"Richard Smith" wrote in message news:lyiln1c...@void.com...
"Jim Wilkins" <
murat...@gmail.com> writes:
> ... Were other ships similarly blown off course at the time? If so,
> would they admit it? ...
They deliberately did routes which saved time, and "blarney'ed" away
about an understandable navigational error given the conditions if
seen where they shouldn't be.
> Titanic's wreck was found 13 miles east of their distress call
> position.
They had "dead reckoning" - how long they'd steamed on a given heading
at a logged speed, giving an estimated current position - with
occasional celestial measurements.
The ship could have drifted while sinking as well. etc.
It is as it is.
I was a total novice wandering amongst experienced seapersons when I
did that article.
The whole point for me was to test myself and learn.
Rich Smith
-----------------------
I'm glad to be able to contribute. I had looked up British tidal gauges as
examples of mechanical instruments with very long service lifespans.
Titanic had taken an evening star sighting about 4 hours before the
collision. Speeds assumed from propeller shaft RPM and recorded by the
patent log differed by less than a knot. Titanic wasn't quite at full speed
or boiler output and couldn't possibly have challenged Mauretania's crossing
speed record, having been designed for much better fuel economy instead. The
first hastily reported position (before likely electrical failure?) was 20
miles (~1 hour) too far west, then they corrected it to 13 miles too far
west, still on the other side of the dense ice field. They were within a
mile in latitude. The sinking position is taken as directly above the tight
cluster of boilers and coal that spilled out when the hull loudly
broke/shredded between the engines and boilers and the lights went out. The
current that carried the ice as far south as Portugal has been estimated as
a knot or so to the southeast.
The positional error is possible evidence supporting the temperature
inversion mirage theory, which could explain many of the unresolved
questions, such as why other ships' lights could be seen from the lifeboats
but not the crows nest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)
The rescue ship Carpathia covered up Titanic's navigational error by
claiming a speed well above their ability. The positions and identities of
other nearby ships has been hotly disputed. The case is interesting because
it has been so thoroughly investigated and documented and had plenty of
eyewitnesses, yet many puzzles remain. The American inquest was an honest
attempt to unravel the incident, conducted by US Senators with little
nautical knowledge. The British inquest was a coverup of the Board of Trade
and its outdated lifeboat regulations, although Titanic didn't have enough
time or deck hands to launch all the boats it did carry. The last two
floated off as the upper deck submerged.
As a result all passenger ships were required to carry sufficient lifeboats,
including this one which was unbalanced by the additional topside weight:
https://eastlanddisaster.org/
My goal is to learn to analyze and understand (solve/avoid?) complex
technical failures, specifically in the aircraft systems I was building
prototypes of. For example the Torrey Canyon suffered a switchology failure
in that the autopilot control switch position wasn't apparent, so they
didn't know why the ship wasn't responding to the helm when they needed to
turn NOW. The 737's MCAS was similar. On Titanic the helmsman couldn't see
forward at night because closed shutters in front of him kept the light from
his compass and rudder angle indicator from degrading the bridge officers'
night vision. Who/what/when on the bridge that night is still unclear.
On the French airliner that fell into the South Atlantic, the stall
indicator was disabled below 60kts to avoid false tripping from ground wind.
The plane stalled and fell with less than 60kts forward speed, so the alarm
was silent, until the captain tried dropping the nose to gain speed, the
correct answer. Then the stall alarm came on, confusing them.