I think the weight of the engines was the most likely the thing that pulled the stern down and not the double bottom. you also got to factor in the fact that the stern rotated as it was climbing near vertical to the point where it was facing almost the opposite direction when she finally slipped under, if it bow was connected to the stern for that long, I think the wreck of the bow would be facing more northwest if not southwest direction from where it actually is. But great analysis Sam.👍
Not just that, but the MMR was the largest space on the entire ship. Also, being such a large space, it was the weakest point on the whole ship, which is why the break happened there.
I think the bow pulled down the stern enough for the engine weight to finish sinking it. If you think about it the weight of the engine alone would probably already be near enough to sink the aft of the titanic and with the double bottom pulling down it wouldn’t take much
I personally think the best way to look at that connection is as an accelerant. we know from the wreckage that a small section of the double bottom was likely attached to both ends for a few moments after the breakup. as the bow took off, this connection would have experienced some force transferring before it gave up, imparting some extra motion to the stern. it probably remained connected for a matter of seconds before giving way, essentially encouraging the stern in the direction it was already heading. from there you have the various forces, uneven flooding, uneven weight distribution, and more than likely a small amount of torque causing the stern to rotate.
I'm trying to picture an alternate reality in which the Titanic's stern got physics to look the other way for a few hours and somehow stayed afloat until help arrives. "On the morning of April 15, 1912 The SS Californian arrived on the scene of the disaster to find a remarkable sight; what only a day before had been the world's largest ocean liner split in two, her stern bobbing on the surface with some 560 passengers clinging to her railings. Carpathia passenger Louis M Odgen was on deck and captured a photo of the crippled liner, which has gone on to become one of the most famous photos of the 20th century. Initially the Captain was unsure as to how to attempt a rescue of passengers on the stern, as the remains of the liner looked ready to capsize at any moment. However while the 700 survivors in Titanic's lifeboats were taken on board, the Carpathia crew were able to communicate using Megaphones and naval hand signals to improvise a system in which ropes from lifeboats were used to lower passengers from alternating sides of the well deck into Carpathia lifeboats below. Aided by additional ships on the scene the Californian and Frankfurt; a complete evacuation of the liner was completed by nightfall. Sadly, this rescue was carried out in the presence of bodies floating on the surface, a grim reminder of the hundreds that still died that night. Even being on the stern was no guarantee of safety, as several elderly passengers were known to have died from exposure during the night. As recounted in Marconi operator and survivor Jack Phillip's memoir, those left on the stern stayed on deck and tried to avoid too much movement out of fear that the stern could become unbalanced and capsize. Instead, they tried to keep their spirits up by huddling together, telling stories, and singing songs; all hoping for day to break and rescue to arrive. White Star line President Bruce Ismay who was a survivor in the lifeboats met with naval architect Thomas Andrews who had been rescued from the stern, and discussed any possibility of towing the remains of Titanic to safety for possible reconstruction or salvage. While Andrews speculated that an inspection of the ship would determine if such an operation were feasible, the stern sitting visibly lower in the water throughout the rescue was an indication that the sinking was inevitable. On Tuesday April 16th at a out 0405 AM, Titanic finally disappeared under the waves. She would remain unseen by human eyes until she was rediscovered in 1958 by the Royal Navy while testing an experimental underwater deep sea camera.
Very well written, I'm sure if that has been the case it would be very different today for both what we know and how the wreck is as it remains today. Id imagine the much slower sinking would make for a much better state of the stern. Additionally I'm sure that knowing the precise location of it and it's state immediately following the break-up would be VERY valuable information.
Just imagine how much more embarrassing it would've been for White Star if they were unable hide the fact that the ship had broken in half, unlike in reality where they swept it under the rug until 73 years later when the wreck was found.
@thermalreboot they succeeded in covering it up for 73 years; if it was believed by everyone at the time their prized Flagship vessel had not only sank but also broke in two. It would've been insult to injury for White Star and it would've compromised their other vessels perceived reliability, integrity and credibility. And I was also referring to the poster's scenario where the rescue ships arrive to a still floating stern section which is photographed by passengers, again showing their Prized Flagship vessel which was believed to be indestructible reduced to half a ship, which still itself ultimately sank. Just imagine The New York Times headline the following day with that photo.
Honestly, I never thought the stern could become its own lifeboat as Thomas Andrews Jr or a few others believed. However, this is a great description of how it is a possibility despite being afloat for a few minutes during the final plunge. Good job with this, Sam ☺️
I think it could have if it would have broke quickly and relatively cleanly. We know this at least anecdotally there were ships that did exactly that. Though Thomas Andrews may have been wrong about the technical aspects of the entire design with the scenario that was given.
@@rogerhuffmanjr.7695 The stern needed the bow to remain buoyant. With the weight of the engines she would of capsized. This is simple physics, its irrelevant wether it was a clean break or not . The result would of been the same .
What if what happened to the stern was the same thing that happened with the deck as it went down? The engines were reinforced to the keel and that area was thicker by half an inch throughout the ship than the rest of the keel, so when the break up occurred it pulled the keel down but if that damage went further down the structure of the ship flapping around and tearing as it went it could explain the extent of the damage on the stern section as it sits today. It could also explain why the stern didn't stay afloat longer if the water tight sections were separated and essentially made useless from the bow pulling it down. I could possibly do an explanation of this in a video using things I have around the house if you are interested Sam.
I think it could be quite possible, because it was not a long time until the stern section went down after the bow section did. If it was still fully of air inside and the bow section would disconnect under, the stern suppose to stay afloat at least few minutes, maybe more thanks to these air it was still in. But as we know it came down very quickly, seems like the bow would pull it with her. Second argument is the stern imploded, so she went down quickly with the massiv amounts of the air inside. It looks like definitely something would have been pulling it down
@@pankratowicz thinking about it if it had have imploded the stern section where the rudder and poop deck are located should have been blown to bits and completely unrecognizable today and that said we know that the stern Cork screwed on its way down the 1st or 2nd Cork screw would have allowed the engines to face the surface. Which would have let the air out of it and explain all the damage we see.
As an engineer I have an opinion. A ship that size under those conditions may as well be a paper boat. Those watertight bulkheads were massive and strong but they wouldn't take much damage to be enough to stop them from working. A few degrees of torsion or shearing beyond the deformation point of the steel would make them inoperable and leaky. The hog from being at a 20° angle in the air would be at least a few centimeters, which itself would be enough to make gaps. Roughly estimating, with a clean break the stern could have remained afloat for perhaps another 90-120 minutes, but only just. If only the compartments under the tower sections were compromised, then 30 minutes maximum. Mr Andrews was a good engineer and he was correct; if carefully cut and given the same two extra watertight compartments the stern section could remain afloat indefinitely in calm seas with its engines, albeit without any surplus buoyancy. The ship was doomed when Captain Smith was satisfied that they had gone far enough south and ordered the new heading. Everyone did what they were taught was best and it was just such incredibly bad luck that Ol' Bergy was dead ahead.
It is crazy when you think about that way, right? Had he taken a few seconds extra to verbally give the order to change directions the disaster may never had happened. It was the perfect storm
@@Capt.SumTingWong At 21 knots even a single second could have been enough to save the ship. They'd see the iceberg at the same time and perhaps be just farther enough south by a couple meters to narrowly escape damage.
They were sailing into an icefield so big that even the carpathia narrowly (Yes, literally barely) missed Bergies all of 12 times on her way to the Titanic, and she didnt even go all the way through, not even close. I'mma go out on a limb and say the Titanic was doomed regardless. The main issue: Smith was unaware of the size of the icefield, reports kept coming in but they weren't delivered to bridge for officers to paint an accurate picture of what was going on (as it were).
@@ToreDL87 You're correct but missing something. Ice flows are very dangerous indeed but Captain Smith knew about that one. The standing orders were to wake him at the first sign of ice and slow to half ahead. Ice flows are patchy things at large scales and the problem was that there were no growlers or sea ice of any kind in Titanic's path except one massive berg, which isn't how it normally works. He assumed that he had a clear way through with ice north and south. If the crew saw or heard any other ice Murdoch would have slowed the ship and woken up Captain Smith. No one expected a big anomalous iceberg before Titanic hit one. The Captain gets a bad reputation and he really didn't deserve it, having done exactly what he was supposed to do plus a little extra safety in accordance with what was known in 1912. He spent his time saving as many people as possible that night and only left the ship when the bridge was awash. He was by all accounts a skilled and experienced sailor and a good person.
That thing you mentioned about deformation played a big part in Britannic's demise. It's surreal how many things went wrong for both ships, and how close they were to NOT sinking :-(
I remember one of Sam's early videos being on this. This said, the only way the stern could have stayed afloat was if the watertight bulkheads in it wasn't damaged by the break up. Glad to see a new video from you.
You explained this well. Showing the James Cameron 97 animation was a helpful visual. My take away is the double bottom hull. I never knew this engineering safety feature.
