Have you heard about Sail Away? It's the cruise magazine written by cruise lovers, for cruise lovers! Subscribe today for £3.95 every two months! sailawaymagazine.com/cruise-magazine/
That large piece of the Titanic's hull that was recovered and restored is now on display at the titanic exhibit at the Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas!
Really interesting video! Never knew that White Star went after crew’s families afterwards looking for money, that’s awful. Could listen to Dr Stephen talk for ages :)
Lusitania and Mauretania were also built with the condition of being commandeered by the UK Government in time of war. Mauretania served as a hospital ship, and I believe a troop ship. Lusitania was kept in passenger service during which time she was tragically torpedoed and sank. However the story continued through the Olympic Class liners and then with the Aquitania. Aquitania was the final product of them all one could argue, not to mention that she never sank and served in two world wars.
Murdoch didn't give the order full astern, that's an inaccuracy of the movie which people now believe to be true. Cameron did that in the movie to make the scene more dramatic. Only 4th officer Boxhall who wasnt on the bridge at the time claimed it. Where as the people working in the bowels of the ship at the time of the collision claimed an order of full stop. He ordered full stop and hard to starboard which to be honest at the time he could probably have done no more. If he kept the engine ahead and the ship hit it would be far harder to explain why he didnt attempt to slow.
Boxhall testified that the engines were set to astern. Even if what you say is true, “all stop” is the wrong order as you’re basically cancelling out your rudder. A rudder is almost useless if you have little water flowing over it. At the proximity the iceberg was observed, they never would have stopped in time, therefore such an order was fruitless. Whether it was all stop or full astern, it would have inevitably resulted in a substantial reduction in rate of turn, resulting in Titanic making contact with the iceberg.
A good interview, debunking some of the myths such as unfairly attributing blame solely to the captain, when in reality his actions needs to be seen in context. And nice to see my website being credited :) But a couple of inaccuracies that need to be clarified - there was no full astern order. Modern historians now accept that it simply did not happen so is not a factor. Secondly, we do not know this was going to be Captain Smith's final voyage. While he was on the cusp of retirement there was no date confirmed - he may or he may not have retired after the maiden voyage, we simply do not know. So it is incorrect to state it was intended to be his final voyage.
My superhero from childhood - Stephen Payne! Very interesting statement regarding the Forepak Tank and Boiler Room 5. I also think that Titanic came very close to not sinking. Thank you for the insights!
I had actually read that if all the boilers had been lit from the beginning, achieving full speed out of England sooner, she would have dodged the ice pack, or at least met it in the daytime
@@jkephart4624 hum, yes - but Lightollers made some pretty horrible war crimes and refused a lot of men to board on lifeboats even though they were seats available for them and no one else around to pick them up
The thing about lightoller he interpreted the order women and children first as women and children only. He let boats go with empty seats while refusing men to board. This added to the death toll. That being said it is difficult to comprehend the scale of the situation in front of them that night.
@@adam5707 That’s true, but apparently he was a man that considered that men should die or fight for their life as heroes or with bravery instead of surviving so easily at such a disaster
@@adam5707 and Lightoller knew the ship broke in 2 and lied about it and many other things. He should have also went down with titanic like his shipmates,, coward like Ismay
16:30 ---- I don't know if you're familiar with "Ghosts of the Abyss" by Charles Peligrino, but he has an interesting theory about the timing of the moments leading up to the collision (which he worked out with none other that Walter Lord himself). Peligrino calls it "Boxhall's Walk", and it may be summarized thus: At 11:40pm, Fourth Officer Boxhall was making his way along the starboard boat deck toward the bridge when he heard the three bells from the crows nest; by his testimony he was "alongside Mr. Ismay's boat" when he heard the bells (ie, Collapsible C, which lay on the deck next to the forwardmost- davits). He testified that he quickened his pace toward the bridge and felt the shock just as he stepped onto the bridge. The distance between Boat 1 and the bridge is about 40 feet. My 97 year old grandmother wouldn't need 37 seconds to walk 40 feet; Lord and Peligrino estimated that a 28 year old officer like Boxhall would need 8-10 seconds to cover that distance at a "quickened pace". Add to that the fact that Fleet testified that he was still at the telephone when he felt the impact - he was either still talking to Sixth Officer Moody, or at the very least hadn't yet hung up the phone. That timing matches perfectly with the 8-10 seconds needed for Boxhall's Walk. What it all means is that, for all intents and purposes, the Titanic was in allision with the iceberg within moments of the bells sounding -- there was no time for steering, or engine orders, or any other decision-making. The Titanic hit the iceberg in precisely the same attitude as it was in at the moment it was spotted.
