thinking.
when there was a leak in the old times, the sailors tried to fix it.
But when any business gets to big, no one is responsible any longer.

My questions are;
Could they have opened the compartments, let the ship flood evenly and therefor keep it from breaking apart.
How big were the leaks? Was there a way to close them by pushing mattresses, furniture etc. from the outside. It could have slowed everything down at least.
“No that can't work”, was my students reply. So I took a plastic bottle punched a hole in it and dipped it into the water. With its top open of course. We counted the second 1-20 and it was full.
Then we did it one more time but this time put some wet paper in front of it.
The paper got sucked to the hole closing it up by 60 we stopped counting.
You might want to try and share your opinion.
Thanks

[edited: 2008-12-06, 02:03 PM CET by Admin]

Hi!

i've decided to answer your questions.

1)     No, they could not have opened the compartments, let the ship flood evenly and therefore keep it from breaking apart. The hull of the ship is designed in such a way to displace a large volume of water. This is because the buoyant force is equal to the amount of water displaced by an object. The more water displaced, the greater the buoyant force. If they had let all of the compartments be filled, the weight of the ship would be more than the water displaced by it. Therefore, the buoyant force wouldn't be able to keep it afloat. The ship would have sank.

2)     I’m not sure if you meant stop the leaks from the inside or the outside so I’ll answer both ways. They certainly could not have pushes furniture against the leaks to stop them from the inside. In your experiment, a small hole does not allow much water to enter per second. The Titanic, on the other hand, was taking on 700 tons of water per second. No mattress of furniture would stop that water or even slow it from entering the boat. As for the outside, the leaks were on the Starburg side under water. A mattress would have floated in the water and the furniture would have sank before anyone could get the furniture to the leaks. Besides, the people pushing the furniture against the leaks would have been sucked in too because the leaks were so large that a piece of furniture wasn’t going to cover it.

I hope that helped! Let me know if you’re curious about anything else.

Zitat: jenn


1)  If they had let all of the compartments be filled, the weight of the ship would be more than the water displaced by it. Therefore, the buoyant force wouldn't be able to keep it afloat. The ship would have sank. 2) The Titanic, on the other hand, was taking on 700 tons of water per second.

It's true that that was not the question. I'm sorry, i read incorrectly. Nevertheless, even if they hadn't closed all of the compartments and let the water flood evenly, after the first five compartments the ship would begin to sink. The front would go under first, no matter what. However, after the ship's front went underneath enough water, as we all know, the back would begin to rise. Given this information, the compartments out of the water wouldn't be able to take on any water. With the front of the boat under water and the back up in the air, the ship would have broken in have either way.

not exactly. accelarating would have made the water come into the boat faster. However, the water would still come into the front of the boat before the back, so it would have still pulled the front of the boat under water, lifting the back in the air, and split it in half.

Also, the compartments would only allow the water to move onto the next compartment once it could spill over the top because the safeties only went up to the E-deck. one compartment would have to be fulled completely before the next could be filled. Accelerating the boat would only make the boat fill faster. and like i said before, either way the front would be filled before the back. you get the picture.