RMS Titanic: Fascinating Engineering Facts 

This is exactly how these type of videos should be made, no effects, no 'disaster' music in the background, just a guy who's passionate talking about something with real photos to show you, brilliant.

the color coding and highlighting on this video are top notch!

I worked as a shipyard carpenter in the 1970's and 1980's. Shipyard work is dirty, dangerous and fascinating! Imagine crawling in tight bilge spaces and ballast tanks, etc. I worked for General Dynamics Electric Boat Division, EB from 1977-1980 and Southwest Marine 1980-1981. Both were exclusively doing work for the US Navy. At EB, several workers were killed during my time there, an electrician was electrocuted because his helper didn't read the warning tag not to turn on components they were working on. Another guy was speared by an steel ladder that was inadvertently picked up by a crane moving down the dock tracks. A third guy was testing an 'escape trunk' with a spring loaded hatch that accidentally slammed shut on his head, and several guys died due to falls and objects falling on them from the heights of the boat while on the 'ways'. On working holidays, like Christmas eve and New Years eve, many workers would bring in alcohol and sip blackberry brandy with workmates as they pretended to be busily working. Lunch was an amazing experience. You had just thirty minutes to eat/drink and when the whistle blew and the huge main gates swung open, 7,000 guys would come pouring out onto the road bordering the yard. Many bars were ready and waiting across the street. If you walked into one, you'd see that the bar tenders had prepared hundreds of whiskey shots lined up and mugs of beer. There were also 'roach coaches' lining the street where you could buy pretty good food and a beer or two. I used to buy these hot pastrami sandwiches or this pepper steak. Usually, I'd wash it down with a tall Budweiser, or two if it was hot during summer. I learned a lot about life in those shipyards, the most important being that I didn't want to do this type of work anymore. I made a whopping $6.60/hour at EB and $10/hour at Southwest Marine.

this guy sure knows how to explain complexity to a lay person.

Video is a few years old, but this is exactly how they should be made. No 30 second intro, no horrible music, no crazy special affects trying to get the "wow" factor. The coloring of the different sections made it much easier to see! Great video sir.

The teasing is insane "I'm of course talking about the.. Olympia" "I'm of course talking about the... Britanic" He does it with such a straight face also :P

After all these years, an explanation for why old ships have black-painted hulls. Thanks!

my grandfather worked on the titanic. I was born in Belfast (1945) just 8 blocks from where the ship yards were. He told my mother many stories of the building of that ship.

"That ship was of course...The Olympic." Top 10 anime twists

"Less than a year after the launch of these two giant ships, one suffered a collision that ripped a gaping whole on its side. That ship was of course..." OOOH OOH I KNOW THIS IT'S THE TITANIC!!! "...the Olympic." B**** YOU TRICKED ME "The Olympic's sibling also suffered a traumatic blow that caused it to tragically sink." OOH OOH OKAY THIS HAS TO BE THE TITANIC!!! "I'm of course talking about the Britannic." Woooooow f*** YOU TRICKED ME AGAIN

Really enjoyed this, great job!

If this man was my science teacher, I might not have flunked the course in high school. He is making me listen and remain interested. Well done, sir!

2 TIMES SIR..... you fooled me 2 times. Lmao. The 2nd time I thought for sure you were talking about the Titanic. 😂Great video!

I just better say it now then never. Thanks god there is no music. And no cut out breathing. And no ADHD scene cut. And no hasty talking. This is just sooooo enjoyable!

Kudos to Bill and this video production. This is how an educational video is made....colorizing the parts for explanation on those old photos is brilliant!

Absolutely an excellent presentation and explanation of the inner workings of the ships. As a machine design engineer, myself, I can appreciate the level of effort put into 1. the ship and, 2. your presentation. Thank you.

"One ship suffered a huge impact, of course im talking about... " THE TITAN "The Olimpic!" Oh, yeah sure..... Then the sibling ship got a blow that made it sink, of course it was..." I KNOW!!!! THE TITANIC!!!!!! "The britannic!" Oh....

"That ship was, of course, the Olympic." Nicely done.

I've rarely seen a video which explains complex engineering in such a clear, easy-to-understand way. Bill definitely has a knack for this.

Very informative. And what a relief to hear someone talk about the Titanic without dwelling on the disaster. These ships were masterpieces of engineering of their era and deserve our respect and admiration.