Titanic was the first ship with balcony staterooms. But, when comparing to her Cunard rivals, there are certainly areas where Cunard wins in terms of several public rooms, imo, but, where the Olympic class liners really outshined ALL of their competitors, was the scale of deluxe cabins and suites. Lusitania and Mauretania (even later Aquitania) had nicely appointed suites, but they were narrow and TINY in comparison. Standard first class cabins on Olympic class weren’t necessarily huge, but they were larger, and their suites were HUGE in comparison. Still to this day, the size of the suite bedrooms are larger than modern cruise ship cabins.
Great interview! IMHO I believe turning her at full engine thrust may well have resulted in a worse disaster. Given her enormous inertia, a collision seemed impossible to avoid at this point. A slightly harder turn may have merely caused the side-swipe nearer the stern end, resulting in a much quicker sinking, given the combined weight of the engines and incoming water at the one end. Whereas in the actual sinking these two forces were more in balance, slowing the progress of the water over the bulkheads & therefore slowing the sinking. Her best chance ironically may well have been to hit the berg head on
In my opinion the pumps should have been able to keep number 5 compartment under control. They did not order all hatches and portholes closed. They took way too long to rig the hoses to keep 5 dry. Andrews did not think outside the box either. Captain Smith was useless and not in command. They could also have put the ship in reverse and traveled towards the other ships lights. This would have caused a small suction at the bow and slowed the waters egress. All tables and wood products could have been utilized for the construction of small rafts with the aid of the vests to get people off as well. Many passengers were pulled from the water clinging to floating objects. A life vest would have been useless with the person in the water. But straped to an upturned table , would have been able to keep a person pretty much out of the water, increasing the chance at rescue. Not a whole lot of common sense was on display that night. Either by the crew or the passengers.
Never knew they made them pay for their own uniform, then made their family’s pay for them afterwards, but I guess that was the time back then. Could you imagine if cruise lines did that now
It’s not the wearers fault that they died. I can’t understand how they could come after a grieving family for debt cash. Maybe wait for it all to settle and give them space before harassing them
Back then, before unions became very strong labor laws were so different that favored the company so much, that back then if you worked in a factory, and you had an accident and lost your arm in a machine, the boss would sue you for damaging his machine!
The contractor for Titanic's band members tried to do the same thing by demanding their families pay for the lost instruments. Though if I remember correctly that company did drop those demands once they became known and caused public outrage.
If there is something I hate is these commercials placed within the video, which interrupt the narrative. And most of the time they are about products I have no innterest in.
I thought Britain helped build Lusitania and Mauritania because they agreed they would be alternative cruisers for war. Never heard of the fear of JP Morgan. Murdoch knew he couldn't stop but by stopping the engines, hoped to slow enough in case they hit head on.. going a lil bit slower would be better I guess
Thanks for watching Jonathan. With regards to Lusitania and Mauritania, I agree with you, I believe it was a factor. With Murdoch, I believe this was a classic example of the wrong decision in a panic. By stopping the engines, he made the rudder ineffective, as the rate of turn would have plummeted.
There was a case raised at the enquiry post the Titanic sinking that had she hit head on she'd of survived based on the evidence of a previous smaller ship that had a head on collision with an iceberg alongside the recent collision of HMS hawke with Titanic's sister Olympic. I said years ago on a Titanic page that Murdoch made a crucial error by ordering the engines to stop due to the centre propeller stopping caused the rudder to lose thrust. The reaction wasn't pleasant dare I say 😮.. Nonetheless glad you said it. Titanic was a fine ship for the day and whilst it's easy to criticise and even condemn her builders and designers, it's clear to see that no ship at that time could've withstood the level of water coming in as well.
Hello Tony, thanks for watching. You're right for mentioning it. As someone that has studied marine navigation, and Stephen with his wealth of knowledge, it was a flawed decision - but one which was made in a panic no doubt.
Might be a pit picky since this podcast is so informative and well made. But at the 31:53 mark, thats not the californian that was near titanic that night. The actual californian was a 1902 commissioned 1 funneled merchant ship. I really hope you have more interviews with stephen coming up! :)
You are correct about Californian. Thanks for watching, as a columnist for Sail Away Magazine, there will be plenty more articles and videos on the way.
I understand the logic of this decision. Given Titanic scraped along the side, even a slight increase in the rate of turn could have made a positive difference
Still won't change anything. Reversing the engines approximately takes 1½ minutes. It's estimated Titanic only had about 37 seconds after spotting the iceberg. One or both engines, they wouldn't have reversed it in time to take effect.
