Greetings members and readers,
The day the Titanic sailed on it’s maiden voyage was the Great Adventure of the moment, from Europe to New York and speed could help make the voyage more meaningful, sensational and would speak to high profits on future voyages.
As usual, constraints or events or ego always seem to bundle up and often result in catastrophe. It happens on a small inland luxury sailboats where one connection has not been checked for age, it happens on larger yachts for more of the same reasons, just larger reasons, it happens often on work boats with schedules and budgets, and it happened on the Titanic, where speed was foremost in the mind of the company and thus the captain.
And, as one would expect, the changing sea state, wind direction and speed, fog and temperature often ramp up and add further danger to an already ailing scenario. Misplaced priorities often skew away the observance of safer actions.
In the movie, Perfect Storm, there were several issues that culminated to a total loss. An ailing communication system, a poor fishing season that year, ice maker failure and the colliding of two storms on their fishing ground.
They had a magnificent fishing trip, reputation and money were a large consideration and not enough needed ice to keep the fish cold forced them to take a fast route home into the storm that they knew nothing about due to a poor radio, a broken antenna and weather gizmos. They drove into the storm instead of evading it, they kept the fish on board instead of ejecting it and the equipment could not be repaired, especially in a worsening sea state. The boat, the all important catch and all hands were lost.
The Titanic had a reasonably good sea state and weather but the captain was seized with ego and orders to make speed into dangerous waters known for fog and ice bergs. The ship simply was sliced from stem to stern by an iceberg and the many water tight bulkheads that were supposed to allow leaking chambers to be sealed off were not really water tight as the walls of these chambers did not reach the ceilings of these chambers, so as the water became higher and higher, it just overflowed into the next chamber.
As the boat got lower and lower into the water the systems began to fail. Boilers/generators quit one by one, so there was no electricity to run the bilge pumps and the ship became darker and darker hampering any possible fix. Bilge pumps could have given the ship more time afloat, but they quit one by one as the boiler were inundated with cold salt water.
We know how that ended.
The facts are still unclear, but there could have been mechanical or structural issues that caused structural failure on the submersible recently lost at the Titanic site. It is a known fact that deep dives can be very dangerous and pressures at 2.5 miles are large. {water weight x .052 x TVD, (true vertical depth) equal water pressure per square inch experienced by any object at depth. 8 lbs (water weight) x .052 (salt water pressure gradient) x 13,500 feet equal 5700 plus psi experienced by the submersible. Apparently, the vessel could not withstand that water weight.
Exploring into dangerous climates or environments comes with risk/reward and most know those risks and revel in the rewards. Adventurers and explorers are educated to the task, physically fit and familiar with the tools needed to execute the tasks and achieve the goals of such adventures.
They all know the risks but that does not temper such a loss for us. Our hearts go out to the friends and families of those lost and we are thankful that their demise was not long and drawn out. God has a special place reserved for those brave folks that lead the way for our future benefit.
Carbon fiber, the material used in the construction, is said by some to deteriorate in time and lose strength.
Never the less, we revere those adventurers and we mourn the loss of 5 brave souls that contributed so much to so many in so many ways.
TPP
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