5:04 5:57 Well played.

Cannot say enough about how nice it is to experience videos like this that are clear, concise, forethought, and articulate. No BS. Absolutely outstanding, thanks for posting.

One of the best videos on these ships that I've ever seen. It really demonstrates how amazing the level of technology in ship building had changed from the wooden sailing vessels of the Nineteenth Century to these massive steel ships of the early Twentieth Century.

Well done! The explanation is clear, and adding colour to the black and white photos to highlight the parts he is talking about is very helpful. Thanks for this video! Your explanation how the Olympic class ships’ engineering (design of the gears and boss arms, see the final minute) reduced vibration and thereby increased comfort, is very insightful.

"The Olympic class ships were absolute marvels of engineering, and I hope its for their revolutionary design, and not their failures, that their remembered"... now if only people would understand the same thing for zeppelin airships...

Wow, that was 11 minutes? I could have listened for hours! Fascinating!

Your forgot to mention that the Olympic has a naval combat victory to her name. She sank the German U-Boat U-103 by ramming during the war. She also attempted to tow a disabled battleship the HMS Audacious to shore but instead rescued her crew as the battleship sank only to get drawn into a cover-up about the whole incident. The Olympic had a super interesting career. Too bad most people only know it as the Titanic's sister. She was one of the greatest ships of her era.

Love this video, I worked as a apprentice engineer 1965/70 at yarrows on the Clyde Glasgow, brings back good memories of ship building and the scale of what you were working with, thanks

"That ship was of course .." Me: "the Tita-olympic , meant Olympic" *nodding knowingly*

The color highlighting does an amazing job of making the pictures easier to understand and recognize the parts the author is talking about. very well done

Exceptional video, seriously this was really enjoyable to watch. There were a lot of facts, but they were broken down so they could be easily understood by the audience. This is truly a great video to watch if you are interested in the Olympic class of ships. Your method of teaching is first class, and the ‘I am of course talking about the [any ship that’s not the Titanic] trolling made me laugh as well. Thanks so much for sharing!

The design & construction of ships and submarines is fascinating. I can't imagine all the planning and forethought that goes into making sure everything fits into the space given and functions fully. Thanks for putting this together, it shines a light on many aspects of these ships that needs it.

"I'm of course talking about the Brittanic." Engineer level trolling! ;)

this is great stuff... the history channel should hire you!

Thank you for an very, very well done video. Your technical explanations are much better than the average technical video on RU-vid. The overlays in colour on top of the photos are a tremendous help when you are explaining things.

I have to say the annotations/colouring/markings make everything very clear and concise. Love it

You have a perfect voice for a radio show or an audio book reader.

I am super proud to say, my great granddad worked on the Olympic as an engineer, he also was invited to the maiden voyage of the Titanic..he was late and missed it.

Love how you highlight old photos with important information. Really helps a lay person to get a sense of what they are seeing. I could watch videos líke this with the highlighted photos all day. Well done.

What a great video. 11 mins of information presented in 11 mins and all the better for the carefully selected original photos nicely colour highlighted. Thank you Bill for a lovely story and explanation

this guy fooled me TWICE

Fascinating details, and excellent narration as always. Thank you.

This was an excellent watch. I'll literally watch just about anything related the the Olympic-class liners and knowing just about all there is makes it easy for a lot of videos to feel like they fell short but there's something about how simple this was with literally no "pending-doom" music and no Celine Dion, as well as the enthusiasm in his speaking, that made this an absolute joy to watch.

I really enjoyed your video, it's the most detailed explanation I've ever heard describing the mechanical design of the Olympic ocean liners.

Man just imagine all of the blueprints and calculations done "the good old-way". No CAD, no spreadsheets, nothing. Absolute badasses! I would love to attend to a seminar from these guys!

This is what I call good workmanship regarding documentaries.

The graphics make everything so clear. The narration is perfect. This is the standard by which all informational videos need to be held.

Great video presentation! I've always tried to imagine how in the world the engines worked, and so on. This is the closest I've got to understanding that side of it. Thanks!

whoever does the colour highlighting on the images has a fantastic attention to detail... I bet they never drew outside the lines as a kid.

Too bad the Olympic was sent to the scrap yard. If it had been preserved it would have made an incredible museum ship. People could visit and see the engineering for themselves.