@@gokulgopan4397 yes but the engine would have begun to at least slow down and thereby added higher percentage of thrust to the starboard side pushing it into the turn faster.
@@sc1338 hardly, the problem with that age was believing that technology Trump mother nature, we can do amazing things with technology, we definitely can, and we should do more, but we also have to make sure we don’t get arrogant about it. The minute we think we have it figured out, we don’t.
Final thought, I’m not trying to drag Captain Smith through the mud for his lack of actions after the ship struck the iceberg…BUT…people often argue that he was still a good Captain and did his job well, I see no proof of that. None. Every surviving officer and crew member who assisted in the loading of boats and evacuation, had to ask Smith for their orders, often initiating their own orders and asking permission. Further proof, look at Captain Rostron. The man was coming to assist, but he COMMANDED like a leader. Every single detail was accounted for, with urgency, and he was barking orders left and right. Smith, imo, went into shock and became useless. He was not a leader that night. And, while I think he was a noble man, he was the wrong person to be in command of a sinking ship, when it needed someone to take command.
Look at the Costa Concordia captain by comparison and some of these other cruise ship captains that sank their ships and you will see what a truly bad captain is. Could Captain Smith have done a better job? Sure, but how many would have done better. He still put the passengers before himself as he did not survive the sinking. He did the best he could under the circumstances.
Concerning the six bulkheads that were compromised: it's been my understanding that after the sinking, Harland and Wolf determined that Titanic could have stayed afloat if the first four compartments were compromised to the ocean. This would include the forepeak tank. Thus, wasn't Titanic doomed when boiler room 6 was breached? The few inches into a coal bunker in boiler room 5 was just ancillary and flooded slowly. Has any of the calculations done taken into account that it was only the self contained forepeak tank in compartment 1 that had flooding, and not the full compartment itself?
Great discussion here ! Due respect to all officers and crew aboard the RMS Titanic. I've long held the belief that the collision with the iceberg would not have happened but for the "standing wave" condition created by shutting down the central propeller at the ships rudder while the wing propellers were at full reverse. Whether my understanding of the physics involved are right or wrong, I'm glad to finally hear others discuss this possibility. Also, a question, is it true that an outer thrust bearing is missing from one of Titanics wing props ? If so, while reducing the ships ability to slow, is it on the side that would've, perhaps, ultimately aided or prevented the ships ability to turn in time or made little to no difference ? I thoroughly believe that the Olympic class liners were indeed the most sophisticated, advanced, and safest of that time. I find zero reason to fault the technology given the accepted seafaring science of the time of their design and construction. Again, great job guys !
The reasons why Titanic is still so spoken of over a hundred years later is, like the sinking, a accumulation of coincidences. It is not the ship herself that sparked the interest as such, I mean Olympic had a career until the 1930's and we didn't save her, so there has to be another reason for it. Firstly the book Futility, which came out a few years before Titanic and which describes the sinking of a ship very similar to Titanic in size which didn't strike an iceberg but sailed onto an iceberg, slid to her side and immediately went under. only a few people survived who were on the or near the bridge, with the daughter and a sailor landing on the iceberg and the mother dropping in a lifeboat with some officers. The maiden voyage was actually the return trip towards England. it was rewritten only weeks after the sailing to be extremely similar and lost a few of the simple plot lines. Secondly the fact that the richest people in the world were on board and died. only because of the crash of 1929 did their names come up again as Both Rockefeller and Astor would have been able to steer the economy in a better way, or so they thought. Some even state that if Titanic would have arrived the USA would never had gotten involved into WW1 at all, even after the sinking of Lusitania because of these people. It's identical as a avalanche destroying Davos while the summit is being held there. it is inconceivable, but it sparkled a lot of imagination as to the coincidence that Titanic was loaded with these people. Thirdly, oddly enough thanks to The Nazi's who made a movie about the sinking and which blamed it all on the greed of the British and Americans. The models of the ship and the sinking sequence was so good that it was later used in a Night to Remember. The West had to rectify the image of themselves and save the Titanic and it's passengers as good people. Which a Night to remember did marvelously, and it created a new interest, far more realistic this time. Fourthly 'The last voyage' and 'the Poseidon Adventure' came, two movies about liners who were on the end of their lives., aging and sank. But with the last voyage it was a happy ending with nearly everyone surviving (tat and the use of the Ile the France as a set and actually sinking her) and the Poseidon adventure was a great adventure which omitted the views and panicked harsh reality of drowning to make place for adventure and thrills. Finally in the 80's hardly anyone talked about Titanic, and if she wouldn't have been found she would today be half forgotten as James Cameron would not have made the movie, too much information was missing for his story. But James Cameron is to blame for the still current hype. The