There have been a number of wrecks at sea and on lakes where a large ship has broken in two and at least one of the two sections remained afloat. But one of the more interesting cases involves a little known White Star Ship S.S. Suevic. This liner was in service on the Liverpool-Cape Town-Sydney route and her first six or so years were largely uneventful. Future Titanic officer Charles Lightoller served on her for a voyage in 1903 where he met his future wife. However, in 1907, due to a navigational error while in a fog bank, she ran aground on a rock near Plymouth, England and became stuck fast despite various efforts to free her. Fortunately no lives where lost and all aboard were safely evacuated. With the ship stuck fast, Suevic's bow was written off, and the the rest of the hull from just aft the bridge was dynamited free. Incredibly, the ship was still functional with boilers and propulsion gear in full operation! The watertight bulkhead head and the ship sailed on its own power to Southampton, dry docked for preliminary work of cleaning the wreckage around the separation site on the hull, and preparing it for a new bow section that WSL order from Harland & Wolff in Belfast. When completed, the new bow was towed from Belfast to the drydock with the stern, and two were joined together. Suevic went on to have a very long and prosperous career with WSL until 1928 and then with Yngvar Hvistendahl's Finnhval A/S of Tønsberg, Norway for the remainder of her life when she was sunk by German forces in 1942.
Daniel j Morrells stern wreck is 5 miles from the bow. The Stern sailed on for 3 hours (aimlessly) after the breakup. That shipwreck has always intrigued me
Eva Hart one of the survivors stated she saw the ship break in half and she said the stern stood up in the air for quite a long time then keeled over was exact words.
Engineering student here. The double bottom and engine definitely provided force that fought against the buoyancy of the Titanic's stern, so those were definitely factors that accelerated the sinking of the stern. Without the double bottom and engines, the Titanic's stern would still have almost certainly foundered at one point because the bulkheads would've been warped. Now if we want to speak theoretically and assume the Titanic was neatly cut in 3 pieces, that is a different story. We would have to find the weight of the Titanic's engine, the Titanic's stern, the volume of air, and many other things to determine the buoyant force and from there, we could determine how high the water would rise up and if it would be high enough to spill over the top of the bulkheads.
@425ivanhoe I'm not positive about this, but the titanic may not have pumps back there and even if they did, the titanic would still sit a lot lower in the water and could result in the water overflowing.
I second this. While we already know the Great Lakes are basically huge open seas and produce some of the worst storms a ship can face, I’d love Sam’s input on the maritime history of the lakes
@@michaeldebidart Lake Superior's nickname " The Lake that never gives up her dead" like the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10,1975 at White Fish Point
Hello Sam,I’m sorry I don’t watch you a lot, but I wanted to say you really inspired my love of history, I really appreciate your videos man. I hope the best for you. Cya.
The other thing feeding into the stern sinking was that as part of not being a clean break, a significant portion of the shell plating along the sides separated from the bottom, as can be seen on what’s left of the stern. That negated any effect that bulkheads in the foremost portion of the stern section would have had, since water would have entered to the side and behind them.
Andrews would have definitely meant that the 3 sections could remain afloat as-is, if it was cleanly sliced in thirds. I just can't imagine that he said it could have remained afloat (but unsaid: only if it didn't have all that heavy stuff down there to drag it down). No, that's the point of the bulk heads, to add a massive amount of protection against flooding. We can be sure that it wasn't a clean break. But, had some magical surgeon neatly sliced Titanic into thirds, those thirds could have indeed stayed afloat. That's what Andrews thought at least. And, that's my opinion. NICE VIDEO
Once you started considering the weight of the engines, I think you finally caught on to an important detail. When the break happened, the bulkhead beneath funnel three would completely disintegrate. It basically counted as broken away from both halves. The biggest problems were 1) the keel was still struggling to hold on, and it was likely not until the stern started twisting at near vertical that the two pices of double bottom at the break zone finally separated, unable to resist the torque of the twisting motion. 2) 3/4 of the eingines remaining attached to the stern as dead weight would not only pull it down, but the back of the engines would put pressure on the bulkhead between the engines and the dynamo, causing integreity to that bulkhead to be lost. 3) Probably the worst part of the damage, since the breakup started at the top, pressure was placed on the rivets on the sides of the ship all the way back to behind funnel 4. This would cause a slight separation to the sides of the ship, compromising a further bulkhead or two back. Realistically, nothing ahead af the rear cargo hold was going to be watertight anymore. This breakup was about as not clean as a ship break can be.
Intriguing theory. However, you overlooked a few things: 1. The keels of ships are fairly rigid. They tend to break rather than bend. So, with this in mind, it stands to reason that the keel would have been one of the first things in that area to break. 2. A more accurate theory posits that the break-up proceeded first bottom-up to B Deck (the top deck of the hull, which is designed to flex and bend), then top-down throughout the superstructure down to B Deck. Under this theory, B Deck would have been the last thing to separate.
I promoted that bottom-up-then-top-down theory in 2019 on the Encyclopedia Titanica website. There's ample evidence (testimonies and physical evidence) to show that the first breaking did not result in the ship parting, and that a second breaking did. I'm certain that all of the single-break theories are wrong, but everybody is too invested in those theories to let go. th-cam.com/video/0ukNqreglyY/w-d-xo.html
I'm a new subbed .I just joined on Friday. I love the videos Sam!! Keep up the good work !! I didn't subbed to the Bright Side !! Watching their videos is like having all of your teeth all at once!! I love your details of about the Titanic .
The engines and the weight of the water already in the ship probably kept the Titanic stern section from trying to right itself to a degree when the double bottom let go but I think there was some pulling, at least initially, from the double bottom of the ship. It would be nice if a structural engineer or a naval architect could weigh in on this.
The thought of the stern section possibly staying afloat after the breakup was one of those thoughts swimming around in my head although my mind wasn't making too much of an effort trying to grasp it. That said, you brought up some good points here, and I am looking forward to that follow-up video.
Thank you for another great video! They always really make me curious to know more about the topics. In answer to your question, I really think it could be a combination of the double bottom AND the weight of the engines. It doesn’t have to be one or the other in my mind.
Here's another question - were all of the watertight doors in the stern even closed? We know that they opened some doors to bring pumping equipment forward. And we saw on Brittanic that less structural damage was enough to prevent the doors from properly closing again. That could also have contributed to the sinking if the forward compartments never sealed properly. Edit: Forwad compartments of the stern
You got one thing terribly wrong... The stern section DID NOT sink quickly at first. In fact, some survivors estimated that it lay in a horizontal position for 1-5 minutes before there came a roar and the stern began to rise again. Not to say that the stern didn't stick up for a considerable time, but it did not by any means sink fast. It was the stern staying flat on the water for so long (probably 45 seconds minimum) that gave survivors the impression it would float. Plus, even if the bow had pulled the stern, the boilers in the bow section would certainly have broken loose due to the angle. The angle of the bow section would continually and rapidly increase until it detaches from the buoyant stern section.
Plus, if the double bottom held on, then the forward tower wouldnt be able to break off at the surface as the hull below would be supporting it. And if it did fall, it would end near to the hypocentre and not where it ended up.
Something that to me seems overlooked or unmentioned by many about the ship breaking and the sinking sequence with the structural failure of the hull: WIRING. oh, and maybe even some plumbing, since much of the wiring would likely be in conduits. You could break metal from fatigue and sheer force, but material such as wiring is far more flexible. I'd guess much of the wiring, being nearer the electrical plant and having to supply so much of the ship, that could have acted as tethers that the bow section dragged the stern end down. No, the double-bottom would not behave as a banana peel, but the ship could have still behaved similarly because of it
I have a thought: what if the stern didn’t stay connected to the bow by the keel, but rather by the main deck. The deck was two steel plates thick, and might have held together halfway to the ocean floor. This would help account for the smaller than expected debris field. Also the keel is buckled as though it had been pushed together, which could only happen if the deck didn’t separate at the surface.
6:57, wow. I guess that means those electricians who stayed in the ship until the very end were killed instantly during the breakup and collapse of the towers 😳
I’m still waiting for the theory from draining the ocean where they talked about it being possible the 2 pieces actually separated when the stern was already completely submerged. I mean, I believe it is actually possible given the extent of the massive damage to stern. And especially how many pieces of the front of the stern are missing, the stern imploding on its way down. The fact that the engines are the first thing you see of the front of the stern from the images, means there’s almost 80+ feet of the rest of the stern in the debris field. That they say is small for a ship that broke apart at the surface over 2.5 miles above the ocean floor
I think the scariest thing about the Titanic is seeing how the ocean just turned this massive ship into a little toy, I mean come on, it BOBBED UP AS IT WAS SINKING!
Hi Sam, don’t know if you’ll see this, but I’m from a small town in south wales called Blackwood. Where a man called Artie Moore was from. He made his own wireless system at home and received the distress signal from titanic, over 3000 miles away! Just thought it was be good idea for a video to hear his story. Even if you don’t make a video, I’d still recommend you look him up!
Since the stern didn't float, asking "Could it have floated" must involve the unstated addition "if things had been different." But once you're imagining that, then how much leeway do you allow yourself to things going differently? There was an accident in the 1950s where a cargo ship, with open-topped watertight bulkheads comparable to the Titanic's, broke in half in a storm and not only did both halves float, they were towed into port, welded back together, and the ship returned to service for decades more. The accident and rescue efforts are described in a book, "Their Finest Hours." (It was made into a heavily-fictionalized movie; in the movie the bow half sinks, which did not happen in real life.) So that accident proves it was *possible* for the stern to float if enough things were different. But to make the question meaningful you'd have to set some rules on how many differences you'd allow.
Actually, Their Finest Hours was the story of *_TWO_* Liberty Ships (an oil tanker variant and a cargo variant, if I remember right) that split in two that night. One had the bow sink beneath the waves soon after breakup (if I remember right) and the other had the bow found with no one aboard.