Totally awesome video! Love the format, rich content, friendly yet scholarly presentation. A+ to the Engineer Guy!

My Great Grandfather was the Marine Architect responsible for the turbines. Trained by Parsons (not sure if he remained one of their employees) he worked at Harland's until is "last ship" HMS Belfast, before retirement. World War II intervened and he continued to work until the end of the war. On a interesting side note, he was the official who signed off on Olympic's refit and return to civil use in 1920.

It might also be worth mentioning, that some pieces of furniture and first class staircase from the Olympic were acquired, and rest in a hotel here in England--White Swan Hotel. There's the "Olympic Suite", which is probably the closest thing one could get to experiencing what it was like on that class of ship. As someone with Aspergers, the Olympic-class ocean liners are a very special interest of mine. :)

My Great Grandfather was the Marine Architect responsible for the installation of the Olympic Class' engines. In 1920 he was the Chief Marine Architect who signed off on the Olympic's refit and return to civil service after the Great War

I know little about engineering but you made this very clear and straightforward, and more importantly genuinely interesting. I'd echo the comment of another watcher who appreciated 'no effects, no disaster music'. Excellent.

What a wonderful and amazing video! As an automotive engineer I truly appreciate the explanation on how the engine worked.

So RU-vid just put this in my reccomended. And i must say, the style of your video takes me back to my childhood days of Tv. Intimate discussion type shows for kids that don't have any editing flare or excitement. No music. No unnecessary attempts at entertainment. Just pure educational discussion. you and the host. Like something off of PBS. Instantly subbed. I look forward to more.

I LOVE HIS TROLLING!

One of the best documentations ever. Thank you so much, Sir !

i cant even begin to imagine how they made those huge gears

Can this guy read me bedtime stories?!

I don't know if you gonna read this, but I just want to say BIG THANK YOU... for everything, I enjoy every piece of your content...

Fascinating commentary and insight. Thank you for posting this.

I've long studied the Titanic saga and felt like I knew quite a bit until I watched this video. So much rich detail I didn't know which only makes me love it even more. It helps that I'm putting together the Titanic Lego set with my kids over the Christmas break so this makes me appreciate it more than I did previously. Thanks for sharing all this!

_"I hope it's for their revolutionary design, rather than their failures, that they're remembered."_ -- Bill Hammond *I think that ship has sailed, Bill.*

7:25 "S. S. Minnehaha" very creative name.

What a great video, I could watch these all day, they're never long enough for me. I especially love how the photos were enhanced with colors to show the featured elements being pointed out, great stuff. Nice job! I also think it's interesting that the Olympic had a full life and ran successfully for a quarter of a century, I think with the Titanic and Britannic we forget that the third sister didn't meet with tragedy. It's sort of ironic that the two that were lost at sea are still visited today, and the one that made it is gone forever without a trace to find today.

Thank you very much Bill for wonderfully explaining in simple language, in simple terms. Your video has cleared many of my doubts.

I love the mix of old photos with color coding in this video!

This was great. I am an Engineer and I can hardly even comprehend how they did this without the aid of computers and computer modeling. Incredible.

Absolutely fascinating and brilliantly presented. Thank you for this innovative and entreating way of disclosing these engineering complexities.

Well done Bill! I can truly appreciate what was a technological marvel back then! Thank you for keeping it simple and putting things in layman’s terms. I’m grateful somebody took the time to take pictures during the construction phase and give us an idea of the magnitude of these parts with people beside them, but also the revolutionary inventions for greater safety,less vibration, a smoother ride, and overall striving to make it elegant, comfortable, and affordable for almost all classes back then. Kudos to all who dare to dream and somehow orchestrate an idea to become a reality. I’ve toured a steam locomotive, built in the mid 1950’s as well as an experimental submarine built around the same time. It all started with a single idea. I will never understand what it took to put a man on the moon. Thanks again Bill for a job well done!

"One ship suffered a collision which made a hole in its side. That ship, was OF COURSE...." Me: THE TITANIC! "...The Olympic." *Illusion 100* "The Olympic's sibling suffered a traumatic blow, which caused it to sink, I'm OF COURSE talking about..." Me: The Titanic? "...The Britannic." *Destruction 100*

Extremely well-produced video. A proper human voice, & no stupid music. How refreshing, thank you.

