Ship's Design

“Sinking of the titanic”

By National Geographic

Researcher Caleigh Deyer

Abstract

The titanic left on April 10th, 1912. with every one of their safety rules, the titanic was so called “unsinkable.” But on April 15th it sunk from hitting an iceberg. Killing more than 1500 passengers and crew members. The titanic had 16 watertight compartments and it could not sink if only 4 of them flooded. But after they hit the iceberg, 6 of the compartments flooded, the bulkheads, walls that are meant to keep water from getting to the rest of the ship, were not tall enough to hold the water in the flooded compartments. In two and a half hours the titanic sank. There was only 28 lifeboats when there should have been 40 if they wanted to save everyone on the titanic, they thought it would make the passengers worried and feel unsafe on the titanic if they saw so many life boats. Hundreds of people died of hypothermia in the freezing cold water.

Notable Quotations

“While it was sinking the Titanic radioed to other ships in the area but was only able to reach the R.M.S. Carpathia which was 93 kilometers (58 miles) away. The Carpathia arrived about four hours later at 4:00 a.m., to rescue the estimated 705 survivors”

“The Titanic's owners and the British Board of Trade thought that having too many lifeboats on deck crowded the deck and would make people believe the ship was unsafe.”

Revealed: Titanic was Doomed Before it Set Sail

by The Telegraph

Researcher Joshua Andrews

Abstract

Rushmore and the team who were in the project. Said that a ship has very small little angel changes sometimes, but the Titanic broke at a small angle. Ships experince this by large waves and threw storms. So maybe the Titanic wasn't designed strongly enough. So for sure it would have been broken by a hurricane. They also put expansion joints which were at the bow and stern. Studies say that it was poorly designed and thats why it broke at a shallow 10 degree angle.

NOtable quotations

“Rushmore DeNooyer, who led the project, said: "Titanic broke at a very shallow angle, yet ship's experience shallow angles like this in storms, when they are tilted up by large waves. So perhaps Titanic wasn't designed strongly enough. If the force that broke it was no greater than the force it would have faced in a hurricane, ergo, it could have been broken in a hurricane."

“The team also found parts of the rearmost of the vessel's two "expansion joints" - fitted near the bow and the stern - which were supposed to allow the hull to flex in heavy seas. Analysis, however, suggests that they were poorly designed and may have contributed to the ship breaking up at the shallow 10 degree angle.”