The Titanic’s stern could remain afloat, theoretically. Problem is is that 1) the stern's three large propellers were heavy, which increased the stresses on the ship's midsection when the stern was lifted out of the water, 2) the stresses on the midsection exceeded the steel's ultimate stresses, causing the steel to fail, 3) the stern was not fully filled with water when it sank, but the increasing water pressure caused trapped air pockets to implode, tearing apart the hull, 4) they lost their watertightness as a result of hull damage from the iceberg strike, 5) the reciprocating engines were too heavy to keep the stern afloat, and 6) the stern was catastrophically damaged during its descent and landing on the sea bed.
I like to believe that all the “ safety features “ ultimately caused the sinking. On paper they seemed to take every precaution (except enough life boats smh) but in practice it was the perfect engineering disaster. The ship was strong enough to stay together to seal its fate. Very ironic.
I was such a huge fan of u like a year ago but then I stopped watching and now I’m back and I’ve realised how much I’ve missed u. And also are u gonna upload a titanic timeline like u usually do? Been a huge titanic fan since I was a kid lol
I'm sure I'm not the first/only to say this, but I suspect that T. Andrews would have rationalized the boilers being intact when he made his analysis about the buoyance of the three sections.
Remember what Andrew said in the movie, the doors were not sealed above edeck, therefore the water is going to spill over from one section to the next and so on and so on and pull it down by the bow, you can't call something water tight that is not completely sealed,!!!!!
Two almost pristine sections of the double bottom were discovered during the wide field survey of the wreck site. It proves that the bow did pull the stern down. Only connected by the double bottom. Both of these sections are full width and literally unzipped along the hull sides. And snapped apart across the middle. They fit neatly together at the break.
The two keel pieces are indeed in good shape, but that doesn't prove that they did any such pulling. It means that they broke away in Euler buckling mode, folding outward from the bottom of the ship first, to begin the rest of the breakup. Even with the keel broken, and the hull up to 'C' deck broken, and the superstructure above 'B' deck broken open "as if cut with a knife", the hull at 'B' and 'C' decks, along with those internal decks, was enough for the bow to pull the buoyant stern behind it, raising it to a steep angle. I proved it with testing. th-cam.com/video/VS5BmyImDF4/w-d-xo.html
The problem with the stern was the engine spaces and the fact it didn't flood slowly like the bow but was ripped apart by the water pouring in. Had watertight bulkheads been high up in the ship and separated the huge engine areas then maybe it could have floated but not as it was on that night.
I had this crazy idea one time and actually thought it could slow the sinking greatly or maybe stop it altogether, what if they had Titanic anchored to the iceberg after the impact? It could possibly hold it up and stop it from sinking(if the chains hold) and Titanic would be famous for “The ship that was saved by the very iceberg that could’ve ended her.” This idea actually seemed plausible until an obvious problem occurred to me, The Titanic’s anchors are a bit too heavy to be tossed up onto and iceberg. And the anchor crane probably wasnt fast or strong enough to swing the third anchor onto the iceberg. But ignoring all of that, if they could be securely hooked to the iceberg do you think it could be like a life ring for Titanic?🤔
So, after that interesting excursion, the answer to the question in the title is ‘no.’ Had the damage been focused differently, had she been designed differently, had the main engines gone with the bow section etc. They weren’t and didn’t. The answer lies in the reality. Perhaps we have learned all that is necessary from Titanic, fascination with which is still killing people. There have been other disasters since. Time, possibly, to move on without forgetting but also without labouring the issue.
i think the engines had a big impact and would pull it down just enough for the water to spill over and add more weight allowing more water in, and repeat that cycle until there was no real way she could float anymore
I read the testimony of a Thomas P Dillon from the British titanic enquiry, he was a trimmer, and according to him, after she struck the iceberg all the watertight doors were closed from the Bridge, but he and other crew members were told to open the watertight doors by hand, and they opened four of them, and were never shut, so maybe that had something to do with the stern section sinking as it did, if you want to read his testimony it's on day five of the British titanic enquiry
The time it took for the stern to go down was likely more the result of the extra damage the breakup caused with the bow only acting as an accelerant. Even If the damage was confined to the area's above the watertight bulkheads, then it becomes a metric of how uneven the weight distribution affected the point of stability. considering how heavy the engines were compared to the rest of the stern's machinery, that stability point would have likely been significantly below the point where the forward watertight bulkhead could do its job. we might not have seen such a dramatic rise post breakup without the bow connection and the remaining time might have had a few minutes extra, but the stern would have gone down without taller bulkheads / capped bulkheads. One situation I could potentially see the stern surviving would actually require an increased amount of damage. if instead the bottom broke out underneath the engines but the compartments aft of them remained watertight, then the balance point would have been thrown way aft. this would have raised the damaged sections up and away from becoming dangerously flooded, and the stern has a chance at survival. now to poke holes in this idea, if the stern shifted too far back, it could start flooding from the other side which would have been just as devastating. without such a heavy load connected to the bottom, the stern would likely have been more susceptible to rolling which would have doomed it as well. there is also the issue of what other damage the stern took that compromised its integrity.
The stein did have higher bulkheads than the bow. So it is possible that it includes machinery. With the split into 3 part's. Also those three parts wouldn't be flooded.
Lets be honest. I know that Thomas Andrews was a great naval architect and did an outstanding job designing the Titanic, and he was a great hero of the sinking too, but he was making some rather unbelievable claims for the ship, which was the reason the media labelled it as 'practically unsinkable'. This assessment was based on how Andrews (and Bruce Ismay) described the safety features of the ship. Therefore, Andrews (and Captain Smith) indirectly contributed to loss of life because passengers were unwilling to abandon Titanic, hoping that the ship will somehow remain afloat. Even after additional safety features were installed in ships after the Titanic disaster, many ships still sunk in a variety of circumstances. RMS Connaught, RMS Arabia, RMS Aurania, and RMS Lusitania, for example, were all torpedoed and sank during WWI. HMHS Britannic, HMHS Salta and RMS Alaunia hit mines and sank. Empress of Ireland was rammed by a collier and sank with great loss of life. Many of these ships sank much faster than the Titanic, because the safety features either didnt work or because of overwhelming structural damage. Therefore It was foolhardy for Andrews to be so boastful of the Titanic as unsinkable under any circumstance. Finally I would like to add, that Andrews never thought of the possibility of a large scale fire breaking out, in which case the ship had to be abandoned, even if it didn't sink. For this reason alone, there should have been enough lifeboats for a full scale evacuation.
The stern had no hope of staying afloat. The break up was very messy, shellplating ripped loose from the inner structure for 160 feet aft of the tear line on the starboard side. That opened the turbine engine room and the generator room to the sea. Also, the way the hull was hogging before it broke apart must have caused bulkheads and decks to flex and bend, and that could have render them or the water tight doors useless. The weight of the remaining cylinders of the reciprocating engines still in place pulled the forward end of the stern section downwards. It didn't help the reciprocating engine room was open to the ocean either.
Sam , I think you should go all MythBusters on this and build a scale model and what you should do is try and float it in a sink or a bathtub and see what happens. Then if it does sink figure out what would it take to make it float?
I’d love to see a video about how the Titanic’s sinking would’ve played out if she had Britannic’s gantry crane davits. Still sinks exactly the same though.
When the ship broke in half the front section dragged the stern down enough to let water perhaps either over the bulkheads spill over behind the engine room that were still dry or watertight door may have been open behind engine room ...don't know that and the weight of the engines added to the stern section sinking lower than it should have before the final breakup...by the time the vessel was fully apart water had already compromised watertight compartmenta n was xpilling in from upper floors from portholes ,windows ,etc plus the weight of the engines added to the weight of the water which overwhelmed any watertight compartments left on the stern ..that's why there where several inplosions heard from deep below by survivors...I believe watertight doors in engine room were left open n the break took too long giving time for water to enter ship n overcome any type of hope for it to float.
Something very similar happened in WW2. The Japanese destroyer Amatsukaze was a very famous ship of the war. Commanded by Tameichi Hara, who wrote his famous book "Japanese destroyer captain" on his war experience, Amatsukaze would see a valuable early war career, including helping to sink the submarine USS Perch in the Indian Ocean, and her service in the battle of Guadalcanal where she sank the destroyer USS Barton and helped to sink the light cruiser Juneau, and survived heavy fire from the light cruiser Helena. On January 16th 1944, Amatsukaze was enroute escorting high speed transports when she was hit by a torpedo fired from the submarine USS Redfin. Amatsukaze was blown in half, and the forward section sank with the loss of 86 men. Her stern was presumed sunk, but amazingly six days later was discovered by Japanese aircraft and towed to Singapore. What was left of Amatsukaze spent nearly the rest of the war there, and was never extensively repaired, only being rigged with a temporary bow in March of 1945 where she attempted to undergo the journey back to mainland Japan, where enroute the next month she was finally finished off by land based US bombers.
It might have remained afloat - Unfortunately, a chain of unlucky circumstances have prevented it from doing so. It's incredible to see how, in this and many other disasters in History, the chain of events had both the wrong set of human-made premises, but also the wrong chain of un/lucky events which have made it possible: it's something like everything has conjured up making the catastrophic result possible.
It's hard to tell what Thomas Andrews meant when he said 3 separate sections of the ship could float themselves. The colossal turbines and propellers in the back might be able to balance out the engines, but still, the stern is a lot wider on one end and narrow on the other.