Thank you for making everything easy to understand. Using color to highlight the parts you explain helped a great deal.

Brilliantly narrated to sound fascinating. These engineers are to be applauded creating such magnificent feats of engineering. Well done and thanks for posting 👍😊

At last! An item about the Titanic that presents facts rather than myths.

I enjoyed watching this on an Internet website. I am, of course, talking about... Vimeo.

Yes Brad M is right - a fascinating presentation. I was interested to read elsewhere that White Star Liner Olympic had completed 257 round trips across the Atlantic, transporting 430,000 passengers on her commercial voyages, travelling 1.8 million miles between 1908 and 1935. The ship's chief engineer commented, "I could understand the necessity if the 'Old Lady' had lost her efficiency, but the engines are as sound as they ever were".

I was in Belfast last year and stood where the great ships were built was so amazing and the shipyard Museum is fun and informative..

I've said it numerous times now. The Olympic class ships were not a flawed design as some believe to this day. The Titanic disaster happened because of a series of poor decisions and unfortunate events. Titanic was state-of-the-art at the time, and prior to the Olympic Class, ships of their size were unprecedented. The lack of understanding of the nuances of handling ships of this size resulted in the Hawke incident, and the Titanic's near-collision in Southampton. The fact remains that the Titanic stayed afloat for 2 hours and 40 minutes after hitting the iceberg, and stayed stable and mostly level during that time. Modern ships have not faired as well in similar circumstances. Thomas Andrews' design saved lives that night.

Fantastic piece of history. This is the best video on the actual building of Titanic and Olympic iv'e seen.

I love the way you color all the photos to make the details pop! Thanks for this.

It's amazing to imagine the amount of engineering work that went into designing a ship like this back when they had absolutely no help from computers, not even simple calculators. All the calculations that had to be done by hand...oh man.

Stumbled across this video somehow. Unbelieve presentation and narration. Kept me intrigued throughout the whole video. Subscribed immediately and have begun watching others. Great work and explanations on topics!

This was such an educational piece and so well put together. I loved the flow and learned so much detail..I always knew these ships were marvelous, from sketch to craftsmanship, it is wondrous how man was capable without CAD and power tools. I could watch two hours of this material!

I don't know how I came across this video, but it was just great. Thanks for a professional and insightful lesson!

11:00 - those paint patterns were commonly used on war ships as disruptive camouflage. It makes it a lot harder to get a visual reading of the ship's heading and speed, making it harder to aim torpedoes. Once radar became available, it stopped being so useful.

Bill. Well done. I'm a professional engineer and historically tough to impress, but your use of color, topic, engineering issues, and mix with history is absolutely perfect. I am more than impressed, enough so to adopt our approach and re-use it. Great job. I also am always watching for ideal choice engineering history videos for an academy of gifted students that I mentor and your video series just became their favorites. Thanks. Dr. Vogt

Calming and edifying. I particularly like the use of color to highlight the parts being featured. Well done.

This was one heck of an interesting video. What made it really cool was the colored highlighting of the various components and their position and importance in the construction of this vessel.

The technical details and engineering is RIGHT on point, and I'm speaking as a marine engineer. I've heard the "fore boss arms" called spectacle frame, with the individual shaft supports being called the boss arm. THIS GUY is how the television specials should be narrated, How it's made, Mayday and all those other channels dumb the story down to a level where it's not even interesting anymore!

As with the Olympic class ships, a great deal of forethought, planning, and work went into the production of this video. And we can see the result here in this high quality video. This sets a very high standard for the rest of RU-vid.

Right on the point. Perfectly edited. I love those colorful highlights. Thank you!

What a fantastic piece and so professionally presented. Thank you the illustrations were wonderful. Cheers

Sir, you are an absolute joy to listen to. Keep up the good work!

9:03 I have been obsessed with Titanic for nearly two decades. I completely missed that the central screw could not move in reverse. Upon you telling me this I immediately went to the iceberg collision scene in Cameron's Titanic and I'll be goddamned they actually got that scene right.

My Grandfather was a bread delivery man in Belfast while these ships were being built. They were by far the tallest structures in the city at the time, towering over the humble terraced homes of the men who built them.

Its amazing what humans can do when they put their minds to it .Even 100 years ago

*"They said I could become anything... So I became a submarine"* -*S.S Titanic*