Would Headlights have helped Titanic see the Iceberg?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- In this video I discuss the question of if the Titanic had headlights would it have helped the ships crew see the iceberg.
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Irony is if she had headlights, and the crew was unable to see the iceberg due to them, Titanic would have rammed the berg head on and likely survived the encounter.
Well the head on collision with the iceberg has been debunked as she would not have survived this either.
I had the exact same thought - headlights might have saved (most of) the ship and (most of) those aboard her.
@@nicksamios80 Has it? I thought it was the opposite and that it confirmed it definitely would have, because something similar happened with several other ships. The Olympic class liners were designed to take head-on collisions better than any other.
@@djjazzyjeff1232 The Theory hasn’t been debunked or proven because you can’t. it’s just speculation unless you remake the titanic, send it into the Atlantic at the same speed it was going, and hit an iceberg of the same size head on (which is obviously not a scientific experiment that is going to be funded nor thought of as a good idea). I think that titanic could’ve survived a head on collision with that ice berg, but I also think it couldn’t. There’s just too my factors that come in to play; how would the crew/bridge react, how would the passengers react, if carpathia makes it there at the same time it did will the ship still be floating? We just don’t know how it would all play out so it’s hard to say if nick or micheal is wrong In this comment thread. I do think that the biggest factor change that wouldve saved the titanic is (other than time of day and the mirage effect creating the false horizon line) if Cyril Evans the wireless operator of Californian would’ve stayed at work for a little longer that night so he could’ve fully noticed titanic’s distress calls, they were so close that it wouldve guaranteed survival of all passengers and crew on titanic. I don’t blame Cyril Evans, Jack Phillips the wireless operator on titanic was very rude to him while he was sending messages to camp race, telling him to shut up. rightfully so because Jack had his headset turned all the way up because camp race was far away, so when Californian tried to contact titanic it was deafening to jacks ears because the Californian was so close and the signal was so strong (I’m sure you know this my bad for rambling). But yeah, if the wireless operators conversed a little differently on the titanic and Californian so that Cyril could tell his captain to head to titanic’s rescue, all lives would’ve been saved that night I believe
@@djjazzyjeff1232 cape race**
Several years ago, I was camping in the North Cascades in Washington state. One night, the moon was full and so brilliant that I decided to go for a drive down the mountain with my dog. It was about 2:00 am and there was absolutely no one else around. I turned my headlights off and just drove by the moonlight most of the way down the mountain and all the way back up to the campground. One of my fondest memories.
The ship in the animation was RMS Britannic. Converted to hospital ship HMHS Britannic during construction, sunk before the end of WW1.
What?
@@12AB17 It's how the RMS Britannic was originally designed, before it was converted into a hospital ship for during WW1.
@@shamusatha4700 Look at the gantry davits, those were never used on an Olympic class ship other than Britannic, this would be Britannic if it'd survived WW1. The animation it's from is called "Britannic: Patroness of the Mediterranean".
@@goddessofstupidity1544 I've just learnt something new that I didn't no about guess that teaches me for trying to be smart thank you for telling me that
@@shamusatha4700 You welcome!
Video idea:
When talking about the events leading up to Titanic's voyage, a lot of people like to bring up Olympic's collision with Hawke however I've never seen anybody do a video specifically on Hawke. Might be a void you could fill?
Lightoller was asked about searchlights at the American inquiry and he said they were a bad idea for the reason you mentioned (blinding other ships). He said they might be helpful for the people behind the light, but hurtful to those it was shining on. And he would know about lights, it was his nickname 😊
Two things you forgot! 1) Flashlights and headlights of the time were very weak, especially comparing them today so they would not have lit up too much anyways. 2) Ships have set paths out in the ocean and it only becomes problematic going into or out of port, especially during fog.
Today's tech light would be no problem, in fact search light is very common. Of course today's radar deme unnecessary for navigation.
Also there was many reports from suvivors and other ships that there was alot of refraction that night. So the ice cryatals in the air would have been like light in a fog bank.
do you know what a arc light is. this was 1910 tech
Technically RADAR is effectively headlights for ships. Same thing, different frequency (Radio EM vs Visual Light EM), just radio was in its infancy at the time. You bounce radio waves off of stuff and the ship can 'see' it, the same as your eyes seeing light from the ship (or whatever) bouncing off an object. But light and radio are literally the same thing; just at different frequencies of EM.