movie was so realistic, the sets made us dream, we don't build interiors like that anymore. Since the movie our interest to the Gilded Edwardian age has only become more and more pronounced. in the 1970's Upstairs Downstairs was about the gilded age but it didn't fair well. it was considered old and stuffy. however Cameron made a shining shimmering glowing masterpiece of it all and we wanted more. Upstairs Downstairs was reinvented in early 200's, Then Downton Abbey came, the Gilded Age, Sherlock Holmes was taken out from under the dust and steampunk was given it all a look of extra romantics in Atlantis, the league of extraordinary gentlemen etc... The times of Bram Strokers dark and gloomy Edwardian age from Dracula were over. enter the shining spotlights, light colorful fabrics and elegance to no end. everything was shiny and new in the gilded age and art deco and modernism started slowly to fade into the background. and now enter Bridgerton, the Georgians with even more colors and romance, but this time in a setting of "what if Queen Charlotte was indeed from African decent) yet all her kids are white as snow!!! Our interiors are now again going towards the regency revival with daring colors, goldleaf and silverleaf are used again in interiors etc... you see the Titanic is still relevant today as it is the last piece of quasi tangible history we have about that age of elegance. when you go to a old mansion you can see the interiors, and that's all pretty, but it's the actual seeing of what it was like, those elegant dresses and tuxedo's, white tie, jewelry etc... that sparks our imagination as well as the inventions and advancements in that period. So today we actually live in a similar period that the Gilded Edwardian age and, unfortunately for us all, history will repeat itself, so it will all end and slow down after a great war. Our progress since the late 1990's is comparable of the progress the Victorians and Edwardians had between the 1870's and 1910's. We lived in an age of fast change, but now there is a new King, The second Elizabethan age is gone, we are now in the King Charles age, someone who is far more restricted in the public view, just like Kind Edward was in 1901. to come out of the shadow of a great Queen is hard. after the first Elizabethan period we had the 30 year war, the next time of relative peace was only when Victoria was on the throne, this was followed by 2 world wars and economic depression and then we had the second Elizabethan era which is now followed by the second Caroline Era. Yet through whatever problems will come in the future, the magic idea of the gilded age, the romance and the dreaming will always bring us back to Titanic. It will become a myth, like Atlantis, over the years information will get lost and destroyed, stories will be retold and adapted and in the end we will have a story of hope and despair. oh yeah, the gilded age period is also linked to the creation of modern archeology, so it is funny that the people who perfected archeology are the same people who have the most famous archeological site in the world due to their era. Only Pompei can claim to be even more known in the world, though that is another debate.
They wouldn't have avoided the crash of 29. The Federal Reserve was established and shortly after WWI the US Government and Fed encourage loans and subsidization to boost the Capital Goods Industries. After the two punch blow of the Great War and Spanish Flu. This lead to price collapses, stock crash and bank runs. Because well over production. More goods were produced than there was demand. Which should be good for consumers but it was capital goods not toasters. So Steel, Oil, raw materials etc. Once subsidization ended, loans were due combined with falling prices business and banks were heavily effected. US banks lended more capital than they had thanks to the Fed who well loaned to those banks to encourage more loans. The Weimar Republic alone owed more to US Banks and the Federal Government than all the entire Gold Reserves in the US. That's how much we were lending just to one foreign government let alone private businesses.
@@Alte.Kameraden True, in this timeline, but you forget the political power these wealthy men had and their political views on public finances. The world would have been a different place. the USA would most probably not have entered WW2 as both Rockefeller and Astor were not keen on Europe at all! Their heirs had quite different views, hardly any political influence and were losing money by the buck load by that stage. It's a bit like Musk, Buffet, Gates etc... these days. they have a huge impact on politics in the USA and with a snap of their fingers things could change a lot because of their lobbying. Bush Senior government buckled to get production outsourced to Asia, decimating the US industry by the time his son was in power. Clinton wasn't any beter as he pushed it even more towards China as the country needed money, meaning higher dividends meaning lower production cost (which should have been good for the economy) It is also the period where Davos started to get more and more influence on the world economics and politics. No WW1 (for the USA, even after Lusitania), No Spanish Flu (since that not only started in spreading in the USA shortly before WW1 and WW1 simply created the ideal vehicle to spread around the world extremely fast due to thousands of soldiers cramped on ships and in trains.
@@olivierdochez4141 Just saying Federal Reserve was new, and no one realized how much Federal intervention could negatively effect the economy. It was new territory. It's sadly a lesson not learned as parties responsible have blamed everything else including the Gold Standard which we were not even obeying anyways so it's a strawman. If we were obeying it then we wouldn't have lended more capital than we had to lend. It's a good sign we disobeyed the very standards we theb blame for the crisis. Ironically.