There was no real clean break as the broken keel would still have dragged he down. Unless you had to have a few Jedi aboard to use the force to generate a force field and have one of them utter - Not to worry. We are still flying (floating) at least half a ship! And sadly, she is not the Enterprise-D NCC-1701D.
Could it be a combination of the bow pulling the stern down along with the weight of the twin reciprocating engines doing the rest? The bulkheads in the stern also only went as high as E Deck as I recall…thankful for your time again as always!
Even if the double bottom let go early i imagine that something similar to what happened to the Britannic would happen where the hull was warped to the point the water tight bulkheads were compromised and it would sink anyway.
So people think that the whole ship wouldnt be able to stay afloat with a relatively small hole but it would when the whole front of the ship was broken off so you basically have a whole thats the whole width of the ship?😂
I've often wondered the same. Per weight of engines: I remember a reply to a previous comment. The reply said that the engines broke between the forwardmost and the next cylinder aft (she was a 4 cylinder triple expansion I think. She had 4 cylinders anyway) and I've wondered about this too. Is this correct? I would have thought the engine blocks would be massively rigid.
Yep I think you're absolutely right that's what I've always understood cause that Stern to rise up so far. And Rosso perpendicular to witness accounts and I have always believed that was true and there was a lot of are stuck in the hole and the engines were dragging it down, then for some reason I've seen a bunch of recent people trying to say it couldn't have possibly risen to that degree of angle etcetera when they're not taking into account there's nothing attached anymore except for that set of huge engines!
I feel Thomas Andrews meant the space behind the engines could remain afloat on its own, and the engine room would instead float along side the boiler rooms. Im not sure though but I feel all the boilers combined would match the weight of the engines.
With regard to what pulled the stern section down after break up, I believe would be a combination of all the factors you mentioned. As the double bottom was peeled back effectively opening a couple of compartments and most importantly one of those was the engine room, which was the largest space on the ship. With all that water rushing in along with the fact some of that area would have already flooded by water spilling over the top pulled the ship down. This was then made worse by the fact they stayed connected long enough for the fully flooded bow to pull the stern downwards before finally detaching, quickening the whole process. Even if we say Titanic split cleanly and there was no damage to the aft section bulkheads beyond the break up point, she would have settled in a downward attitude anyhow as the heaviest sections of the remaining ship are all towards he open end. Along with the weight of the water sat on the open section the shift in balance would have probably caused it to sit low enough to breach the first water tight compartment which would have probably been enough to doom what was left of the ship. To survive, the break up point would have needed to have been just in front of the engine room and IF that could have split before any water had spilled over into it and it was a clean break, then the higher bulkhead left at the open end might have been enough for the ship to settle down but not then spill over it.
Titanics engines did not stay fully intact. The first set of cylinders separated during the breakup with the least 3 remaining on the stern section which may be some additional evidence of how their weight may have contributed and the keel break may have happened sooner.
In my opinion, the air that was inside the tip of the stern was trapped, and as there weren't many holes for the air to escape, it sank more slowly than at the beginning.
The reason the stern section sucks so quickly after the break up of the RMS Titanic, was because of the rivets that was being used in the manufacture of the ship! The rivets held the entire ship together, and the reason the rivets failed the way that they did is because the grade 2 rivets that was hand pounded into the curve sections of the edge of the double bottom part used on each side of the keel of the ship, and the double bottom was used with grade 3 rabbits with a hydraulic rivet press. The rivets that failed was the rivets that was being used on the two sides port and starboard, and they failed and pulled a large section of the bottom out from under the engines, and the stern section of the ship. That section of the double bottom now lays on the ocean floor between the two halves. Once it pulled all the buoyant bottom out from under the engines the weight of the engines pulled the stern vertical, and caused the stern to sink as fast as it did. It is physics 101. Weight, buoyancy, and craftsmanship along with physics, doomed the beautiful ocean liner from bow to stern, and everything in between. When the RMS Titanic broke into two halves, the forward section was well on its way to the bottom long before the stern raised vertical. The weight of the engines pulled the stern face down “until it’s whole A$$ was sticking up in the air” then it took its final plunge. The theory that Titanic could be broken into three seconds and still float is wrong, it’s all wrong! No way it could have stayed afloat like that, the water tight bulkheads wasn’t near high enough, they would have had to been raised as high as at least the forward and aft well deck, to have had any chance of staying afloat under those circumstances, and never would that have ever happened in a real world scenario anyhow, the hull would sustain far to much damage in a scenario where the ship broken into two sections, for any of it to remain afloat in that scenario.
Let's say that the stern was perfectly airtight, would you think that the stern could stay afloat like a cork? I am wondering this myself! And yeah, great thinking, the engines were MASSIVE, at least 700 tons each, the double bottom piece was found on the bottom of the ocean in 2 pieces; what if these pieces seperated seperately, i mean that, the 1 piece could've come from the bow on it's way down and the other piece could've been from the stern on it's way down, we don't know for sure that those 2 pieces came apart on their way down . . .
It probably can stay afloat cause the big thing that made it sank as well is the bottom keel of the ship was still intact which causing the bow pull the stern with it
I cannot fathom that the bow, which was more than 50 per cent of the volume of the two sections and which would have weighed likely five to ten time as much, would have been held back by the stern like that. The entirety of the portions submerged were full of water.
Its less about weight and more about momentum and how the water interacted with the bow. effectively the front of the bow was moving quickly while the back was effectively at rest. I have also seen some theories that during the initial breakup, the bow effectively started to hydroplane under the water which gave it a few more seconds near the surface before driving for the depths, which would have more or less started by swinging downward around the final double bottom connection in all likelihood breaking it in seconds
Great video. However, I think you only gave Brightside another video idea. Brightside; "Had Andrews designed a better ship the Titanic's stern could have remained afloat had it had a clean break."
If you cut the ship into sections, you probably wouldn't want to remove all of the machinery because it needs that weight at the bottom to keep it from capsizing due to the weight on top. Andrews was probably also thinking of the ship being cut apart purposefully in that scenario, so there wouldn't be any structural damage. There have been examples of ships being cut in half and still floating, one in particular sailing under its own power, but that one was a battleship. I think it's entirely possible it could float if it was cut correctly, but probably not from a breakup like that. On the note of the engines pulling down the stern, taking the buoyancy into account, not having the engines there would probably just have made the stern completely capsize before sinking. That night it was probably a combination of the bow pulling down the stern and the engines weighing down the stern to get it to rise so quickly into the air. I don't think the bow stayed connected for very long, though, because it was so much dead weight, but it definitely stayed connected for a little bit, which would probably explain the sections of the double bottom that were ripped off the stern. The bow probably remained attached long enough to pull the front of the stern into the water enough to overwhelm it with water, then after that point the engines and the water may have been enough to pull it under quickly. It's hard to say, it really depends on how the stern broke off. James Cameron did that physical model test and came to the conclusion that you could have a big splash into the water or you could have the stern sticking vertically into the air, but not both. The only problem I have with that is that a full sized ship will act differently from a small model. If I really think it over, I feel like the bow broke off near the time the stern was vertical, more than likely in a manner where the bow kept its momentum going at a near constant rate because again it was a lot of dead weight.
My theory is that when the double bottom stayed attatched that it pulled it under as well as the engines weight and the water flooding. And then when it detached I think that the weight of the engines pulled the stern down.
I’m not entirely sure that the weight of the engines alone could have affected the stern sinking the way that it did. I kind of think that the stern had more to do with it than anything. The bow was the heaviest part of the ship, and as you said it probably held onto the stern until just as the stern was pulled nearly vertical. I could be wrong though.
Broke up? Wow, must be sad for the stern to get trashed by the bow😢
The bow wanted a separation from the stern cuz the bow wants to be alone !! The stern had a nervous breakdown.
@Rose19127 which is why its so destroyed at the bottom of the ocean
I think the weight of the engines was the most likely the thing that pulled the stern down and not the double bottom. you also got to factor in the fact that the stern rotated as it was climbing near vertical to the point where it was facing almost the opposite direction when she finally slipped under, if it bow was connected to the stern for that long, I think the wreck of the bow would be facing more northwest if not southwest direction from where it actually is.
But great analysis Sam.👍
unless it was a clean break, their was no chance. the decks around the break up including bulkheads would have been structurally comprimised
Not just that, but the MMR was the largest space on the entire ship. Also, being such a large space, it was the weakest point on the whole ship, which is why the break happened there.
@@EricCoop MMR? Definately interesting video again thank you! I thought you would never go back to these but i was wrong! 😎
I think the bow pulled down the stern enough for the engine weight to finish sinking it. If you think about it the weight of the engine alone would probably already be near enough to sink the aft of the titanic and with the double bottom pulling down it wouldn’t take much
I personally think the best way to look at that connection is as an accelerant. we know from the wreckage that a small section of the double bottom was likely attached to both ends for a few moments after the breakup. as the bow took off, this connection would have experienced some force transferring before it gave up, imparting some extra motion to the stern. it probably remained connected for a matter of seconds before giving way, essentially encouraging the stern in the direction it was already heading. from there you have the various forces, uneven flooding, uneven weight distribution, and more than likely a small amount of torque causing the stern to rotate.
I'm trying to picture an alternate reality in which the Titanic's stern got physics to look the other way for a few hours and somehow stayed afloat until help arrives.
