What were the design flaws in the RMS Titanic?
Posted by James on October 24, 2011 · 3 Comments
Question by bcc_009: What were the design flaws in the RMS Titanic?
As in ‘why was it not unsinkable’, what were it’s flaws?
Best answer:
Answer by TrollyMctrolls
It hit a big damn iceburg, wtf do you think are its flaws?
Add your own answer in the comments!
The iceberg brushed the ship’s starboard side (right side), buckling the hull in several places and popping out rivets below the waterline over a length of 299 feet (90 m). As seawater filled the forward compartments, the watertight doors shut. However, while the ship could stay afloat with four flooded compartments, five were filling with water. The five water-filled compartments weighed down the ship so that the tops of the forward watertight bulkheads fell below the ship’s waterline, allowing water to pour into additional compartments.
It didn’t have any flaws, Harland and Wolfe never said that it was unsinkable, and neither did White Star.
That claim started off in a ship building magazine, which stated that Titanic was vitrually unsinkable.
Two known things and one that is not widely known. First, the watertight compartments didn’t go high enough. Had they, it would not have sunk. But they only went up so far and if more water was coming in than that, then it spilled over the top into the next compartment and the next and so on. Dumb, really, in hindsight. Why make a watertight compartment with no lid?
The second thing is that the steel was brittle. Too much or too little carbon, I don’t remember. But it shouldn’t have made such a big rip in the side.
Third, there was a fire for three days in one of the coal storage bins which apparently weakened the steel as well. Not a design fault, but a contributing factor, apparently.