So ships do have headlights! Kinda! if you squint a bit.
Still, I think blinding everyone in the nearby area might be cooler.
Ships have searchlights pretty commonly. A searchlight beam is incredibly narrow and long range. Searchlights lit aircraft at 20,000 feet plus in ww2. Also, searchlights were used for gun ranging in night actions pre radar, even in battles roughly concurrent with Titanic time like the Russo Japanese war in 1904.They were also to dazzle gun crews on ships and shore batteries. However, like tracer bullets, they work both ways. Just saying it could be done if they were manned and swept. 😁
You are talking about warships…not used on civilian ships.. a light strong enough to work would need to be a carbon arc light. Who replaces the carbons?
@Ikey Ilex That's why I pointed out the Russo Japanese war in 1904. Yes. You could crew a searchlight on the prow, shield it from backscatter and light the water wherever you pointed the light. It would need to be a hilariously big arc light but it could be done. Imagine ol' Fred Fleet out there yelling, "Iceberg, 10 miles ahead!"
@Ikey Ilex Well, that's kind of just repeating what you heard in the video. This is used to see things in the scenario I described.
How about spotlights on SAR ships? I pretty sure those ships have spotlights.
@Ikey Ilex You might not want to give a corporation and their stockholders too much credit on what corners they wouldn't cut to shave a few bucks from the cost. There are numerous examples of companies cutting corners to save even small percentages on cost to increase the bottomline both past and present.
The mock up of having headlights as if it was a car was a tad ridiculous as they would be too small to make any difference to lookouts about 50 feet above the deck. The refraction from fog like conditions would be a nightmare to mitigate. They might set up on a swivel to redirect the light which is a ridiculous thought, so I think that would be a no-go on car like headlights.
I do not think an always on spotlight would be useful, but a tool to use intermittently or to check when something is suspected would make more sense. In the film of the Titanic by Cameron, the lookouts were squinting (no binoculars) and thought they might've seen something. Yes, it is a film, but the portrayal seems likely. Anyway, a spotlight that is designed to take the multiple factors in and address as many as possible while being operational by the lookouts may have helped with these kinds of situations as 'EffequalsMA' pointed out that there are situations where a spotlight was used beneficially by a ship.
Whether that would be too costly or only trying to shave a few percentage points off would take a considerable amount of effort to determine. A full analysis of cost vs. benefit would need to be done and I doubt this issue is interesting enough to be tackled. At any rate, the Titanic sinking was a myriad of human errors in decision and a poorly structured chain of responsibility.
Wow, I can't believe that a professional Olympic class historian got the Britannic and Titanic mixed up lol.
But great video as always!
Hey, he did say he was a 'unofficial' historian lol
Just kidding lol
Interesting I was looking at that and then I was like my wonder where he said that and I was like oh could be smart enough to catch that and then I saw his marathon come on maritime You could ask maritime How many ships there are in the world in her name above all the
he didn’t mix them up, he was trying to see if the comments knew what that olympic class liner was.
The ship in the animation was the RMS Britannic and how she would look if she survived the war and saw service in the 20s with all of her large davits.
The Imperator had a forward search light installed because of the Titanic disaster. I have looked over the years without success for a photo of the ship with light on at night. I've always been curious as to what it looked like.
Given how good cameras were at picking up stuff at night in 1913, there's probably a good reason for that.
I love your vids. I’d like a video on the second class accommodations for the Titanic. We usually only hear about 1st 3rd.
The thumbnail is actually very nice!
Just discovered your channel about a week ago, glad I did. You do excellent work. Was wondering, where do you get your models from?