"On the morning of April 15, 1912 The SS Californian arrived on the scene of the disaster to find a remarkable sight; what only a day before had been the world's largest ocean liner split in two, her stern bobbing on the surface with some 560 passengers clinging to her railings.
Carpathia passenger Louis M Odgen was on deck and captured a photo of the crippled liner, which has gone on to become one of the most famous photos of the 20th century.
Initially the Captain was unsure as to how to attempt a rescue of passengers on the stern, as the remains of the liner looked ready to capsize at any moment. However while the 700 survivors in Titanic's lifeboats were taken on board, the Carpathia crew were able to communicate using Megaphones and naval hand signals to improvise a system in which ropes from lifeboats were used to lower passengers from alternating sides of the well deck into Carpathia lifeboats below. Aided by additional ships on the scene the Californian and Frankfurt; a complete evacuation of the liner was completed by nightfall. Sadly, this rescue was carried out in the presence of bodies floating on the surface, a grim reminder of the hundreds that still died that night.
Even being on the stern was no guarantee of safety, as several elderly passengers were known to have died from exposure during the night. As recounted in Marconi operator and survivor Jack Phillip's memoir, those left on the stern stayed on deck and tried to avoid too much movement out of fear that the stern could become unbalanced and capsize. Instead, they tried to keep their spirits up by huddling together, telling stories, and singing songs; all hoping for day to break and rescue to arrive.
White Star line President Bruce Ismay who was a survivor in the lifeboats met with naval architect Thomas Andrews who had been rescued from the stern, and discussed any possibility of towing the remains of Titanic to safety for possible reconstruction or salvage. While Andrews speculated that an inspection of the ship would determine if such an operation were feasible, the stern sitting visibly lower in the water throughout the rescue was an indication that the sinking was inevitable. On Tuesday April 16th at a out 0405 AM, Titanic finally disappeared under the waves. She would remain unseen by human eyes until she was rediscovered in 1958 by the Royal Navy while testing an experimental underwater deep sea camera.
Very well written, I'm sure if that has been the case it would be very different today for both what we know and how the wreck is as it remains today. Id imagine the much slower sinking would make for a much better state of the stern. Additionally I'm sure that knowing the precise location of it and it's state immediately following the break-up would be VERY valuable information.
Nicely done.
Just imagine how much more embarrassing it would've been for White Star if they were unable hide the fact that the ship had broken in half, unlike in reality where they swept it under the rug until 73 years later when the wreck was found.
@@batarang87Why would it have been embarrassing? 1500 people died and the ship was sunk, does it really matter if it went down intact or in 2 pieces?
@thermalreboot they succeeded in covering it up for 73 years; if it was believed by everyone at the time their prized Flagship vessel had not only sank but also broke in two. It would've been insult to injury for White Star and it would've compromised their other vessels perceived reliability, integrity and credibility. And I was also referring to the poster's scenario where the rescue ships arrive to a still floating stern section which is photographed by passengers, again showing their Prized Flagship vessel which was believed to be indestructible reduced to half a ship, which still itself ultimately sank. Just imagine The New York Times headline the following day with that photo.
Honestly, I never thought the stern could become its own lifeboat as Thomas Andrews Jr or a few others believed. However, this is a great description of how it is a possibility despite being afloat for a few minutes during the final plunge. Good job with this, Sam ☺️
I think it could have if it would have broke quickly and relatively cleanly. We know this at least anecdotally there were ships that did exactly that. Though Thomas Andrews may have been wrong about the technical aspects of the entire design with the scenario that was given.
The stern would of sunk because the engines were so heavy . She would not been able to remain buoyant.
Thomas Andrew's never said these things. Why did he want more lifeboats & bulkheads up to B deck ,if he thought the ship unsinkable.
@@rogerhuffmanjr.7695 The stern needed the bow to remain buoyant. With the weight of the engines she would of capsized. This is simple physics, its irrelevant wether it was a clean break or not . The result would of been the same .
It's been documented to have happened before.
Sure it was so dark that those poor folks on the stern had no idea what was happening.
What if what happened to the stern was the same thing that happened with the deck as it went down? The engines were reinforced to the keel and that area was thicker by half an inch throughout the ship than the rest of the keel, so when the break up occurred it pulled the keel down but if that damage went further down the structure of the ship flapping around and tearing as it went it could explain the extent of the damage on the stern section as it sits today. It could also explain why the stern didn't stay afloat longer if the water tight sections were separated and essentially made useless from the bow pulling it down. I could possibly do an explanation of this in a video using things I have around the house if you are interested Sam.
I think it could be quite possible, because it was not a long time until the stern section went down after the bow section did. If it was still fully of air inside and the bow section would disconnect under, the stern suppose to stay afloat at least few minutes, maybe more thanks to these air it was still in. But as we know it came down very quickly, seems like the bow would pull it with her. Second argument is the stern imploded, so she went down quickly with the massiv amounts of the air inside. It looks like definitely something would have been pulling it down
@@pankratowicz thinking about it if it had have imploded the stern section where the rudder and poop deck are located should have been blown to bits and completely unrecognizable today and that said we know that the stern Cork screwed on its way down the 1st or 2nd Cork screw would have allowed the engines to face the surface. Which would have let the air out of it and explain all the damage we see.
As an engineer I have an opinion. A ship that size under those conditions may as well be a paper boat. Those watertight bulkheads were massive and strong but they wouldn't take much damage to be enough to stop them from working. A few degrees of torsion or shearing beyond the deformation point of the steel would make them inoperable and leaky. The hog from being at a 20° angle in the air would be at least a few centimeters, which itself would be enough to make gaps. Roughly estimating, with a clean break the stern could have remained afloat for perhaps another 90-120 minutes, but only just. If only the compartments under the tower sections were compromised, then 30 minutes maximum. Mr Andrews was a good engineer and he was correct; if carefully cut and given the same two extra watertight compartments the stern section could remain afloat indefinitely in calm seas with its engines, albeit without any surplus buoyancy.
The ship was doomed when Captain Smith was satisfied that they had gone far enough south and ordered the new heading. Everyone did what they were taught was best and it was just such incredibly bad luck that Ol' Bergy was dead ahead.
It is crazy when you think about that way, right? Had he taken a few seconds extra to verbally give the order to change directions the disaster may never had happened. It was the perfect storm
@@Capt.SumTingWong At 21 knots even a single second could have been enough to save the ship. They'd see the iceberg at the same time and perhaps be just farther enough south by a couple meters to narrowly escape damage.
They were sailing into an icefield so big that even the carpathia narrowly (Yes, literally barely) missed Bergies all of 12 times on her way to the Titanic, and she didnt even go all the way through, not even close.
I'mma go out on a limb and say the Titanic was doomed regardless.
The main issue: Smith was unaware of the size of the icefield, reports kept coming in but they weren't delivered to bridge for officers to paint an accurate picture of what was going on (as it were).
@@ToreDL87 You're correct but missing something. Ice flows are very dangerous indeed but Captain Smith knew about that one. The standing orders were to wake him at the first sign of ice and slow to half ahead. Ice flows are patchy things at large scales and the problem was that there were no growlers or sea ice of any kind in Titanic's path except one massive berg, which isn't how it normally works. He assumed that he had a clear way through with ice north and south. If the crew saw or heard any other ice Murdoch would have slowed the ship and woken up Captain Smith. No one expected a big anomalous iceberg before Titanic hit one.
The Captain gets a bad reputation and he really didn't deserve it, having done exactly what he was supposed to do plus a little extra safety in accordance with what was known in 1912. He spent his time saving as many people as possible that night and only left the ship when the bridge was awash. He was by all accounts a skilled and experienced sailor and a good person.
That thing you mentioned about deformation played a big part in Britannic's demise. It's surreal how many things went wrong for both ships, and how close they were to NOT sinking :-(
I remember one of Sam's early videos being on this.
This said, the only way the stern could have stayed afloat was if the watertight bulkheads in it wasn't damaged by the break up.
Glad to see a new video from you.
You explained this well. Showing the James Cameron 97 animation was a helpful visual. My take away is the double bottom hull. I never knew this engineering safety feature.
There have been a number of wrecks at sea and on lakes where a large ship has broken in two and at least one of the two sections remained afloat. But one of the more interesting cases involves a little known White Star Ship S.S. Suevic. This liner was in service on the Liverpool-Cape Town-Sydney route and her first six or so years were largely uneventful. Future Titanic officer Charles Lightoller served on her for a voyage in 1903 where he met his future wife.
However, in 1907, due to a navigational error while in a fog bank, she ran aground on a rock near Plymouth, England and became stuck fast despite various efforts to free her. Fortunately no lives where lost and all aboard were safely evacuated. With the ship stuck fast, Suevic's bow was written off, and the the rest of the hull from just aft the bridge was dynamited free. Incredibly, the ship was still functional with boilers and propulsion gear in full operation! The watertight bulkhead head and the ship sailed on its own power to Southampton, dry docked for preliminary work of cleaning the wreckage around the separation site on the hull, and preparing it for a new bow section that WSL order from Harland & Wolff in Belfast. When completed, the new bow was towed from Belfast to the drydock with the stern, and two were joined together.
Suevic went on to have a very long and prosperous career with WSL until 1928 and then with Yngvar Hvistendahl's Finnhval A/S of Tønsberg, Norway for the remainder of her life when she was sunk by German forces in 1942.
Daniel j Morrells stern wreck is 5 miles from the bow. The Stern sailed on for 3 hours (aimlessly) after the breakup. That shipwreck has always intrigued me
Eva Hart one of the survivors stated she saw the ship break in half and she said the stern stood up in the air for quite a long time then keeled over was exact words.
