Design fault may have doomed Titanic before it sailed

June 13, 2007

THE Titanic faced disaster from the moment it set sail, experts now believe.

Research suggests that, even if the ocean liner had not struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage, structural weaknesses made it vulnerable to any stormy sea.

The flaws, uncovered by researchers who found, filmed and analysed previously undiscovered portions of the Titanic's keel, also reduced the time the vessel remained afloat after hitting an iceberg on April 14, 1912 — scuppering the chances of rescue boats sent to the scene arriving in time.

To date, it was thought that after striking the iceberg, water flooded into the bow and forced the vessel's stern to rise until, when it reached 45 degrees, the ship snapped in half and sank. It is this version of events that was depicted in the 1997 Oscar-winning film Titanic.

But the findings of the new research project, a collaboration between the History Channel and Lone Wolf Documentary Group, an American film company, suggest that the Titanic broke in half when its stern had reached an angle of 10 degrees, which could have occurred in heavy seas in a severe storm.

Rushmore DeNooyer, who led the project, said: "Titanic broke at a very shallow angle, yet ships experience shallow angles like this in storms when they are tilted up by large waves.

So perhaps Titanic wasn't designed strongly enough. If the force that broke it was no greater than the force it would have faced in a hurricane, ergo, it could have been broken in a hurricane."

Clues to the fundamental weakness in the Titanic's design emerged after a submersible, which dived to the wreck two years ago, filmed previously undiscovered parts of the ship. This footage allowed researchers to calculate the angle at which the Titanic was tilting when it broke up.

The team also found parts of the aft "expansion joint" — the ship had two, near the bow and stern — which were supposed to allow the hull to flex in heavy seas. Analysis suggests that they were poorly designed and may have contributed to the ship breaking up at the shallow 10 degree angle.

To test their theory, the team dived on the Britannic, the Titanic's sister ship, which was also built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast and sank in 1916 in the Mediterranean after hitting a mine.

They found that the builders had altered the design and fitted an extra expansion joint, prompting suspicions that the yard was aware of the faults with the Titanic.

The shallow angle at which it buckled is also believed to have contributed to the death toll of 1500.

Researchers believe that many people, assuming the Titanic would stay afloat for hours, remained on board in the warmth. But she sank after two hours and 40 minutes.



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