An Unsinkable Titanic: Every Ship its own Lifeboat

by John Bernard Walker

Now, it will be asked: what was the factor in the calculations which determined the height of these bulkheads? The answer is to be found in the Board of Trade stipulations, to which reference was made in Chapter IV, page [62]. These stipulations establish an imaginary safety line, below which a ship may not sink without danger of foundering. The safety line represents the depth to which a ship will sink when any two adjoining compartments are opened to the sea and therefore flooded. If the two forward compartments are flooded, for instance, the bow may sink with safety, until the water is only three one-hundredths of the depth of the ship, at the side, from the bulkhead deck. If two central compartments are flooded, the ship is supposed to settle with safety until the bulkhead deck at that point is only three one-hundredths of the depth of the side, at that place, above the water.

The raising of the height of the bulkheads, by one deck, at the engine-room, is due to the operation of this rule; for here the two adjoining compartments, those containing the reciprocating engines and the turbine, are the largest in the ship, and their flooding would sink the ship proportionately lower in the water.

Now it takes but a glance at the diagrams on page [66] to show that the application of the Board of Trade rule brought the bulkhead line of the Titanic down to a lower level than that of any of the other notable ships shown in comparison with her. It was the low bulkheads, acting in connection with the non-watertight construction of the bulkhead deck, that was largely answerable for the loss of this otherwise very fine ship.

Courtesy of Scientific American

Twenty of the Twenty-nine Boilers of the Titanic Assembled, Ready for Placing in the Ship

Another grave defect in the Titanic was the great size of the individual compartments, coupled with the fact that the only protection against their being flooded was the one-inch plating of the outside skin. If this plating were ruptured or the rivets started along the seams, there was nothing to prevent the flooding of the whole compartment and the entry, at least throughout the middle portion of the ship, of from 4,000 to 6,000 tons of water—this last being the approximate capacity of the huge compartment which contained the two reciprocating engines. Now, if safety lies in minute subdivision, it is evident that in this ship safety was sacrificed to some other considerations. The motive for the plan adopted was the desire to place the coal-bunkers in the most convenient position with regard to the boilers. By reference to the hold plan of the Titanic, page [129], it will be seen that her 29 boilers were arranged transversely to the ship. With the exception of the five in the aftermost compartment, they were "double-ended," with the furnaces facing fore and aft. To facilitate shovelling the coal into the furnaces, the coal-bunkers were placed one on each side of each transverse watertight bulkhead. The coal supply was thus placed immediately back of the firemen, and the work of getting the coal from the bunkers to the furnaces was greatly facilitated. Now, while this was an admirable arrangement for convenience of firing, it was the worst possible plan as far as the safety of the Titanic was concerned; since any damage to the hull admitted water across the whole width of the ship. The alternative plan, which should be made compulsory on all large ocean-going passenger steamers, is the one adopted for the Mauretania, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Imperator, and a few other first-class ships, in which the coal-bunkers are placed at the sides of the ship, where they serve to prevent the flooding of the main boiler-room compartments. It is probable that any one of the ships named would have survived even the terrific collision which sank the Titanic.

The objection has been raised against longitudinal coal-bunkers, that they are not so conveniently placed for the firemen. A large force of "coal passers" has to be employed in wheeling the coal from the bunkers to the front of the furnaces. This, of course, entails an increased expense of operation.

The use of transverse coal-bunkers must be regarded as one among many instances, in which the safety of passenger ships is sacrificed to considerations of economy and convenience of operation.