Excellent presentation, just a couple of points for consideration. Given the speed of the ship (she and everything on board moving at over 20mph) and the size (nearly 60 ft above the water) and composition of the iceberg a head on collision and the resulting impact damage and human injuries would have been extremely serious and possibly catastrophic. Turning away would have seemed the best and most natural option and as discussed in the presentation the ship very nearly didn't sink, the turn away came that close to saving her. With regard to the distress rockets, eight were fired and were observed by the officers on watch in the California beginning at approximately 1:00 am. These white rockets were reported to Captain Stanley Lord, who despite the British Board of Trade's provisions, did nothing. The officers of the watch on Californian believed there was something wrong with the ship firing rockets. At no time was the idea of the rockets being passenger entertainment considered by the Californians officers, and it appears that the concept has come about over the years. The issue of the rockets and the involvement of the Californian in the disaster have been well document in Daniel Allan Butlers book, The Other Side of the Night.
we know what happened by trying to skim by the iceberg; at the very least hitting it head on would have allowed the ship to remain afloat. OR float for a much longer time; maybe enough for Carpathia to get there and California to wake up. This way, the radio would have kept going.
@@johnhallett5846 Yes indeed, certainly lots of possibilities to consider. I suspect that given the information at hand, the use of AI, a good marine engineer might be able to create a plausible simulation of a head on collision. That would be interesting to take a look at and certainly fuel more discussion. With the impact of a head on collision, one has to wonder about the damage caused to the propulsion system, internal structure (operability of watertight doors) and the wireless system itself (not known for its robustness in 1912) and of course the people needed to operate these systems. All to say a head on collision would probably have resulted in a sinking, but the immediate loss of life would likely have not been on the same scale as the actual event.
@@ianmacdonald7277 Actually I disagree about the probable sinking. You would have to have lost watertight integrirty past bulkhead #4 to sink the ship. Not really likely at all. now the shock damage to the ship would have been massive. BUT at the same time the noise of that impact might have gotten the sleepy California woke up. Not to mention they could see the titanic and that would have looked a lot more odd then before. I doubt that everything would have been knocked out; though it is possible the radio could be. But those are all might be's and we know for a fact that what was tried failed terribly.
I strongly disagree with the statement at 17:31 that Murdock made the mistake of the putting engines full to stern and turn. By only turning and still keeping it full speed like this guy is saying, I personally think that the ship would've hit the burg harder creating larger gashes if not larger holes and potentially hitting other compartments further aft of the ship, flooding the ship faster and sinking before a good portion of the lifeboats ever got launched. Cause the ship isn't going to turn better going full speed, the ship is massive its going to drift right into the burg.
Your understanding of how a ship manoeuvres is wrong. A rudder is only as effective as the amount of thrust flowing of it. With no thrust, the rate of turn would plummet. By keeping in full ahead, the rate of turn would have likely been double, meaning that would have missed the iceberg in time.
@@sailawaymag I don't know, that's a massive ship going really fast that we're talking about here. I see what you're saying because that does work for smaller vessels. If that works for larger ships How come the Costa Concordia wasn't able to take sharper turn to avoid the rocks?
@@mattmiltenberger145 Costa Concordia is different. She hit rocks because the captain chose to take the ship off of her passage plan into uncharted waters. I've studied nautical science and marine operations, trust me, her rudder would have been a fraction of as effective with no thrust flowing over it. Rate of turn increasing with thrust, that's a fact! It's linear.
@@sailawaymag Forgive my skepticism but can you give me an example of a ship that large that can turn that suddenly? Maybe link me something? Cause again, what you're saying makes sense for smaller ships, but It doesn't for something as big as The Titanic? Also I'm not trying to argue here, I Just like examples and sources being sighted other than the whole "trust me bro" type of approach.
@mattmiltenberger145 why doesn’t it work for something as big as Titanic? 🤣 Can you explain to me how a rudder works without thrust, I’d love to know! I don’t understand the skepticism at all. I’ve steered plenty of ships comparable in size to Titanic. 5 degrees of helm at ‘slow’ and you get a very small rate of turn. 5 degrees of helm at ‘full’ ahead can be substantial. You’re strongly disagreeing without merit or understanding of how ships actually manoeuvre.
It’s fair to say the Titanic sinking saved lives later on. The Queen Mary slowed down in thick fog on her maiden voyage and arrived late, purely because of safety being forefront, which Smith didn’t do.
