We are not quite through with boiler room six. The author feels there remains substantial misunderstanding about the Titanic’s operation apart from the sinking itself and this impacts on the understanding of the sinking dynamics. Why this misunderstanding persists is in and of itself a mystery. The operation of boiler room six is central to the misunderstanding.
Titanic had six boiler rooms which were separated by transverse coal bunkers and water tight bulkheads. As indicated previously, they were numbered 1 through 6 with number 1 boiler room closest to the stern and number 6 the most forward. Boiler room 1 was the smallest with five single ended boilers. The other five boiler rooms had double ended boilers which were about twice as long but of the same diameter. Boilers in room 1 were principally used to provide steam for generating electric power and secondarily for the steam driven bilge pumps and ash ejectors.
Once the Titanic passed its abbreviated sea trials it is doubtful that these boilers in room 1 were ever completely shut down since the ship was immediately pressed into service to replace the sister ship Olympic which was in dry-dock for repairs.
Coal consumption was a big factor in steam ship operation and boilers were fired up on an as needed basis. Thermodynamic and pressure drop considerations meant that only those boilers closest to the engines driving the ship were used for steam demanded by engines at the speed desired. An approximate formula states that the steam required is proportional to the third exponential power of speed or velocity. For example; a doubling of speed requires eight times more steam quantity, everything else remaining the same.
Until the collision with the ice berg Titanic was operating at reduced or “break-in” speed; at a little over 20 knots. The running gear (reciprocating steam engines, steam turbine, gearing, bearings etc.) were performing very well so that Captain Smith and the virtual owner, Bruce Ismay, were anticipating getting favorable press by breaking Olympic’s maiden voyage crossing time record (Captain Smith himself had the Olympic under his command at that time).
To best Olympic’s record, the Titanic had to be run at its maximum design speed and to do this all boilers had to be operational which meant four (and the last) additional double boilers had to fired up according to the cube law noted above. There happened to be four such boilers furthest from the engines that had never been used even in the test trials because the running gear had not yet been broken in. These boilers were, of course, in boiler room six furthest from the stern. Therefore I conclude: BOILER ROOM 6 WAS NOT IN OPERATION AT THE TIME OF THE COLLISION.
There is additional substantiating evidence for this conclusion which, by its nature, is quite extensive. Much of it is therefore delegated to the APPENDIX. In Appendix 1 is a revised listing of the Titanic Crew, those who survived the sinking. The original listing found in Reference 2 has a complete listing of all the crew prior to the sinking. This distinction is provided to help in keeping track of those involved in providing witness testimony. Witnesses are shown in red lettering. As far as boiler room six is concerned, the most important witness is leading fireman, Frederick Barrett.
The crew listing in Reference 2 provides important information where it delineates the three 4 hour time “shifts” (watches) of operating personnel—firemen, trimmers and greasers. It is very important to point out that the headings contained in Reference 2 for these time delineations for the operating personnel are misleading. Better headings are provided in Appendix 1 where “watches” is to be preferred over “shifts” since the former is used in technical forums e. g. the hearings. One reference states “there is nothing more confusing in the Titanic story than that involving time” This seems to be the case even with simple things like “watches”. The tables in Appendix 1 present 3 shifts of crew on 4 hour watches. Each crew man on the Titanic served two watches a day each having 4 hours on and then 8 hours off. From the evidence found so far it is not clear when the second watches occurred for the crew in these tables. The bracketed times in blue format are my best guesses for when the second watches took place based on available information. That information makes it clear that for these crew, the firemen,(stokers), trimmers, and greasers, the day schedule was as follows:
TITANIC WATCH SCHEDULE
8:00pm to 12:00am 2000-0000 (first watch)
12:00am to 4:00am 0000-0400 (middle watch)
4:00am to 8:00am 0400-0800 (morning watch)
8:00am to 12:00pm 0800-1200 (forenoon watch)
12:00pm to 4:00pm 1200-1600 (afternoon watch)
4:00pm to 6:00pm 1600-1800 (first dog watch)
6:00pm to 8:00pm 1800-2000 (second dog watch)
Note that on the Titanic the 4-8 “shift” was broken into two watches called first and second dog watches. Through a rotation system (not specified), the dog watches enabled all the crew of these tables to have evening meals on occasion. Not all shipping companies or ships for that matter treated this kind of crew so well.
Now with the detailed information we can make better sense of what went on in boiler room 6 on the night of the collision. We start the scenario at 4:00 pm the night of the sinking. The third table down in Appendix 1 gives the surviving crew from this 4pm to 8pm watch. The total crew in this watch shift before the sinking, besides the surviving lead fireman, Mr. Charles (George) Henderickson, included two other lead firemen, 54 firemen/stokers, 22 coal trimmers, and 18 greasers. The firemen and trimmers were spread out over the five operational boiler rooms (1-5) since I maintain boiler room 6 was not in operation.. While the greasers shared the same watch schedule as the firemen and trimmers and hence are in these lists, most of their duties took them far from boiler room activities since their job was to keep rotating surfaces, e.g. bearings, well lubricated. Other crew such as lookouts, had different watch schedules ranging from 2 hour watches to 8 hours and beyond. Captain Smith’s main function, when things were going well, was to entertain the rich, young and famous for as much time as possible. While the 4pm-8pm watch was keeping the ship running at top speed, the other two shifts were getting their evening meal either from 4 to 6 or 6 to 8.
Their feeding took place well away from the public in the crew dining room (mess) hall on C-deck forward of the bridge just under where Cameron’s movie stars Jack and Rose traipsed across to get to the bow for their romantic encounter.