"Phew - that was close! We missed that berg by a hair's breadth! Well done, men, three cheers for the headlights!" *hits second berg off to the side*
I had a thought that sort of defeats the entire argument, but stay with me. If you used the headlights and everything and left it turned on all the time, yes I understand what you're saying, but you could have a spotlight that could be turned out in the event of a situation like that. Would it have avoided this collision, no. But it just seemed like if I was the guy in the crow's nest, and I was squinting to try and make out a shape of what could be a berg, I would LOVE to have the ability to flick on a spotlight and know for sure, perhaps faster than struggling and straining to try and see. It's an interesting idea, but also knowing that the way lights are made nowadays compared to a totally analog incandescent light situation like would have been on the Titanic, it just gets less and less practical when you consider all the angles involved. Do modern ships have LED spotlights for reasons along those lines? Or even like a pirate situation, just to disorient would-be attackers? Seems like perhaps yes.
It's also important to note how unprecedented the conditions were. With the cold water mirage, plus the completely glassy surface, there was no hope. BUT, the fact that a Titanic like disaster was not a regular occurrence, it has to be said that the existing method of using good old eyes was normally much more effective.
Really interesting video, and good explanation! I liked this kinda different topic. 🙂
Loved the video. 💚
That picture is hilarious by the way 🤣🤣🤣...a huge ship with giant headlights, it just looks so funny
In response to this argument the Hamburg American Line SS Imperator in service a year after Titanic had a huge spotlight mounted under the crows nest. Apparently it was all for show and never used for the exact reasons you described.
wait, wtf, I just noticed that I WAS NOT SUBSCRIBED to your channel... ME, A HUGE FAN of your channel (and I consider myself an expert about this ship, since 1997)
As a titanic fan for 20+ years, I was thinking today a good video would be to talk about Olympics maiden voyage
The other advantage car headlights have is usually you’re driving on streets and highways that have other lights around them. Street lights, stop lights, lights from buildings, etc. Even streets that are relatively dimly lit still generally have more light than you would see out on the open ocean.
The exception to this, of course, is remote rural areas where there isn’t a lot of infrastructure. My family used to live on a cattle ranch on miles and miles of dirt roads with no light. I can’t tell you the number of pitch-dark evenings I found myself driving those roads with only my car’s headlights to guide me. I know it’s not precisely the same as a massive ship on the ocean, but I imagine I got a taste of what it would be like to be traveling through a route where the only light I had was whatever moon and stars were in the sky, plus what I had on my vehicle. It can be somewhat disorienting.
6.50.
The fact remains, however, that on the night of the sinking, such lights aimed straight ahead would have helped to spot the iceberg earlier. And only that is the question of your video that you should focus on.
Totally. I would've liked to hear what equivalent searchlight technology existed back then and how it was powered/focussed etc. Not sure why navigation lights were even talked about in this video.
Thanks again friend!
Hey Sam! Were you thinking of making more of those "What if" Titanic videos? Bc I have an idea for one: What if instead of striking an iceberg, the Titanic was capsized by a rogue wave, like in The Poseidon Adventure?
interesting idea.
@@HistoricTravels Thanks.
That would be a good question, considering this year is the 50th anniversary of the movie "The Poseidon Adventure"
@@HistoricTravels
My personal theory: The initial strike of the rogue wave might shatter windows on the upper decks. The sudden rolling would tip off the wireless operators that something was severely wrong, and they would be able to send out a distress signal, which would be received by the Carpathia, which would rush to the scene. The wave rushing over the boat decks would shatter the skylights, break the davits, and wash at least a few lifeboats into the sea. About a dozen or more lucky passengers and crew may get thrown into the sea, and be able to board said lifeboats. The masts would get ripped off by the force of the water. Once upside down, most upper deck windows would shatter due to not being designed to be underwater. the grand staircase would fall out of it's foundations, but still be usable. Some boilers may fall, and crash through a deck or two below it. A number of passengers and crew would be able to evacuate through the gangway doors, but if not enough lifeboats were freed, a number of people would die in the freezing water, or climb on top of the bottom. The ship would take an hour or two to sink, going down by the bow, and listing to port (which is now starboard) due to the coal fire, Scotland Road, and the cargo in the hold shifting and falling to that side during the capsize.
