The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Adam Went]

Hey Jeff,

Very interesting about the attempt to raise the wooden boat, and very disappointing that it ended that way - though surely they should have seen it coming!

It's actually worth nothing that plans to raise the Titanic from the ocean floor have been in place as early as 1912, when it sank - some of the more rich and prominent survivors were annoyed that their valuables had gone to the bottom with the ship, and so they wanted to look into whether it was possible to travel down and have them retrieved. Of course, 1912 technology didn't allow it and by 1985, any valuables worth retrieving in 1912 were not in such great shape.

With the Lusitania, divers actually first went down to it in the 1930's and claimed that it was laying on its PORT side - poor lighting and visibility being the culprit there, but you're right, that's in a shocking state - it's been essentially turned into a pancake and is covered with fishing nets and debris, being so close to the Irish coast. The fact that it ploughed into the ocean floor whilst still moving during the sinking process may not have helped the appearance of the interior.

Sad to hear Andrea Doria is going the same way too. In many ways it's lucky that the Britannic is still in such surprisingly good shape!

Hopefully something special can be done for the Titanic for the 100th anniversary in a year from now....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Mayerling:

It's been mooted countless times in the past but unfortunately it's too late now - the ship is buried in dozens of metres of sea mud, any attempt to lift it out of that would see it crumble into pieces (and if they attempted to do it the way they showed in the film "Raise The Titanic", with a bunch of explosives around the side of the ship, i'd imagine that would have the same effect) - and then even if by some miracle they managed to get the bow section to the surface, daylight would take its immediate toll on everything. Then beyond that you'd have the problem of how you'd get it to shore, what you'd do with it once you got it there, and so on. Don't like to be the pessimist, it really is a shame that something can't be done, but....

NTS:

Agree with you about Ballard. Hope he makes some sort of appearance there for the 100th anniversary next year.

Cheers,
Adam.

Hi Adam,


I'm afraid you are right about deterioration. About 1990 there was a dreadful example of botched sea archeology (or well intentioned idiocy) in the Delaware Bay. There was a legendary wooden ship named the De Braak that had sunk two centuries earlier, and a bunch of "archeologists" decided to raise her in order to salvage her contents. I suspect they thought it would be a snap to raise a wooden sailing ship. The ship fell apart as it came to the surface. So much for that.

Occasionally something is possible. The work in finding and raising CSS Hunley from it's watery grave is fascinating - but it sank in Charleston Harbor in February 1864. Still it is nice to know the first successful war submarine was saved. Similarly the careful removal of the turret of USS Monitor from the sea floor off Cape Hattaras rescued the portion of that warship that retains historical interest and value due to the design and innovations of its creator John Ericsson.

As for the great liners - Titanic is too far out at sea (and two far down, and now has been under water for a century) to be lifted - but they did get a portion of the wall. Andrea Doria is slowly disappearing (it used to be possible to see the decks and the superstructure made of wood - this is no longer the full case. Lusitania is flattened somehow. Even Empress of Ireland (in the St. Lawrence) is an apparent twisted mess.

I guess it is a matter of luck. On the other hand, the pyrate ship Whyddah has been slowly uncovered and it's contents recovered by many sea archeologists on Cape Cod. But it ran aground in a hurricaine.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Mayerling:

It's been mooted countless times in the past but unfortunately it's too late now - the ship is buried in dozens of metres of sea mud, any attempt to lift it out of that would see it crumble into pieces (and if they attempted to do it the way they showed in the film "Raise The Titanic", with a bunch of explosives around the side of the ship, i'd imagine that would have the same effect) - and then even if by some miracle they managed to get the bow section to the surface, daylight would take its immediate toll on everything. Then beyond that you'd have the problem of how you'd get it to shore, what you'd do with it once you got it there, and so on. Don't like to be the pessimist, it really is a shame that something can't be done, but....

NTS:

Agree with you about Ballard. Hope he makes some sort of appearance there for the 100th anniversary next year.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Nothing to see]

Graham:

I do agree with you that A Night To Remember is more factually accurate, and a very good film overall - despite the fact that it doesn't show the Titanic splitting in half, as Cameron's film does (excusable as obviously the ship hadn't yet been discovered in 1958 when ANTR came out.)

I'm not a huge fan of Cameron's Titanic, but it's not as bad as some make it out to be, and more importantly, James Cameron is a good person and genuinely cares about the Titanic and its people. When 96 year old last Titanic survivor Millvina Dean was struggling to meet her nursing home expenses and was starting to have to sell her autograph and Titanic memorabilia just to make ends meet, Cameron, along with others, donated tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to her to make sure she could live the rest of her life out more than comfortably. He also returned to the wreck in the early 2000's to film Ghosts Of The Abyss, a truly excellent film.

Suzi:

Wow, what a fascinating family story!

