A new book on the Titanic
A novelist whose grandfather was the senior surviving officer from the Titanic is revealing the truth of what occured on that fateful night. As she is the only person, who is left who knows the family secret, she has decided that she will tell all.
She is the granddaughter of Charles Lightoller, the Second Officer and the person in charge of the Port side lifeboats. According to her, 2 errors took place. Firstly, the iceberg was noted in advance, but due to a miscommunication in steering orders they turned into the iceberg instead of away from it. Secondly, the ship's owner persuaded the Captain to continue sailing slow ahead, which forced water through the tear in the hull overloading the bulkheads. If she had stayed still, she could have floated for a lot longer. The reason why Lightoller lied to the Board of Enquiry, was that if he admitted the truth, the White Star line would have been liable putting it out of business and bankrupting its owners. Apparently the story was passed down from her Grandmother through the family.
So, what do you think? A likely event or just publicity for a new book.
If true, how will this affect the other versions of the story already told.
If it is just publicity and found to be so, should any charges be placed against her for slander?
More details here if you are interested
Some Opinions, and a brief discussion of Brittle Fracture, and the steel of the RMS Titanic, and RMS Olympic
A couple of points.
First off, I don't find the woman's claim to be all that credible about the steerage for the ship.
Titanic was a pig. A wallowing, aimless pig. Luxurious, and fast, but her rudder was undersized for her mass. More than that, her triple screw configuration left the ship with fewer options for using torque generated by backing one or more screws to generate a turn than a more traditional two or four screw configuration would have offered.
Even without the reasons that I claim that Titanic was a pig, such ships do not turn quickly. The general rule of thumb I recall is that it will usually take a mile, or more, for a large vessel to begin to respond to the helm. Now, it is possible that a mistaken helm order was given, and that delayed the time before the ship began turning. But that's different from claiming the ship actually turned towards the iceberg. I find it hard to believe that the order would be given to turn towards the iceberg, and then the helm would be allowed enough time on that order for that to become critical.
As for keeping way on the ship after the collision - I am skeptical of that, as well. From what I recall the ship went dead in the water (DIW) once the reports of extensive flooding reached the bridge. Which would have been within minutes, since the forward-most fire room, IIRC was among the first compartments flooded.
The idea that only a bridge officer would know whether the ship was keeping way on, is barking insane. First off, when a vessel is DIW it wallows like a pig. You feel it rocking far more than the stability it may have when moving. So, even the passengers should have been able to notice whether the ship was still underway. Secondly, you don't run an Edwardian era steam plant without watchstanders. And that black gang will know what the engine orders were, as well as what the engines were actually producing. The idea that only Lightoller could know of the engine orders is insane.
RMS Titanic and Brittle Fracture in her steel
As for the cold sensitive steel theory, more properly known as brittle fracture failure theory, the results of some serious testing are a bit mixed. It is likely that some of the rivets, at least, used in the construction failed via brittle fracture.
Let's back up a bit - what is brittle fracture failure?
Normally when a metal is stressed the crystalline structure will stretch and bend before it fails - breaks. This stretching is an important safety margin, it takes energy to stretch and deform the metal, and that deformation is often enough to absorb whatever stresses are affecting the metal. While it's not good for a metal piece to bend out of shape, when you're talking about keeping water out of the people tank, it's far better to have the people tank get a little out of shape than to have it passing megagallons of water. When a metal undergoes brittle fracture, it breaks in response to stresses without deforming, first. This means that compared to the metal's normal yield strength (the stress the metal can withstand before it fails) a metal in its brittle fracture zone will fail at a fraction of the stresses that it could withstand if it were going to undergo ductile failure.
The classic example of brittle fracture in shipping is the Liberty Ship S.S. Schenectady.
Quote:
Originally posted by Wikipedia
On 16 January 1943, she was moored at the fitting dock at Swan Island, in calm weather, shortly after returning from her sea trials. Without warning, and with a noise audible for at least a mile, the hull cracked almost in half, just aft of the superstructure.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...chenectady.jpg
Which highlights the other thing about brittle fracture failure: Unlike ductile failure which is often slow, and takes time to propagate, once a brittle fracture starts, it goes like lightning.
Post-war analysis of shipping losses found several of the Liberty-ship tankers were likely lost to similar brittle-fracture failures while underway.
The next thing to consider is that brittle-fracture failure wasn't properly defined, let alone understood, until the post-war period. In 1910, no one knew anything about it, and so didn't know to choose metals for their ductile behavior at low temperatures.
Now, here's a relatively low-jargon article from the Journal of Metallurgy, which goes over the brittle fracture failure theory for the loss of Titanic. It also mentions the tests that have been done on steel samples kept from when the ship was built and I believe some recovered steel as well.
The conclusion of the article is as follows:
Quote:
Originally posted by JOM
The steel used in constructing the RMS Titanic was probably the best plain carbon ship plate available in the period of 1909 to 1911, but it would not be acceptable at the present time for any construction purposes and particularly not for ship construction. Whether a ship constructed of modern steel would have suffered as much damage as the Titanic in a similar accident seems problematic. Navigational aides exist now that did not exist in 1912; hence, icebergs would be sighted at a much greater distance, allowing more time for evasive action. If the Titanic had not collided with the iceberg, it could have had a career of more than 20 years as the Olympic had. It was built of similar steel, in the same shipyard, and from the same design. The only difference was a big iceberg.
There have been some other studies done later that looked at the riveting metals used in Titanic, and I believe that they were found to be a bit more susceptible towards brittle fracture, but again, based on what was known at the time, it seems that Titanic was built to the highest standards of the day.
