Sinking of the Titanic

[DrmDoc]

Your own linked engineering review says nothing about a fire weakening any part of the ship, and it shows the six slits opened up by the ice, all well below the water line, which have been established by modern accurate sound mapping of the wreck.

 

If you reread my initial comments in my previous post, you will see where I wrote that those engineering links content were from sources published "prior" to the I article I linked in my original post at the start of this thread. As I further conveyed, that original article suggested fired played a role more significant than what may or may not have been included in prior engineering reports.

 

There is no mention of any hole above the water line, and in any case, that would be irrelevant to the sinking

 

 

It's inconceivable that a gash that stretched 300 ft. from below the waterline to above that marker would not be "relevant to the sinking." Nevertheless, according to this engineering review link I provided, "the Titanic sideswiped the iceberg, damaging nearly 300 feet of the right side of the hull above and below the waterline [Gannon, 1995]." I suggest you have another look.

 

The fire theory really is not supported by the facts.

 

 

From the article in my original link: "Journalist Senan Molony, who has spent more than 30 years researching the sinking of the Titanic, studied photographs taken by the ship’s chief electrical engineers before it left Belfast shipyard.

 

Mr Maloney said he was able to identify 30ft-long black marks along the front right-hand side of the hull, just behind where the ship’s lining was pierced by the iceberg.

 

He said: “We are looking at the exact area where the iceberg stuck, and we appear to have a weakness or damage to the hull in that specific place, before she even left Belfast”.

 

Experts subsequently confirmed the marks were likely to have been caused by a fire started in a three-storey high fuel store behind one of the ship’s boiler rooms. A team of 12 men attempted to put out the flames, but it was too large to control, reaching temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius."

 

Apparently, according to that article, there was indeed some evidence suggesting a sustained, high temperature fire.

 

As far as materials go, the sister ship of the Titanic was in service for many years, surviving numerous collisions, including being hit by a warship, and ramming and sinking a UBoat.

It's materials were what was commonly available at the time.

 

 

Which further suggests some unique circumstance surrounding the Titanic's sinking...a high temperature coal fire, perhaps?

 

If the fire was so intense as to weaken the hull, you would think that the cabins immediately above it might have got a bit warm.

There's no mention of any of that in any of the history.

 

 

According to the originally linked article, "Officers on board were reportedly under strict instruction from J Bruce Ismay, president of the company that built the titanic, not to mention the fire to any of the ship’s 2,500 passengers." This appears to provide a plausible explanation for the absence of any fire references in Titanic's history as you've concluded.

 

And I'll say again, there is no way that steel plate, with the entire Atlantic ocean on the other side, just 3cm away, could reach any temperature much above freezing.

It's actually likely that the cold made the steel more brittle, not high temperatures.

 

 

If Titanic's sister ship was built of the same material and sustained comparable impacts amid comparable ocean temperatures, as your comments seem to suggest to me, why didn't it sink? All I'm suggesting is that if the information in the original article is as credible as it seems, then it is indeed likely that an extraordinary fire event contributed significantly to the sinking of the Titanic--in my opinion.

Edited March 26, 2017 by DrmDoc

[mistermack]

I think what was unique in the case of the Titanic, is that it was a gigantic iceberg that it hit.

It was an unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object, and it was the fabric of the hull that HAD to give.

The berg wasn't going to move, and the ship was just too massive to stop.

 

No matter how good that hull was, it had to give way. Fire or no fire, it simply was not built to withstand those kinds of forces.

 

The Moloney guy was typical of obsessive people who build a case out of nothing. Everything is interpreted one way.

To pursue an agenda for 30 years does that to people. Objectivity goes out of the window.

[mistermack]

Just in case anyone's interested, there's a documentary on 4seven in the UK in ten minutes time, on this very subject, so I'm going to record it and watch it.

Could be very convincing, or a load of hooey. It seems to be about the fire theory.

Eight O'clock, Tuesday, 4th of April.

 

Don't know about repeats.

[mistermack]

Typical one-sided documentary, totally lacking in balance.

Once the fire had been mentioned, it was subsequently always described as "raging", with no evidence to support that whatsoever, when bunker fires were common on steamships at the time, and due to the lack of oxygen, were more likely to smoulder than rage.

 

But even the documentary didn't try to claim that the hull would have overheated or been weakened. They were talking about one of the internal watertight bulkheads, that they were trying to say gave way due to weakening by the fire, causing more flooding.

However, the sonar studies done show substantial rips to the hull, opening up five of the watertight compartments. She could only cope with four, and it was realised very quickly that she was going to sink. The most that could be claimed is that she sank a bit quicker because of the fire, but that is highly debatable.

[Country Boy]

IF THE TITANIC REALLY HIT AN ICEBERG WHY WERENT ANY ICEBERG PIECES FOUND AMONG THE WRECKAGE???

Found among the wreckage? Ice melts!

[DrKrettin]

Found among the wreckage? Ice melts!

 

Just how near do you have to be to detect irony?

[DrP]

Depends on the strength of the magnet!

[Jim S]

Irony magnets could come in handy sometimes.