Sam, we’ve GOT to have a new “natural disaster” episode. I love the Pompeii episode and still listen to it often!
Engineering student here. The double bottom and engine definitely provided force that fought against the buoyancy of the Titanic's stern, so those were definitely factors that accelerated the sinking of the stern. Without the double bottom and engines, the Titanic's stern would still have almost certainly foundered at one point because the bulkheads would've been warped. Now if we want to speak theoretically and assume the Titanic was neatly cut in 3 pieces, that is a different story. We would have to find the weight of the Titanic's engine, the Titanic's stern, the volume of air, and many other things to determine the buoyant force and from there, we could determine how high the water would rise up and if it would be high enough to spill over the top of the bulkheads.
Might have to flood the AFT peak tank too to help counter the weight of the machinery
@425ivanhoe I'm not positive about this, but the titanic may not have pumps back there and even if they did, the titanic would still sit a lot lower in the water and could result in the water overflowing.
I’m also wondering if you can do a video on the Great Lakes and why so many ships have sunk in that area
I second this. While we already know the Great Lakes are basically huge open seas and produce some of the worst storms a ship can face, I’d love Sam’s input on the maritime history of the lakes
I favor this one too!!!
@@michaeldebidart Lake Superior's nickname " The Lake that never gives up her dead" like the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10,1975 at White Fish Point
Hello Sam,I’m sorry I don’t watch you a lot, but I wanted to say you really inspired my love of history, I really appreciate your videos man. I hope the best for you. Cya.
whyd you write this like its a suicide letter
@@zaharafan I didnt
@@zaharafan still alive
@@Youraverageterribleditorthe way you wrote it sounded like it but glad ur alive lol
@@zaharafan yeag
The other thing feeding into the stern sinking was that as part of not being a clean break, a significant portion of the shell plating along the sides separated from the bottom, as can be seen on what’s left of the stern. That negated any effect that bulkheads in the foremost portion of the stern section would have had, since water would have entered to the side and behind them.
I've been missing your videos so much! Please do them more often!
He has a new job in real life now so he cant upload much
I love your videos man, please never stop talking about Titanic!
Andrews would have definitely meant that the 3 sections could remain afloat as-is, if it was cleanly sliced in thirds. I just can't imagine that he said it could have remained afloat (but unsaid: only if it didn't have all that heavy stuff down there to drag it down). No, that's the point of the bulk heads, to add a massive amount of protection against flooding. We can be sure that it wasn't a clean break. But, had some magical surgeon neatly sliced Titanic into thirds, those thirds could have indeed stayed afloat. That's what Andrews thought at least. And, that's my opinion. NICE VIDEO
Once you started considering the weight of the engines, I think you finally caught on to an important detail. When the break happened, the bulkhead beneath funnel three would completely disintegrate. It basically counted as broken away from both halves. The biggest problems were 1) the keel was still struggling to hold on, and it was likely not until the stern started twisting at near vertical that the two pices of double bottom at the break zone finally separated, unable to resist the torque of the twisting motion. 2) 3/4 of the eingines remaining attached to the stern as dead weight would not only pull it down, but the back of the engines would put pressure on the bulkhead between the engines and the dynamo, causing integreity to that bulkhead to be lost. 3) Probably the worst part of the damage, since the breakup started at the top, pressure was placed on the rivets on the sides of the ship all the way back to behind funnel 4. This would cause a slight separation to the sides of the ship, compromising a further bulkhead or two back. Realistically, nothing ahead af the rear cargo hold was going to be watertight anymore. This breakup was about as not clean as a ship break can be.
Great video as always!
Geeze, 134k subs on ONE specific topic is doing very well.
I remembered when you had not even 1k subs. Go for you buddy, you're a likeable person.
Intriguing theory. However, you overlooked a few things:
1. The keels of ships are fairly rigid. They tend to break rather than bend. So, with this in mind, it stands to reason that the keel would have been one of the first things in that area to break.
2. A more accurate theory posits that the break-up proceeded first bottom-up to B Deck (the top deck of the hull, which is designed to flex and bend), then top-down throughout the superstructure down to B Deck. Under this theory, B Deck would have been the last thing to separate.
I promoted that bottom-up-then-top-down theory in 2019 on the Encyclopedia Titanica website. There's ample evidence (testimonies and physical evidence) to show that the first breaking did not result in the ship parting, and that a second breaking did. I'm certain that all of the single-break theories are wrong, but everybody is too invested in those theories to let go.
th-cam.com/video/0ukNqreglyY/w-d-xo.html
AWESOME video! As Always!
I'm a new subbed .I just joined on Friday. I love the videos Sam!! Keep up the good work !! I didn't subbed to the Bright Side !! Watching their videos is like having all of your teeth all at once!! I love your details of about the Titanic .
Thank you for all these videos. I am currently writing a historical drama book on the Titanic and other historical aspects.
The engines and the weight of the water already in the ship probably kept the Titanic stern section from trying to right itself to a degree when the double bottom let go but I think there was some pulling, at least initially, from the double bottom of the ship. It would be nice if a structural engineer or a naval architect could weigh in on this.
The thought of the stern section possibly staying afloat after the breakup was one of those thoughts swimming around in my head although my mind wasn't making too much of an effort trying to grasp it. That said, you brought up some good points here, and I am looking forward to that follow-up video.
Thank you for another great video! They always really make me curious to know more about the topics. In answer to your question, I really think it could be a combination of the double bottom AND the weight of the engines. It doesn’t have to be one or the other in my mind.
Here's another question - were all of the watertight doors in the stern even closed? We know that they opened some doors to bring pumping equipment forward. And we saw on Brittanic that less structural damage was enough to prevent the doors from properly closing again. That could also have contributed to the sinking if the forward compartments never sealed properly.
Edit: Forwad compartments of the stern
I absolutely cannot get enough of your Titanic content!
You got one thing terribly wrong... The stern section DID NOT sink quickly at first.
In fact, some survivors estimated that it lay in a horizontal position for 1-5 minutes before there came a roar and the stern began to rise again. Not to say that the stern didn't stick up for a considerable time, but it did not by any means sink fast.
It was the stern staying flat on the water for so long (probably 45 seconds minimum) that gave survivors the impression it would float.
Plus, even if the bow had pulled the stern, the boilers in the bow section would certainly have broken loose due to the angle. The angle of the bow section would continually and rapidly increase until it detaches from the buoyant stern section.
Plus, if the double bottom held on, then the forward tower wouldnt be able to break off at the surface as the hull below would be supporting it. And if it did fall, it would end near to the hypocentre and not where it ended up.
Something that to me seems overlooked or unmentioned by many about the ship breaking and the sinking sequence with the structural failure of the hull: WIRING. oh, and maybe even some plumbing, since much of the wiring would likely be in conduits.
You could break metal from fatigue and sheer force, but material such as wiring is far more flexible. I'd guess much of the wiring, being nearer the electrical plant and having to supply so much of the ship, that could have acted as tethers that the bow section dragged the stern end down.
No, the double-bottom would not behave as a banana peel, but the ship could have still behaved similarly because of it
I have a thought: what if the stern didn’t stay connected to the bow by the keel, but rather by the main deck. The deck was two steel plates thick, and might have held together halfway to the ocean floor. This would help account for the smaller than expected debris field. Also the keel is buckled as though it had been pushed together, which could only happen if the deck didn’t separate at the surface.
Awesome video as usual😊
Hey Sam do you think you could do a video on the Andrea Doria I feel like people don't give it enough credit
Do a Bright Side video lol. Of course make sure you're mentally prepared for it.
They do videos but I don't subscribe to them !!! Save Sam's nerves !!
6:57, wow. I guess that means those electricians who stayed in the ship until the very end were killed instantly during the breakup and collapse of the towers 😳
I’m still waiting for the theory from draining the ocean where they talked about it being possible the 2 pieces actually separated when the stern was already completely submerged. I mean, I believe it is actually possible given the extent of the massive damage to stern. And especially how many pieces of the front of the stern are missing, the stern imploding on its way down. The fact that the engines are the first thing you see of the front of the stern from the images, means there’s almost 80+ feet of the rest of the stern in the debris field. That they say is small for a ship that broke apart at the surface over 2.5 miles above the ocean floor
I think the scariest thing about the Titanic is seeing how the ocean just turned this massive ship into a little toy, I mean come on, it BOBBED UP AS IT WAS SINKING!
Hi Sam, don’t know if you’ll see this, but I’m from a small town in south wales called Blackwood. Where a man called Artie Moore was from. He made his own wireless system at home and received the distress signal from titanic, over 3000 miles away! Just thought it was be good idea for a video to hear his story. Even if you don’t make a video, I’d still recommend you look him up!
Since the stern didn't float, asking "Could it have floated" must involve the unstated addition "if things had been different." But once you're imagining that, then how much leeway do you allow yourself to things going differently?
There was an accident in the 1950s where a cargo ship, with open-topped watertight bulkheads comparable to the Titanic's, broke in half in a storm and not only did both halves float, they were towed into port, welded back together, and the ship returned to service for decades more. The accident and rescue efforts are described in a book, "Their Finest Hours." (It was made into a heavily-fictionalized movie; in the movie the bow half sinks, which did not happen in real life.)
