You are absolutely correct. I meant to say Lusitania. I know that, I just didn't think the rigth name at the right time, I guess. my bad.
Mark D.

Gosh, you typed that? Wow, I prefer to just cut and paste, or post a link - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fe ... -away.html

John H.

I had the honor and privilege to attend the 25th anniversary of the Titanic Historical Societies convention in Boston Mass, in 1988, Ironically I made the trip with my Dad whom passed away at age 66 just six months later.. I got to meet 7 of the original survivors, I taped each speech, that each made, then had therm autograph the Video cassette. I have about 50 books on the Titanic, and countless memorabilia Even parts of the model used in the 1952 Movie With Robert Wagner and Barbara Stanwyck.
Once the bug bites it take 2 or 3 years to get through it.
One little know fact is that the Titanic was an American owned ship under the JP Morgan Mercantile Marine company. It was also the FIRST financial endeavor to fail under his watch, This lead some to speculate that maybe he had something to do with the sinking , two additional trivia points that one the insurance brought the company back to the black, and he cancelled his passage almost at the very last moment.
Dan

They did add extra steel to the Olympic, kind of an admission of guilt-

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... ecret.html

John H.

I had heard that that was done after her trails but before she actually sailed with passengers and before the Titanic was even finished. The corrections were made on the Titanic also at the same time, before she was completed. The Britannic had even more strengthening. The Olympic/Titanic/Britannic were 45,000 tons and about a third bigger than the next largest ships when they were built. It created a whole new set of issues the engineers were not aware of.

It's a sad story and so ironic but there are many others that are just as dramatic. The Lusitania being torpedoed within sight of Ireland and going down in 20 minutes not the 2 hours it took the Titanic to sink, or the Morro Castle, on fire, and the captain refusing to stop her immediately so he wouldn't get in trouble with the line. He even refused to send an SOS initially when it was obvious that the fire was out of control. A ship close by actually radioed to see what the fire was. The radio operator on the Morro Castle was actually the person who started the fire, so he could play a hero and then the carcass of the ship washed up at Asbury Park, New Jersey. The Titanic and Lusitania were tragic, the Titanic because there were not enough life boats and the Lusitania because she went down so fast. The Morro Castle was criminal on a number of issues. There are many other great stories too.

Yeah, the International Mercantile Marine Company. When all was said and done, it owned or had controlling interest in all the European lines except Cunard and a French line, I think something like Transantlique, or some such.
Anyway, the British government seems to have taken great umbrage at an American company gaining control (with the apparent approval of J. Bruce Ismay, as he became the president of the IMM) as that government did step in and only allowed it to happen as long as the ships of the British lines remained under British registration so the ships would be available as transports in time of war.

Are those who are talking of new steel added to the ships referring to the double bottoms? Both Olympic and Titanic had identical double bottoms, which not only strengthened the hulls considerably, but added space for ballast tanks and gave security from light groundings.
On Britannic, lessons learned, the double bottom was extended up to the load line.
That ship still sank, though, because it didn't sideswipe an iceberg. It might well have survived an accident such as happened to Titanic, though, as her watertight compartments also went a full deck higher.
If the reference is to something else, I would like to know the source, because I have no information on Olympic having strengthening steel added after her trials, and then also added to Titanic. All three ships had channel frames spaced on 3 foot centers throughout the main lengths, with the spacings dropping to two foot centers through the bow and into the stern sections.

I only state the above because I can't believe anyone takes that article linked above seriously. Let me expoound:
That article linked reads like an editorial in a newspaper, with no references to any actual documents. But the final paragraph, entirely false in its premis, kills the rest of the silly story. Steel a quarter inch thinner than specified? To save time and get the boat in service sooner? That needs serious support, and provides none other than rumor.


Her is that last paragraph, quoted:

"Making the hull plating a quarter of an inch thinner and the rivets an eighth of an inch thinner than the original designs called for would reduce the ship's weight by 2,500 tons, enabling her to cross the English Channel faster than the competition. Because shipbuilding regulations had not kept pace with the push toward larger vessels, the thinner specifications still met the standards of the day. "It was a matter of keeping the customer happy," says Matsen. "If J. P. Morgan wanted a boat made out of papier-mâché, they would have made him a boat out of papier-mâché." Happily, he didn't ask."

This paragraph is so silly on so many counts that I don't think I need to say more about that article.
Mark D.

Oh sorry I thought this was a casual discussion forum. My bad. I know now not to post anything but scholarly articles with proper footnotes. After all lack of proper references means everyone must completely ignore something.

John H.

Sorry, John. I didn't realize I was offending you.
There are so many half truths, lies, distortions and myth's going around about these ships that I have started to get really annoyed at fabricated stuff like that article.
Had I known that you were posting it as a tongue-in-cheek type thing, I would have gotten a good chuckle out of it. It did remind me of articles in the Onion, but I thought it was written in all seriousness. My bad.
Mark D.

I didn't have an internet link, so I was reading it from the book.
Mark D.

oops

The Olympic led a charmed life. She was hit by a cruiser, cut the Nantucket Lightship in half, was torpedoed, etc. I can't see her lasting as long as she did if there were serious issues with the design.

She was scrapped in 1934 because she was very inefficient compared to newer ships, there were numerous ships now larger than she was, the depression had slowed travel, there was a glut of older liners, the Queen Mary was in the planning stages, and she was just plain worn out, so it made no sense to keep her going. White Star Line had also ceased operations with most of their ships (not that many anymore) going to Cunard. They never really recovered from the loss of the Titanic and Britannic.