Took words out if my mouth.itwas doomed when Ismay 😔 is evening God himself couldn't sinker
I'm replying before even earing the answer. If headlight was a good idea, modern ships would have them, but the thing is that they would have to be freakingly powerful at that distance, and I'm pretty sure you will say the same thing I'm thinking
If you ever went sailing at night, while managing the wheel in the cockpit, when someone turns on the lights in the cabin, the pollution of that small ammount of light is easily enough to seriously impair your night vision. It aslo works both ways. Ships anchored outside of port will often tunr on everything during the night. Surely, it makes them visible from miles away, the issue is they also effectively blind any oncoming vessels to everything that may be in front or to the sides of them.
Yes. And I'm sure Sam will say no. But the answer is yes.
was at wallmrt when i saw that you upload this made me laugh
When you are sitting in your car, you are sitting close to the ground near the height of your headlights, but in a ship, the top deck is very high above water, so you wouldn't be able to see well at water level which makes headlights impratical
Lights are the worse thing for night vision, I know, especially when I was in Vietnam, you need it, so the effects would be the same in the ocean. Interesting video. Thanks.
Great to see another enjoyable video from you!
I bet Bright Side would make a video trying to explain how headlights would've saved Titanic 😂
I love to go on for night raids to the forest and that is true. Our eyes adapt to the darkness after a while. So much that after you check your mobile phone and switch the screen back off, then everything arround goes pitch black, but just for a while.
I understand your point of another ship getting blinded by the head lights, but I thought it was the men in the crows nest to watch for icebergs not the bridge.
If there were head lights on the ship the men in the crows nest would have had a better chance at seeing earlier.
I don't know why I brought this up since Titanic is sadly gone but I just had to prove one point.
Great video though, thanks Sam.
Oh man Sam I’m so happy you did this video I’m getting ready to watch it right now but I’ve thought about this topic I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
When i was 8 I think back in 2019 I might have been 9 I got the titanic white star line the world’s largest liner picture I still have it it is in my living room.
I’ve often wondered why ships never had huge flood lights for stuff like this. Less so now given we have radar.
If you watch the Deadliest Catch, the boats do have large forward-facing floodlights, presumable for sheet ice rather than icebergs, but they still have them.
I live in Ontario Canada I was recently at a port on the Greatlakes where a a great lakes freighter was entering the port ... it was a clear night and the spotlight was extremely bright it was about 6km away ... I think you might be wrong on this
If someone did use this idea the light source that could've be used for such a purpose and was available at that time would probably have been a carbon arc lamp.
Just like the name sounds, an electric arc is sent through carbon electrodes. The heat of the arc vaporises the carbon electrodes which produces an immensely bright light.
For the reasons that you specified this would probably be more of a liability then a risk reducer.
In reality they shouldn't have been going as fast as they were, especially since there were reports of ice in the vicinity.
Going fast to avoid danger was SOP…
Love your videos Sam keep the good work up.
Be so cool to have a lazer pointer in the crows nest. I sometimes think about if i could go back in time, and if i could prevent this, and if i could, how would i prove to captain Smith that im from the future and here to help them.
Amazing
this was my question for 10+ years
I have a bright light bar on my boat and he is totally right. I’ve tried using it on the river at night and since it’s a river it works a little bit because the light can bounce off the trees but i can barely see anything on the water. I just use it to see the edges of the river so I don’t get to close to them. He is right about how the lights wouldn’t do anything at all on an open ocean.
Perhaps a strong spot light would help sweep it side to side looking for anything directly in front of ship
Thanks Sam. That makes sense.
Another fantastic video! Could you maybe do a video on search lights as a new topic? (I remember seeing them on disasters at sea "ice ship") and think they'd be a interesting topic to headlights.
I wasn't going to watch this one but when I saw it was nearly 10 minutes, I had to see how it takes 10 minutes to say "no".
Awesome. Thx!!!!!
I put forth this. You are right for a incandescent lights. I think that a LED spot or searchlight like light could be helpful. It's what the Coast Guard uses In a emergency. It has a slimmer beam that can travel miles with less power. Using math you wouldn't have to light everything up like you show. Just calculate the distance to hit a point in the horizon thats a set ampunt away. The point wouldn't be to light up the object just to glint or shine. I wouldn't use it on normal nights. Just when there is no moon. The night the Titanic sank would have be perfect light visibility for this. Only the cold weather mirage would have stopped it. And as far as your vision being impaired it only really when you are directly behind it. If
it's mounted on the bow and the person watching is in the Crow nest far above it would be like someone holding a led flashlight to their waist at night and looking out above it.