So that accident proves it was *possible* for the stern to float if enough things were different. But to make the question meaningful you'd have to set some rules on how many differences you'd allow.
Actually, Their Finest Hours was the story of *_TWO_* Liberty Ships (an oil tanker variant and a cargo variant, if I remember right) that split in two that night. One had the bow sink beneath the waves soon after breakup (if I remember right) and the other had the bow found with no one aboard.
Thank you, love your videos about titanic 💯
Video idea: how did alexander carlisle react to the titanic disaster
Sam, I agree with you that the remnants of the double bottom and the engine weight pulled the stern section down. Good video theory.
The Titanic’s stern could remain afloat, theoretically. Problem is is that 1) the stern's three large propellers were heavy, which increased the stresses on the ship's midsection when the stern was lifted out of the water, 2) the stresses on the midsection exceeded the steel's ultimate stresses, causing the steel to fail, 3) the stern was not fully filled with water when it sank, but the increasing water pressure caused trapped air pockets to implode, tearing apart the hull, 4) they lost their watertightness as a result of hull damage from the iceberg strike, 5) the reciprocating engines were too heavy to keep the stern afloat, and 6) the stern was catastrophically damaged during its descent and landing on the sea bed.
I like to believe that all the “ safety features “ ultimately caused the sinking. On paper they seemed to take every precaution (except enough life boats smh) but in practice it was the perfect engineering disaster. The ship was strong enough to stay together to seal its fate. Very ironic.
I was such a huge fan of u like a year ago but then I stopped watching and now I’m back and I’ve realised how much I’ve missed u. And also are u gonna upload a titanic timeline like u usually do? Been a huge titanic fan since I was a kid lol
I'm sure I'm not the first/only to say this, but I suspect that T. Andrews would have rationalized the boilers being intact when he made his analysis about the buoyance of the three sections.
Remember what Andrew said in the movie, the doors were not sealed above edeck, therefore the water is going to spill over from one section to the next and so on and so on and pull it down by the bow, you can't call something water tight that is not completely sealed,!!!!!
Two almost pristine sections of the double bottom were discovered during the wide field survey of the wreck site. It proves that the bow did pull the stern down. Only connected by the double bottom. Both of these sections are full width and literally unzipped along the hull sides. And snapped apart across the middle. They fit neatly together at the break.
The two keel pieces are indeed in good shape, but that doesn't prove that they did any such pulling. It means that they broke away in Euler buckling mode, folding outward from the bottom of the ship first, to begin the rest of the breakup. Even with the keel broken, and the hull up to 'C' deck broken, and the superstructure above 'B' deck broken open "as if cut with a knife", the hull at 'B' and 'C' decks, along with those internal decks, was enough for the bow to pull the buoyant stern behind it, raising it to a steep angle. I proved it with testing. th-cam.com/video/VS5BmyImDF4/w-d-xo.html
The problem with the stern was the engine spaces and the fact it didn't flood slowly like the bow but was ripped apart by the water pouring in. Had watertight bulkheads been high up in the ship and separated the huge engine areas then maybe it could have floated but not as it was on that night.
I had this crazy idea one time and actually thought it could slow the sinking greatly or maybe stop it altogether, what if they had Titanic anchored to the iceberg after the impact? It could possibly hold it up and stop it from sinking(if the chains hold) and Titanic would be famous for “The ship that was saved by the very iceberg that could’ve ended her.” This idea actually seemed plausible until an obvious problem occurred to me, The Titanic’s anchors are a bit too heavy to be tossed up onto and iceberg. And the anchor crane probably wasnt fast or strong enough to swing the third anchor onto the iceberg. But ignoring all of that, if they could be securely hooked to the iceberg do you think it could be like a life ring for Titanic?🤔
I will forever be in awe of your knowledge and ability to explain things so precisely and clearly.
So, after that interesting excursion, the answer to the question in the title is ‘no.’ Had the damage been focused differently, had she been designed differently, had the main engines gone with the bow section etc. They weren’t and didn’t. The answer lies in the reality. Perhaps we have learned all that is necessary from Titanic, fascination with which is still killing people. There have been other disasters since. Time, possibly, to move on without forgetting but also without labouring the issue.
Thanks again for the content
i think the engines had a big impact and would pull it down just enough for the water to spill over and add more weight allowing more water in, and repeat that cycle until there was no real way she could float anymore
I read the testimony of a Thomas P Dillon from the British titanic enquiry, he was a trimmer, and according to him, after she struck the iceberg all the watertight doors were closed from the Bridge, but he and other crew members were told to open the watertight doors by hand, and they opened four of them, and were never shut, so maybe that had something to do with the stern section sinking as it did, if you want to read his testimony it's on day five of the British titanic enquiry
Loved it when you had that thought about the engines, makes me wonder what you're like during the day 😂
The time it took for the stern to go down was likely more the result of the extra damage the breakup caused with the bow only acting as an accelerant. Even If the damage was confined to the area's above the watertight bulkheads, then it becomes a metric of how uneven the weight distribution affected the point of stability. considering how heavy the engines were compared to the rest of the stern's machinery, that stability point would have likely been significantly below the point where the forward watertight bulkhead could do its job. we might not have seen such a dramatic rise post breakup without the bow connection and the remaining time might have had a few minutes extra, but the stern would have gone down without taller bulkheads / capped bulkheads.
One situation I could potentially see the stern surviving would actually require an increased amount of damage. if instead the bottom broke out underneath the engines but the compartments aft of them remained watertight, then the balance point would have been thrown way aft. this would have raised the damaged sections up and away from becoming dangerously flooded, and the stern has a chance at survival. now to poke holes in this idea, if the stern shifted too far back, it could start flooding from the other side which would have been just as devastating. without such a heavy load connected to the bottom, the stern would likely have been more susceptible to rolling which would have doomed it as well. there is also the issue of what other damage the stern took that compromised its integrity.
Clear explanation and great work.
The stein did have higher bulkheads than the bow. So it is possible that it includes machinery. With the split into 3 part's. Also those three parts wouldn't be flooded.
Lets be honest. I know that Thomas Andrews was a great naval architect and did an outstanding job designing the Titanic, and he was a great hero of the sinking too, but he was making some rather unbelievable claims for the ship, which was the reason the media labelled it as 'practically unsinkable'. This assessment was based on how Andrews (and Bruce Ismay) described the safety features of the ship. Therefore, Andrews (and Captain Smith) indirectly contributed to loss of life because passengers were unwilling to abandon Titanic, hoping that the ship will somehow remain afloat. Even after additional safety features were installed in ships after the Titanic disaster, many ships still sunk in a variety of circumstances. RMS Connaught, RMS Arabia, RMS Aurania, and RMS Lusitania, for example, were all torpedoed and sank during WWI. HMHS Britannic, HMHS Salta and RMS Alaunia hit mines and sank. Empress of Ireland was rammed by a collier and sank with great loss of life. Many of these ships sank much faster than the Titanic, because the safety features either didnt work or because of overwhelming structural damage. Therefore It was foolhardy for Andrews to be so boastful of the Titanic as unsinkable under any circumstance. Finally I would like to add, that Andrews never thought of the possibility of a large scale fire breaking out, in which case the ship had to be abandoned, even if it didn't sink. For this reason alone, there should have been enough lifeboats for a full scale evacuation.
The stern had no hope of staying afloat. The break up was very messy, shellplating ripped loose from the inner structure for 160 feet aft of the tear line on the starboard side. That opened the turbine engine room and the generator room to the sea. Also, the way the hull was hogging before it broke apart must have caused bulkheads and decks to flex and bend, and that could have render them or the water tight doors useless. The weight of the remaining cylinders of the reciprocating engines still in place pulled the forward end of the stern section downwards. It didn't help the reciprocating engine room was open to the ocean either.
This is like the third time you’ve done this video
Sam , I think you should go all MythBusters on this and build a scale model and what you should do is try and float it in a sink or a bathtub and see what happens. Then if it does sink figure out what would it take to make it float?
This reminds me of the Finest Hours. That’s also a boat that split in half but the back actually did survive for 3 days
The damage was so catastrophic, there's just no way it could have remained afloat.
Wear was the main kitchen in relation to the break up of Titanic?
Have you ever covered a video of what happened after the titanic sank? Re the clean up? Body retrieval? Change in maritime laws and life boats?
I’d love to see a video about how the Titanic’s sinking would’ve played out if she had Britannic’s gantry crane davits. Still sinks exactly the same though.
When the ship broke in half the front section dragged the stern down enough to let water perhaps either over the bulkheads spill over behind the engine room that were still dry or watertight door may have been open behind engine room ...don't know that and the weight of the engines added to the stern section sinking lower than it should have before the final breakup...by the time the vessel was fully apart water had already compromised watertight compartmenta n was xpilling in from upper floors from portholes ,windows ,etc plus the weight of the engines added to the weight of the water which overwhelmed any watertight compartments left on the stern ..that's why there where several inplosions heard from deep below by survivors...I believe watertight doors in engine room were left open n the break took too long giving time for water to enter ship n overcome any type of hope for it to float.
This was so interesting, thank you!!
I think the sinking of the Titanic was a horrific tragedy for the people on the life boats to watch something disappear in the water.
Something very similar happened in WW2. The Japanese destroyer Amatsukaze was a very famous ship of the war. Commanded by Tameichi Hara, who wrote his famous book "Japanese destroyer captain" on his war experience, Amatsukaze would see a valuable early war career, including helping to sink the submarine USS Perch in the Indian Ocean, and her service in the battle of Guadalcanal where she sank the destroyer USS Barton and helped to sink the light cruiser Juneau, and survived heavy fire from the light cruiser Helena.