The 4pm to 8pm watch is then replaced at 8:00 by the next watch; the 8pm to 12 (midnight) watch for which Mr. Frederick Barret is the surviving lead fireman. The full crew for this watch includes 4 other lead firemen, 49 regular firemen, 22 trimmers, and 7 greasers. [The disproportionate number of greasers in the 4pm-8pm watch raises my eyebrows, but the matter cannot be pursued here. Many hours were spent by the table compiler for Reference 2, Lester J. Mitcham, and by others to provide these lists that are found in Reference 2 and for which I am most grateful; I must thereby leave it to others for explanation.]
According to Fred Barret’s testimony at the hearings there were three personnel in boiler room 6 at the time of the collision. Here is his testimony as summarized by Walter Lord in “Night to Remember”and depicted in Figure 3.3-1 below:
F 3.3-1 Boiler Room 6 at Time of Collision
[Appendix 1 is to be found at the end of "The Mysr]terious Titanic Affair" blog]
According to Fred Barret’s testimony at the hearings there were three personnel in boiler room 6 at the time of the collision. His testimony is depicted in Figure 3.3-1 below:
F 3.3-1 Personnel in Boiler Room 6 at Time of Collision
Besides Fred, the leading fireman in this watch (he is listed first in Ref. 2), there is the engineer, Hesketh, and the fireman/stoker, Beauchamp. No other personnel are mentioned by Barrett or Beauchamp (Hesketh did not survive). If the boilers were in full operation there would have been fully a dozen operational people in boiler room 6 at the time of the collision. Notice would have been made by Barrett and Beauchamp of the chaotic exit with that many people, the closing of the water tight doors and only one escape ladder. And besides the water tight doors going into the firemans tunnel closing (two sets of doors), the tunnel was already filling with water.
So what were the three men, and only three men, doing in the boiler room? They were starting up the 4 boilers for the high speed run for the rest of the voyage to best Olympic’s record. I have read it takes about eight hours to start up a large coal fired scotch boiler and it has to be done carefully. The start up details can be found elsewhere.
These considerations lead to the following speculative scenario. Sometime before the Sunday evening meal, Ismay confers with chief engineer Bell about the condition of the running gear and is informed that everything is performing better than could be expected and Ismay is assured that the propeller RPM’s could be increased without due concern. [The DVDs give the impression that the Bell-Ismay conversation took place after the collision which is borderline non-sensical since the ship’s engines had been stopped for good within ten minutes of the collision and Ismay without much doubt knew it.] During that evening meal Ismay let it be known that arriving early would be a good thing and Smith, possibly with some misgiving because of the ice warnings, agreed. After the meal Smith orders Bell to start up the boilers beginning with 8pm watch after Bell assures him the ship is up to a higher speed. Smith also hedges his bet by ordering a slight southward correction to the helmsman. Both men then retire to the security of their magnificent private lounges and the rest of the scenario is well known by most.
3.4 Wholly, hole, holy mackerel
In my youth the expression holy mackerel was popular in my neck of the woods being less offensive than similar expression except to certain religious types (the context of which I was unaware in my younger years). I find it a bit ironic that this memory comes to mind in a Titanic context. In this section, we are going to consider the holes in the Titanic’s hull that were a consequence of the collision. In my opinion there is something fishy about the estimates of their sizes—and yes this hole mackerel is part of the background material so hang in there.
In the past a whole lot of attention has justifiably been given to these Titanic holy holes, especially the uncertainty of their size location and geometry (that pretty well includes everything). However, with some certainty we can narrow attention down to the bow section—in fact, what is postulated for boiler room 6 is fairly well believable. To give a concrete example of the whole difficulty with the holes, the following table has been constructed from the analysis provided in Reference 2.
Table 3.4-1
Water Intake per compartment at 12:25 am
(from Ref. 2)
COMPARTMENT | H2O Tons | AREA * ** | ||
1 | Forepeak tank | 190 | 0.06 | trace |
2 | No. 1 cargo hold | 1,730 | 0.55 | 0.47 |
3 | No. 2 cargo hold | 3,040 | 0.96 | 0.80 |
4 | No. 3 cargo hold | 3,515 | 1.11 | 0.74 |
7 | N0. 4 boiler room | 187 | 0.06 | trace |
6 | No. 5 boiler room | 180 | 0.06 | 0.04 |
5 | No. 6 boiler room | 4,658 | 1.47 | 1.47 |
totals | 13,500 | 4.27 | 3.52 | |
( hole area in sq. ft. )
Table 3.4-1 shows a compartment by compartment tabulation of the amount of water that invaded the ship by 12:25 am or forty-five minutes after striking the iceberg. [ H2O data in table 3.2-1 from Reference 2 pg.111 ]. The fourth from the left column of table 3.2-1 (*) gives the area of the other holes (likewise assumed to be slits) obtained by prorating (ratioing) the amount of water in the other compartments to the water and area of compartment 5 (boiler room 6). The right most column (**) is the area of each opening determined from the opening lengths given in F 3.1-3 multiplied by a presumed ½ inch width. The correlation between the two different area determinations is surprisingly good except for cargo hold #3 (compartment 4). The “water ratio” technique produces an opening area of 1.11 sq. ft., while the ½ inch technique produces an opening of 0.74 sq. ft. There are at least two possibilities for this discrepancy. First, the opening is much wider than ½ inch; the second possibility is that there is at least one or more openings in cargo hold #3 (compartment 4) not detected by the sub-bottom profiler. Survivor testimony suggests that the latter possibility is more likely. This testimony will be important in latter sinking analysis.
But it is the total area values at the bottom of the table that are disquieting if not downright alarming. These values of less than five sq. ft. are a far cry from the nominal 12 sq. ft. determined by others or even the 10 sq. ft. the Reference 2 authors claim to have determined. The reason(s) for this disparity are not obvious to the present author and underscore his uncertainty about the published hole areas and their possible location.
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