I got last in the premiere!!!
4:09 - 4:51
Y'know, this could actually make for a pretty hilarious Family Guy cutaway joke, you should send that idea to Seth MacFarlane and see if he'd like it and actually use that in a future Family Guy episode!
Hi Sam! Can you do a video about the titanic’s Scotland road Deck? I want to learn about that
I loved watching it count down.
3:19 That is RMS Britannic. As she would have looked like if she was a regular passenger ship and not a Hospital ship due to WW1
The Imperator was fitted with a huge, high powered search light before launch, as a result of the Titanic disaster
One other problem with the idea is that besides that they would need stupidly bright blinding headlights is that light doesn't reflect on water that well. Even when driving some old cars on a wet rainy night you don't see that much compared to driving on a dry night with the stock headlights.
Another reason lights could be a bad idea is scattering and refraction. Fog and low clouds are common over the water. A bright light shone into this moisture would not penetrate it, but cause the light to just scatter and bounce back, blinding the whole ship. This would be ESPECIALLY bad with the intensity of lights that would be required to see far enough across the water.
The ship was RMS Britannic, as She was suppose to look like in passanger liner service
The 1970's solved this problem. You need to see all around you? Giant discoball on top of one of the funnels to evenly distribute the light all over the ship. There we go, unfortunately disco didn't exist when the Titanic was sailing.
well in 1912 we knew how to focus light into a beam eg search lights a scanning beam may have illuminated the iceberg similar to the way radar works by emitting a beam of radio.
Just have a searchlight!
Nice idea. But i would imagine that with the mirage effect on the night in question. Is it not possible that there would of been even more light glare & other mirror effects. They may not of seen the Iceberg at all with this.
In your road clips, signs in the distance, reflect headlights quite well. Reflective stickers on Train cars & Semi Truck Trailers do the same when lights are shined on them... Couldn't ice crystals in the iceberg reflect light, or wouldn't highly reflective materials on other ships be easily seen as well?
With the light technology they had in the early 1900s, I don't know if they would even have a way to make headlights that are strong enough. Most modern cars has halogen or LED headlights, and if that wasn't enough you can just pick up a LED bar from Autozone.
While typing this, I'm imagining Titanic with a huge ass LED bar mounted on the top of the bridge lighting up miles on front lol.
3:16 you said guess the ship; Im guessing its the Britannic before it was repainted and refitted to be a hospital ship (those davits look very distinctly similar)
Causal Navigation has a video on this topic as well.
Thank you for the video Sam - What if there had been a light near (close to) or in the crow's nest that swiveled back and forth all night, the same premise as a lighthouse light, instead of constantly beaming in front of the ship, like headlights would?
That would have been a good idea also if they weren't traveling so fast at night that would help too...
What makes it even dumber is that other ships had been reporting ice in the general area over the radio.
Honestly the only reason that they had put the hammer down was that the Titanic and Olympic were advertised to be fast.
@@twistedyogert I'm with you on that I agree
3:17 That seems like the Brittanic if she would have survived the war where she would have had all her massive gantry cranes fitted and be in the White Star Line colours again.
Nope, as the light would cause light pollution, that's why we don't have headlights on board ships. Your eyes get used to the dark - it's amazing how much you can actually see.
My father many years ago had a small shrimping boat and we were just leaving the channel by perdito key, if memory serves correctly. Well a tanker or cargo vessel was pulling in and it clearly could had seen us thanks to our nav lights, but the idiots turned on their spotlights and we had to come to a complete stop because we couldn't see jack it was so bright.
I know many warships had spotlights, for signaling other ships via morse, and for spotting aircraft, and of course merchant ships for the same reasons if not both ships war and merchant for spoting Uboats after an attack. I wouldn't know why a ship like the Titanic wouldn't of not had a spotlight, not for use like headlights of course, but just to see around, perhaps to signal, or see around if they feel they are at risk of say, like that tanker, hitting a smaller vessel. There could be 1000 reasons as to why or why not but I am curious none the less.