They also tried to prolong Olympics life by increasing engine power but this only gave them 1knot more speed and she snapped
a rod on a journey owing to this.
As Gregg says by 1934 she was out classed and she was scrapped.
Its a shame one of these great liners wasnt saved as a museum, the interest in these great ships never goes away.

Actually, it was a crankshaft. But same difference, the end result was the same thing. They had to fix it after a slow ride home.
I might be wrong, but I recall reading that the recip engines in these three ships were the largest reciprocating steam engines ever installed in a ship.
That does have a ring of truth to it, for me anyway, because turbines were coming into their own very quickly because of better reliability, power and economy.
I still wish there was a set of those engines around somewhere to see and study.
If I had the money, I'd find a way to pull a set up from Britannig and clean it up enough to be able to study it. I suspect that they're in better shape than those on Titanic, which are broken in half.
Mark D.

They have the Queen Mary here in long beach. It has a turbine engine(s?), but it was made much later. Back in the 90's, I was in Houston, and made a visit to the battleship Texas. That one has triple expansion piston engine(s?). It was built around the same time as the Titanic. I enjoyed my tour of that battleship, much more than the Queen Mary, and not just because of the big guns.

plus the Britannic is in only 400 feet of water verses 12,000.

Don't know if anyone is familiar with the SS United States. People have been trying to raise enough funds to restore her for years. Time is almost running out for this beautiful ship. She has been tied up in Philadelphia for years, stripped of her engines and nearly all of her interior. The fastest ocean liner ever built, her top speed was classified for years but I believe was around 40 knots, about 50 mph. The Titanic was maxed out at a little over 20 knots. The United States is the current holder of the "Blue Riband" for the best time across the Atlantic and chances are she probably won't ever lose it. She was smaller than the Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and Normandie, but not by much and still a imposing sight. This is the ship that needs to be saved. A year or two ago, we lost the Norway (ex SS France), we can't lose this one.

I know. It'a travesty, but I'm afraid it will ultimately be scrapped. The group trying to save it has it's collective hands full, and they simply aren't going to be able to raise the huge money it takes to just keep the thing tied up at that pier.
It had a chance of re-entering service back in the early 2000's, I forget the year and don't have time to look it up. Norwegian American Lines, owned by Star Cruises devised a plan to use it for Pacific cruises from California to Hawaii and other destinations. But that fizzled when they found more economical ways to do that. The attraction of the Big U was that it was built in the USA, thus could sail from an American port directly to another American port without having to stop at a foreign port between. This is based on law.
But I seriously doubt they would have used the engines that are in that ship as they burn WAY too much fuel, and then there's those boilers to maintain.
Speaking of boilers, that could have been another nail in the coffin. During the time that Norwegian American was considering the Big U, they suffered a disasterous boiler explosion on the Norway, their flagship. Norway was a 1968 build, originally France. It was one beautiful ship, and they considered repairing it after the explosion, which killed a number of crew members. But in the end, with new SOLAS rules coming, the ship being old and somewhat dated, and the cost of repairs, or the even higher cost of repowering with diesel-electric, the decision was made to scrap the georgous old boat. She was dragged to Alang, beached and cut up. It now comprises fenders on Toyotas, etc.

So, back to the Big U, that group can't even afford the paint to spruce the boat up. They don't seem to have been able to find doners who can contribute enough to make something of it, and they don't seem to have been able to find investors who would be interested in converting it into a convention center, or other type of destination to go to.
So, ultimately, I think the value of that aluminum superstructure will win out, and it, too, will go to Alang.
Yeah, speaking of ENGINES! those things on the Big U are about as cool as it comes. Turbines, but huge things. Same design as those on the old Enterprise, I'm told.
That's what made it so fast.
Story goes, when it made its maiden voyage to Southampton, after arrival news media were everywhere seeking interviews. It had totally smashed the existing record. Some reporter asked a question, something like could it go any faster, and the captain replied that they had only been running a bit over half speed the entire voyage.
The story goes ( I can't say any of this is fact, I've only read it and heard it, but have nothing to back it up) that the British were miffed, and thought the captain was grandstanding, bragging, or whatever.
Unfortunately for them, though, the captain was telling the truth.
That is one fast boat.
Mark D.

I've actually got a large photo of the S.S. United States hanging in the living room. 24x30 or so, I'd say. Quite the nice painting.

I've been aboard the Queen Mary. It's absolutely enchanting to be surrounded by iron, brass, wood and glass and ZERO plastic.

I watched national geographic a group of people remade certain parts of Titanic, the most interesting part was remaking a 35ft high section of the bow,
They used the tools of the day and it gave you an idea of how hard life was back then.
They built the bow section in Belfast in front of the dock where Titanic was built and to think a few years before this it was said they wanted to fill in Titanics dock, im glad they didnt.
The remade bow section now stands in front of the dock with a white star lines flag raised above it.
Aparently for many years Belfast people wanted to forget Titanic but i think they should be proud of what they built.

I'm very glad I started this thread- the wealth of information here hidden amazes me. Sorry I got a bit testy, life has been tough of late here . Plus sometimes I feel things on this forum can get a little serious quickly. In Clubhouse I've always thought things are supposed to be not too serious, some members rarely browse here I'm told just for that reason.

John H.