Why did the Titanic sink?

Everyone knows that the Titanic - the unsinkable ship, sank because it hit an iceberg. But it turns out that there were several factors that would have sufficed if one of them had been eliminated - the Titanic would not have sunk, or at least not so quickly - which would have left time to save almost all the passengers.

The great interest that began to arise in the case of the sinking of the Titanic began with the discovery of the wreckage of the ship for the first time in 1985 and increased with the research and disclosure of the findings that began in 1991. Following this, the film was also made which, after it was released, was the most successful film of all time. The scenario of the collision and sinking as described in the film and in the TV series is quite accurate, according to the testimony of survivors and according to the findings discovered in the process of uncovering the remains of the ship.

If the collision was head-on

What would have happened if the Titanic had not changed its course (or had not changed enough) and collided head-on with an iceberg. The sailors watching the ship's path of progress noticed the iceberg, alerted him, then the crew slowed down and broke as far to the left as possible. The right side of the Titanic rubbed against an iceberg and received a blow from it, as a result of which a fracture was created in the ship's hull. Well, if there had been a head-on collision - the ship would have suffered a very strong shock that would have caused the injury or death of several passengers. As you know, the Titanic was divided into isolated compartments that could be blocked between them - it was considered an "unsinkable" ship. In the event of a head-on collision, one or two compartments at the front of the ship might have been filled with water, but this would not have caused it to sink. In practice, the ship was hit on the side and the fracture was in the six front compartments, which caused a strong tilt of the ship and its rapid sinking. It is easy to be smart after the fact and say that it would have been better to collide head-on, but the instinctive thought in such a case is to avoid the impact and it is possible that if they had managed to break to the left a little harder - nothing would have happened. Here is the place to mention that since the Titanic was very large and she was sailing at a relatively high speed before the collision - the steering action was carried out very slowly.

Which ones and…

You can add a few more "ifs". Basically every event - whether it is a disaster or whether it is another event - its existence is conditioned by a set of conditions, the absence of which or a change in one of them will lead to a change in the result. If it had been a moonlit night, the observers would have noticed the iceberg much earlier and then there would have been enough time to avoid it.

The sea that night was completely calm. If it hadn't been so quiet then the foam of the waves breaking on the ice blocks that were around, would have been visible and the glacier would have been discovered sooner.

And if there was a big one - if there were enough lifeboats for all the passengers... As you know, they didn't fill the full quota of boats according to the number of passengers, so as not to harm the comfort of passage on board and the excuse was that the ship can't sink anyway.

The ship California

The ship California, which was sailing at a relatively small distance, noticed one of the fireworks fired from the Titanic. She retorted but did not respond to him (which is clear because the crew on the Titanic was busy with rescue operations and was not available for observations). When the California team didn't get another signal they assumed it was nothing and continued on their way. If they had decided to sail in the direction from which they saw the refinery - they could have saved the ship's passengers. By the way, the same ship - California, broadcast at the beginning of that evening a warning about icebergs in the vicinity and this warning was picked up by the Titanic. There is also an opinion that the Titanic's distress broadcast did not receive attention on the California ship, either because of the operator's lack of attention or because of an operational malfunction in the radio.

The patent against drowning - the drowning

The patent of dividing the ship into zones - separate compartments that can be blocked between them, did not prove itself. In the Titanic disaster, the first six compartments in the front of the ship broke. This caused the ship to tilt and when the cabin it was in filled with the big break - the water flowed into the cabin next to it and so on towards the bow. In this way the ship sank in about two hours. If the ship had not been divided - the water that entered it would have been distributed equally along the entire length of the ship and it would have remained balanced. In this way, she would have lasted on the surface of the sea for ten hours or more, and this would have left time for other ships to arrive and save all the passengers.

strength of materials

The Titanic was made of very strong steel. But strength is not everything. And the Sages have already compared two trees, one bends itself in the wind and survives and the other stands straight and breaks. The steel of the Titanic was similar to the second tree.

After the wreckage of the Titanic was uncovered, the steel it was made of was tested and found to contain a high amount of sulfur. Such steel is brittle and brittle. Steel used today to build ships has a low sulfur content and this gives it flexibility. If the Titanic had been built of steel, which is accepted in the construction of ships today, the blow it received from the iceberg would have bent the steel but not caused such a big break. The Titanic would have lasted many more hours, so the rescue ship would have arrived before the sinking.

Next time you watch the movie Titanic, think about all these things.