What about projectors instead ? Lighting up an area far away so anything closer will be simple visual
@historic travels what if there was navigation lights or a light that's bright enough for other ships to see placed on the iceberg? Would that have made any difference? Obviously I can see that being a problem in 1912 but still an interesting what if.
What if the croz nest was closer to the bow would fredrik fleet seen the iceberg better??
Epiphanies and random, absurd, humorous thoughts. Who knew what headlights on the Titanic could end up bringing to light. 🤔☺😉
As a freight train driver (based in the UK, so we're moving at 70mph+), I can completely agree that having headlights only makes the situation worse.
For example, we have a class of locomotive (Class 66), which have recently had some high intensity headlights fitted. It's the dumbest thing that's ever been mandated on the railway. I could see far better before, with the weaker headlights. My natural night vision could adapt and see things in the dark.
NOW, all I can see is what's in the narrow beams and nothing outside of it. Not very intelligent when you're thousands of tonnes of train, blasting through the countryside at 75mph, but what do I know, the guy in the office that came up with this idea obviously knows better.....
I know right. People sitting in an office with no real work experience obviously know what’s best for those in the field. 100 percent (sarcasm)
Hey Sam I have a video idea. It’s « Did the Titanic had treasure( diamond things like that) during her meaden voyage » something like that. I’m pretty sure you didn’t make a video on this subject yet so it will be interesting to know the true
Yes. The first class passengers had brought some pretty expensive items on board with them such as jewelry.
sam from historic travels talks about titanic
My cousin's boat has headlights it doesn't go at fast but it has headlights on it and we do some stuff at night they can't do it during the day. If All of Me filming some interesting stuff.
Hello! Congratulations for all videos! I want to suggest a new topic:what
if all 16 compartments was closed on the top like a box ,the sinking of the TITANIC could be avoided? 👍👍👍
That ship is the RMS Britannic, the luxury ocean liner that never carried a single paying passenger
I can imagine being on a small ship or U-boat and massive lights just comes full speed at you. You'll always think you went to heaven before getting T-boned
3:18
This ship is the britannic, although sadly it never had the r.m.s litery on it. It sunk in ww1 brfore being put to commercial use.
Hello Sam
4:34 : I have the same image, but with Kylo Ren and his lightsaber lighting up all over the place and the top of his head. XD
Can you make a video on the car in the cargo hold? It’s always been a mystery to me
On the bright (no pun intended) side, maybe 'headlights' would have made the CALIFORNIAN realize beyond a doubt what they were looking at.
(Though Captain Lord would have found another excuse for going to the rescue ANYWAY.)
That would be very interesting to see on a luxury ocean liner head lights to see where your going.
Only one video on your channel
You made your point on headlights but what about a spot light on a swivel so you can move it around when you know Ice is around??
Hey Sam is it possible to electrify the Titanic and kill of those rusticels and maybe slow down the rate of decay like they did to the U.S.S. Monitor
Turn singles on a ship would be cool, well except some would forget to turn it off :).
Pin spotlights are (and were, back in Titanic's day) a thing.
Awesome video you do a great job I like old fashioned history yeah attaching headlights to a ship I didn't exactly have any reasons before think it was necessarily a bad idea just like you said it would take a lot of power in order to go into a light big enough Heck on Titanic it probably would have taken every single out of energy is she can muster to produce a light bright enough but I enjoy your videos
Do you think that if April 14th wasn't a moonless night Fleet and Lee would spotted the berg soon enough for the crew on the Bridge to turn the Titanic enough to avoid the berg? It's something that I have been wondering for a while
The moonlight would probably have light up the berg enough to see it in time so I wouldn’t just be a black shape which you can barely see against the blackness of the ocean
Great vid Sam, I just was wondering if you could do a video on the Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon Controversy.
The wireless operators would get really annoyed if they were getting messages every 2 seconds "TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS"
ur camera has a white hue to the left. maybe a smudge on the lens?