On January 16th 1944, Amatsukaze was enroute escorting high speed transports when she was hit by a torpedo fired from the submarine USS Redfin. Amatsukaze was blown in half, and the forward section sank with the loss of 86 men. Her stern was presumed sunk, but amazingly six days later was discovered by Japanese aircraft and towed to Singapore. What was left of Amatsukaze spent nearly the rest of the war there, and was never extensively repaired, only being rigged with a temporary bow in March of 1945 where she attempted to undergo the journey back to mainland Japan, where enroute the next month she was finally finished off by land based US bombers.
It might have remained afloat - Unfortunately, a chain of unlucky circumstances have prevented it from doing so. It's incredible to see how, in this and many other disasters in History, the chain of events had both the wrong set of human-made premises, but also the wrong chain of un/lucky events which have made it possible: it's something like everything has conjured up making the catastrophic result possible.
It's hard to tell what Thomas Andrews meant when he said 3 separate sections of the ship could float themselves. The colossal turbines and propellers in the back might be able to balance out the engines, but still, the stern is a lot wider on one end and narrow on the other.
There was no real clean break as the broken keel would still have dragged he down. Unless you had to have a few Jedi aboard to use the force to generate a force field and have one of them utter - Not to worry. We are still flying (floating) at least half a ship! And sadly, she is not the Enterprise-D NCC-1701D.
Could it be a combination of the bow pulling the stern down along with the weight of the twin reciprocating engines doing the rest? The bulkheads in the stern also only went as high as E Deck as I recall…thankful for your time again as always!
Even if the double bottom let go early i imagine that something similar to what happened to the Britannic would happen where the hull was warped to the point the water tight bulkheads were compromised and it would sink anyway.
Great video! 👍
So people think that the whole ship wouldnt be able to stay afloat with a relatively small hole but it would when the whole front of the ship was broken off so you basically have a whole thats the whole width of the ship?😂
I've often wondered the same. Per weight of engines: I remember a reply to a previous comment. The reply said that the engines broke between the forwardmost and the next cylinder aft (she was a 4 cylinder triple expansion I think. She had 4 cylinders anyway) and I've wondered about this too. Is this correct? I would have thought the engine blocks would be massively rigid.
Yep I think you're absolutely right that's what I've always understood cause that Stern to rise up so far. And Rosso perpendicular to witness accounts and I have always believed that was true and there was a lot of are stuck in the hole and the engines were dragging it down, then for some reason I've seen a bunch of recent people trying to say it couldn't have possibly risen to that degree of angle etcetera when they're not taking into account there's nothing attached anymore except for that set of huge engines!
I feel Thomas Andrews meant the space behind the engines could remain afloat on its own, and the engine room would instead float along side the boiler rooms. Im not sure though but I feel all the boilers combined would match the weight of the engines.
Your last idea about the Titanic breakup sounds interesting. I'd like to hear more.
With regard to what pulled the stern section down after break up, I believe would be a combination of all the factors you mentioned. As the double bottom was peeled back effectively opening a couple of compartments and most importantly one of those was the engine room, which was the largest space on the ship. With all that water rushing in along with the fact some of that area would have already flooded by water spilling over the top pulled the ship down. This was then made worse by the fact they stayed connected long enough for the fully flooded bow to pull the stern downwards before finally detaching, quickening the whole process.
Even if we say Titanic split cleanly and there was no damage to the aft section bulkheads beyond the break up point, she would have settled in a downward attitude anyhow as the heaviest sections of the remaining ship are all towards he open end. Along with the weight of the water sat on the open section the shift in balance would have probably caused it to sit low enough to breach the first water tight compartment which would have probably been enough to doom what was left of the ship.
To survive, the break up point would have needed to have been just in front of the engine room and IF that could have split before any water had spilled over into it and it was a clean break, then the higher bulkhead left at the open end might have been enough for the ship to settle down but not then spill over it.
Titanics engines did not stay fully intact. The first set of cylinders separated during the breakup with the least 3 remaining on the stern section which may be some additional evidence of how their weight may have contributed and the keel break may have happened sooner.
I was wondering, Sam. When do you think you’ll be able to make part two of the complete story of the Queen Mary?
Now i dont actually belive this but was the titanic and the olympic actually switched ?
In my opinion, the air that was inside the tip of the stern was trapped, and as there weren't many holes for the air to escape, it sank more slowly than at the beginning.
The reason the stern section sucks so quickly after the break up of the RMS Titanic, was because of the rivets that was being used in the manufacture of the ship! The rivets held the entire ship together, and the reason the rivets failed the way that they did is because the grade 2 rivets that was hand pounded into the curve sections of the edge of the double bottom part used on each side of the keel of the ship, and the double bottom was used with grade 3 rabbits with a hydraulic rivet press.
The rivets that failed was the rivets that was being used on the two sides port and starboard, and they failed and pulled a large section of the bottom out from under the engines, and the stern section of the ship. That section of the double bottom now lays on the ocean floor between the two halves. Once it pulled all the buoyant bottom out from under the engines the weight of the engines pulled the stern vertical, and caused the stern to sink as fast as it did.
It is physics 101. Weight, buoyancy, and craftsmanship along with physics, doomed the beautiful ocean liner from bow to stern, and everything in between. When the RMS Titanic broke into two halves, the forward section was well on its way to the bottom long before the stern raised vertical. The weight of the engines pulled the stern face down “until it’s whole A$$ was sticking up in the air” then it took its final plunge.
The theory that Titanic could be broken into three seconds and still float is wrong, it’s all wrong! No way it could have stayed afloat like that, the water tight bulkheads wasn’t near high enough, they would have had to been raised as high as at least the forward and aft well deck, to have had any chance of staying afloat under those circumstances, and never would that have ever happened in a real world scenario anyhow, the hull would sustain far to much damage in a scenario where the ship broken into two sections, for any of it to remain afloat in that scenario.
I think the reason spilt was not only cause of the angle but also the 1,500 people on the stern cause I don't think the ship could handle it.
Let's say that the stern was perfectly airtight, would you think that the stern could stay afloat like a cork? I am wondering this myself! And yeah, great thinking, the engines were MASSIVE, at least 700 tons each, the double bottom piece was found on the bottom of the ocean in 2 pieces; what if these pieces seperated seperately, i mean that, the 1 piece could've come from the bow on it's way down and the other piece could've been from the stern on it's way down, we don't know for sure that those 2 pieces came apart on their way down . . .
It probably can stay afloat cause the big thing that made it sank as well is the bottom keel of the ship was still intact which causing the bow pull the stern with it
I love this kind of videos, but I love more the Bright Side reaction videos hahaha
I cannot fathom that the bow, which was more than 50 per cent of the volume of the two sections and which would have weighed likely five to ten time as much, would have been held back by the stern like that. The entirety of the portions submerged were full of water.
Its less about weight and more about momentum and how the water interacted with the bow. effectively the front of the bow was moving quickly while the back was effectively at rest. I have also seen some theories that during the initial breakup, the bow effectively started to hydroplane under the water which gave it a few more seconds near the surface before driving for the depths, which would have more or less started by swinging downward around the final double bottom connection in all likelihood breaking it in seconds
Great video. However, I think you only gave Brightside another video idea. Brightside; "Had Andrews designed a better ship the Titanic's stern could have remained afloat had it had a clean break."
I actually did a poster on this for my science class, and I do like to believe that if the ship broke more cleanly, it could have stayed afloat.
If you cut the ship into sections, you probably wouldn't want to remove all of the machinery because it needs that weight at the bottom to keep it from capsizing due to the weight on top. Andrews was probably also thinking of the ship being cut apart purposefully in that scenario, so there wouldn't be any structural damage. There have been examples of ships being cut in half and still floating, one in particular sailing under its own power, but that one was a battleship. I think it's entirely possible it could float if it was cut correctly, but probably not from a breakup like that.
On the note of the engines pulling down the stern, taking the buoyancy into account, not having the engines there would probably just have made the stern completely capsize before sinking. That night it was probably a combination of the bow pulling down the stern and the engines weighing down the stern to get it to rise so quickly into the air. I don't think the bow stayed connected for very long, though, because it was so much dead weight, but it definitely stayed connected for a little bit, which would probably explain the sections of the double bottom that were ripped off the stern. The bow probably remained attached long enough to pull the front of the stern into the water enough to overwhelm it with water, then after that point the engines and the water may have been enough to pull it under quickly. It's hard to say, it really depends on how the stern broke off. James Cameron did that physical model test and came to the conclusion that you could have a big splash into the water or you could have the stern sticking vertically into the air, but not both. The only problem I have with that is that a full sized ship will act differently from a small model.
If I really think it over, I feel like the bow broke off near the time the stern was vertical, more than likely in a manner where the bow kept its momentum going at a near constant rate because again it was a lot of dead weight.
My theory is that when the double bottom stayed attatched that it pulled it under as well as the engines weight and the water flooding. And then when it detached I think that the weight of the engines pulled the stern down.
I’m not entirely sure that the weight of the engines alone could have affected the stern sinking the way that it did. I kind of think that the stern had more to do with it than anything. The bow was the heaviest part of the ship, and as you said it probably held onto the stern until just as the stern was pulled nearly vertical. I could be wrong though.