Cheers,
Adam.

If it were possible to take the actors from A Night to Remember and put them in Cameron's Titanic, dump Cameron's crap script, replace it with the truth and keep all his CGI and underwater photography, then it would be the story of the Titanic.

IMO there is one person only who can speak to the Titanic and that is Dr Robert Ballard.

[Mayerling]

The Forces of Nature versus Unsinkability.

The news from Titanic trench is not good. A newly discovered bacteria (named by right of discovery for the ocean liner) is eating the iron metal holding the ship together. In about twenty years the only sign of the great liner will be a rusted stain on the ocean floor.

I wonder if it would be too ghoulish to actually try to raise the remains of the ship for preservation?

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Jukka:

Wow, where do you want to start? lol
I guess the most important thing would be the law that there must be enough lifeboats on board for everybody, not just the amount required to pass the tests......not to call a ship "unsinkable".....to begin ice patrols to warn ships of icebergs and ice fields....to abolish the old women and children first ideas and simply save as many people as possible.

There were a lot of changes in the aftermath of the Titanic, and of course further down the track there was the development of radio communication, radar and what not......though unfortunately, radar was still not enough to save the above mentioned Andrea Doria!

Cheers,
Adam.

Actually the lessons of April 14-15, 1912 were not totally learned. In 1958 the Danish - Greenland liner Hans Hedtoft was sunk WITHOUT ANY SURVIVERS by an iceberg in a crazy area known for its' iceflows that was in the chartered route to be used by the Hedtoft on its voyages (believe it or not this was it's maiden voyage too!). We know about its fate because, sadly, it was able to use wireless to send messages until it sank.

[DrPL]

I've written a fair bit about the Titanic: http://www.paullee.com/titanic - I see theres been a discussion about Jamers Camron's movie. On my Titanic pages, theres a link to a visual guide to the many goofs of the movie. Hope you enjoy it!

[Zodiac]

Hello you all!

Just wondering;

How much we have learned since the Titanic days, besides, that there is not an unsinkable ship?!

All the best
Jukka

Err... that there are downsides to the use of Hydrogen as a lift-gas for Airships?!

Oh the humanity!!!

Best wishes,

Zodiac.

[Adam Went]

Jukka:

Wow, where do you want to start? lol
I guess the most important thing would be the law that there must be enough lifeboats on board for everybody, not just the amount required to pass the tests......not to call a ship "unsinkable".....to begin ice patrols to warn ships of icebergs and ice fields....to abolish the old women and children first ideas and simply save as many people as possible.

There were a lot of changes in the aftermath of the Titanic, and of course further down the track there was the development of radio communication, radar and what not......though unfortunately, radar was still not enough to save the above mentioned Andrea Doria!

Cheers,
Adam.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

Just wondering;

How much we have learned since the Titanic days, besides, that there is not an unsinkable ship?!

All the best
Jukka

[Adam Went]

54 years ago yesterday since the sinking of the Andrea Doria (July 26, 1956).

Cheers,
Adam.

[Bob Hinton]

To Fly or Not to Fly, that could be the very last question...

When my wife and I flew into Kiev a few years back we were intrigued to see swarms of mechanics ripping parts out of a whole flock of old Russian Ilyushin bombers parked near the runway. I asked another passenger what they were doing. He, a veteran of flying in the Eastern bloc, explained they were scavenging spare parts for the Ukrainian Airways. We had to journey on to the Crimea so we had the choice of flying by internal airlines or a 24 hour trip by train. We enjoyed our train trip!

[Adam Went]

Graham:

I do agree with you that A Night To Remember is more factually accurate, and a very good film overall - despite the fact that it doesn't show the Titanic splitting in half, as Cameron's film does (excusable as obviously the ship hadn't yet been discovered in 1958 when ANTR came out.)

I'm not a huge fan of Cameron's Titanic, but it's not as bad as some make it out to be, and more importantly, James Cameron is a good person and genuinely cares about the Titanic and its people. When 96 year old last Titanic survivor Millvina Dean was struggling to meet her nursing home expenses and was starting to have to sell her autograph and Titanic memorabilia just to make ends meet, Cameron, along with others, donated tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to her to make sure she could live the rest of her life out more than comfortably. He also returned to the wreck in the early 2000's to film Ghosts Of The Abyss, a truly excellent film.

Suzi:

Wow, what a fascinating family story!

Cheers,
Adam.

[claire]

Bloody hell that's good we're flying Turkish Airlines nest month (aka Buddy Holly Airlines) aaaaagh!

Turkish have got pretty reasonable of late, Suzi; new planes and the whole chabang (yay, even food and khazis). No more clapped out old planes that you board up a ramp under the tail that Aeroflot got rid of after hearing a few dodgy noises... Have a lovely trip
(sorry for off-topic)

[Suzi]

Great!