Anyone in here ever try to wrap their head around the mysteries of the Titanic's last moments? Do you think it happened more quickly than people were expecting or was there time for them to realise what was happening?

I'm admittedly not extremely educated on the subject, hence my post on this board I thought i could learn a but by starting a discussion about it...

I found some helpful facts.

Why didn't the crew see the iceberg sooner? On a clear day icebergs can be seen 15 to 20 miles from the bridge of a ship -- farther from the crow’s nest. On a moon-lit night, that distance is greatly reduced to only a few miles, depending on the relative positions of the berg, ship and moon. The night of the Titanic Disaster presented unusual conditions that helped conceal the presence of the iceberg until it was too late to avoid. There was no moon to help illuminate the ocean. Icebergs are frequently spotted by small waves that break against the water line, but the absence of wind or swells prevented this. Without these cues, the iceberg appeared as a black mass against the black background of the sky, and the berg was spotted only a few hundred yards from the bow of the Titanic.

So I'd say it seems like there wasn't enough time to react even if they had time to realize they were going to hit. Too late to avoid.

Welcome, by the way!

It took the Titanic approximately 2 hours fourty minutes to sink after hitting the iceberg. So they had quite a long time to evacuate the ship.

I've thought about it many times. I admit the horror sensations I imagine.. the chaos, the terror.. all of it.. I imagine falls far short of my imagination (and I have a very GOOD imagination )... and that quite frankly scares the H-E-double tooth-pick out of me.

I think it would be even worse to be in the lower decks and know you were nowhere near an exit to even TRY to escape.

I went on a cruise 2 years ago and I could see how the ship was built to eliminate that whole "instant filling" quality that could happen with long open galley-ways, etc. On the other hand, it was so convoluted getting anywhere that I am sure I would have been a goner from being LOST!

When I watched "Hunt for Red October" and saw how the submarine scenes were depicted when there were hits on the vessels and an effort made for water containment (I think it was that movie, but you get what I mean, I hope) it was brought firmly to roost in my mind how totally alien that envirnoment is to man.. how totally man is NOT suited for being on or under the water for survival purposes.

I guess I've rambled on enough now. LOL

Well, according to this documentary about to air on the history channel they actually had less time than that I think. You can look at what i'm checking out here http://www.history.com/titanic There was some new evidence found about what the passengers and crew may have really experienced.

I get to work with thie history channel every once in a while and from what I hear the new find could rewrite history... I'm going to have to check this out.

I am eager to see that History Channel presentation.

You know, thisnthat, I had NO sleep having images of floods and water catastrophes as a result of participating in this topic yesterday! LOL

I wouldn't have done that if I had known I was going to experience "live" scenarios of floods, sinking ships and New Orleans-type of disasters for an entire sleep cycle after work (I work nights)!

Gee, Sher, I guess you're lucky that you didn't read about the huge cracks that appeared in the earth's surface in SE Pennsylvania and the scaly green creatures that started crawling out. That would have made for some really bad images.

Dorian - you're joking with us right? I seriously wonder about this reptilian thing... do you have any info you can pm (dunno if you can pm on this site or not) me?

Anyway, so the documentary was on last night - very interesting and technical, and very chilling :S It brings a whole new light to what the passengers and crew really experienced... Did anyone else watch it?

Yes, I am joking. I like to kid Sher. Believe me, if green scaly things were coming out of the earth, I wouldn't be on the computer. I'd either be there with a camera or be somewhere in hiding.

I think that the ending point was that the Titanic was going under slowly by the reckoning of those who mattered they assumed that this slow sinking would continue until closer to the end. However the “new findings” suggest that the breakup caused the Titanic to start sinking faster, shaving off maybe an hour or two.

Considering that the Carpathian arrived only 2 hours later, more lives could have been saved IF the Titanic continued on her slow sinking.

To those not in the know. The “break up” point, the point where Titanic was ripped apart was the final thing to lead to the plunge. What the new evidence suggests is that the break-up was not a matter of the sinking, but that the final sinking was a direct result of the break-up. It is possible that those on board, like the crew and captain, assumed that the compartments would continue to fill one at a time as the titanic slowly descended bow first into the ocean.

From the attending graphics we see that the theory has the compartments where the rupture took place dry or just starting to flood, however the crack and then rupture caused sudden flooding which caused sudden “fall” of the fore half of the ship, thus leading to the stern being suddenly upended, leading to a swift and devastating breaking apart which lead to the last half of Titanic plunging to the depths.

The manner in which she broke I two was not suggestive of a snapping of a twig kind of break up, but a more complex break up which suggests that the line of the fracture was water tight and the sudden ripping apart allowed water to crash in shoving the mid-ships downward, thus causing the break to go in a different way, causing the upper decks to be smashed while causing segments of the bottom hull to break loose. That sudden rush of water is what did her in. The sudden weight pulled her down quickly.

Had she continued settling into the water, one compartment flooding after another her stern mayn’t have went under for a couple of more hours, thus buying crucial time for the rescue.

Stupidest thing of all is that if she had hit the iceberg full on she would not have sunk. The crew decided to try to steer around it and then they put her into full astern.In any case he rudder was not big enough and could not have swung her away at the speed she was going. It would have worked better if she were going faster, not slower. It is counter -intuitive to do so but if they'd tried to hit the berg stem first the crash would have damaged the bow and the front section would have ruptured but she would have stayed up and would have made port. As it was she ran along the berg and just enough of the bulkhead sections were ruptured along her side to sink her. [From a recent report given in The Times]

The Carpathia reached the Titanic's last known position approximately 3 and a half hours after the Mayday signal. However, the Titanic had drifted off course after the collision and it was daybreak before the Carpathia found the lifeboats full of people.
Fourbrick, remember the ship did not have enough lifeboats for all the people so they could not have evacuated the ship unless help arrived.

Well according to the documentary she was struck by something, supposedly and ice berg, on the bottomcausing two large pieces of the double bottom to break off. Then they further proved that she broke up in the opposite way of what we originally thought - making the ship almost instantly sink.

If the materials of the ship lived up to their reputation then theoreticly the ship should have stayed afloat long enough for help to arrive. Unfortunately there was way too much confidence put into the materials used in that time....

Did anyone else see this show? If you didn't catch it last week and want to check it out it will be on again tonight. It was the highest rated show in the history of the history channel last sunday when it aired, so it's well worth checking out.