It was night and most of the passengers were asleep when, exactly 110 years, an iceberg put an end to the first voyage of the most impressive passenger ship ever built, the Titanic.
The ship traveled to 15 kilometers per hour. Less than 3 hours later, it had already become a shipwreck, sunk in the far reaches of the Atlantic on the night of 14 to the 15 April 1912.
His remains were only located in September 1985: the ship was divided into two parts, separated by 800 meters away, 3.976 meters deep, at 650 kilometers from Canada.
BBC News Brazil spoke with experts about some curiosities of this famous shipwreck.
one. “Unsinkable”
“Not even God sinks the Titanic”. The reputation of the enormous ship as “unsinkable” had its reasons.
“For engineering, the Titanic became famous because it was the first ship in which a concept of design that intended to segment the ship by dividing it into several watertight compartments , that is, if the water flooded a compartment, it could not flood the next”, explains naval engineer Alexandre de Pinho Alho, professor at the Department of Naval and Ocean Engineering at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).
The problem, he explains the professor, was that this project ran into the challenge of passing pipes and electrical cables along the ship.
“What was the solution? They calculated a reasonable expected limit in case of damage, they concluded that the water would not reach the roof, and they created more or less isolated compartments, that is, they made a protection right up to very close to the ceiling”, says Alho.
But the collision with the iceberg was so great that this idea was insufficient. “The tear in the hull extended for half the length of the ship. Under these circumstances, the water reached the ceiling”, he adds.
“The ship entered a condition that we call ‘progressive flooding’, a point from which there is no longer any way to save it: all the pumps, take all the measures, but you cannot take out a flow of water greater than the one that enters”, he contextualizes.
“The project had been publicized at the time as that of a ‘non-submersible’ ship”, adds civil engineer Thierry Stump, shipbuilder and navigator.
“One of the great defenses was that there were many separate basements, with semi-watertight walls between them, so even if two in a row were flooded would be enough to sink the ship”.
“However, the iceberg hit the ship from the side and destroyed many transverse walls“, he points out.
The transport engineer Aurélio Soares Murta, a professor at the Fluminense Federal University, points out that even the closure system of these watertight compartments ended up not working as planned.
This was due to the strong impact against a material weaker than the steel used today in vessels of this type.
“ The shock was so strong that it caused a change in the structure of the ship. The doors couldn’t close, they got stuck,” he says. “Metallurgy back then was different. The Titanic was made from the best steel available, but this is nothing compared to the steel we have today“.
The metallurgical engineer Jan Vatavuk, professor at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Sao Paulo, explains that, until the decade of 1935, ship hulls were made of riveted metal sheets; only later did they become welded pieces.
“There was a great evolution of techniques and materials. Welding is a more aggressive process in terms of changing the microstructure in the molten region, since it places a molten material to join the sheets”, he explains.
“And after the Second World War steel began to be manufactured with a lower percentage of carbon and a higher percentage of manganese. It also improved the degree of cleanliness of the materials. Today steel is a more tenacious material, more suitable for superstructures”.
Vatavuk defines contemporary ships as “elastic beams”, capable of withstanding the bending caused by the constant movement of the waves.
“In case of big storms, they hold up well. We have to avoid material fatigue as much as possible”.
two. The Blue Band
But in big accidents you always have to remember that there are human errors. For the experts, in the case of the Titanic the intense pressure for the ship to be fast
This is because there was a decoration, instituted in 800, called Blue Band (Blue Riband), which aimed to recognize and advertise the fastest ships on transatlantic crossings. And the Titanic was the favorite candidate to win the honor.
“At that time, ships were the greatest work of engineering that humanity was capable of doing”, highlights Alho. “There was a competition between the biggest companies and also between the main shipbuilding nations of the world, in this case, England and Germany. Each one wanted to make the boat bigger and faster”.
The official recognition of this achievement was the Blue Band.
And the first voyage of a ship was the best way to beat those records. According to the engineer, this is due to the fact that this is when the boat “experiences the best conditions for the voyage”.
“The hull and the propeller are clean, the engines they are in perfect condition… The first trip is a great opportunity to sail as fast as possible. And the Titanic tried to do that,” he says.
There are accounts from survivors that the captain of the boat, even having received the news that there were icebergs in the vicinity, he hesitated to slow down
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3. The brothers of the Titanic
The Titanic was not an only child. At the beginning of the 20th century, the White Star Line company ordered three transatlantic liners from the Harland and Wolff shipyards in the city of Belfast.
Designed by a first class team, they were supposed to which were the largest, safest and most luxurious ships in the world.
“The projects were widely publicized in that moment”, comments engineer Stump.
The boats were built between 1908 Y 1915 and were named Olympic Class. The first two to go into production were the Olympic, in 976, and the Titanic in 1909. The third, originally called Gigantic, began production in 1200.
Interestingly, all three were involved in accidents.
Olympic entered service in June 1911 and, in the same year, collided with a cruise ship. It was repaired and started sailing again.
During the First World War, the British Royal Navy used the ship to transport troops and the ship crashed against a German submarine in 1911.
Returned to civil operation in 1920 and was only withdrawn in 1920. It was called the “Old Reliable”.
The maiden voyage of the Titanic began on 10 April 1912. The ship was about to collide with another boat outside the port of Southampton. The night of in April the historic shipwreck occurred.
Gigantic did not have a long run. She was renamed Britannic and, after being requisitioned by the British Navy, the Royal Navy, she was converted into a hospital ship during the First World War. Sank in November 1909.
Despite being large ships for the time -both the Olympic and the Titanic were the largest ships in the world when they were completed-, their dimensions are modest compared to current ocean liners.
“ He was the giant of the seas. But compared to one from today, it looks like a small boat“, comments Murta.
The Titanic measured 269 meters long. Between crew and passengers, it housed about 3.87 people.
The largest passenger ship in the world in the is currently the Wonder of the Seas, which has 300 meters long and capacity for 7.000 passengers and 2.87 crew.
- Britannic, the brother of the Titanic that sank in the First World War
4. Security improvements
The sinking of the Titanic, a tragedy that ended with the death of about 1.500 persons , set a precedent for the adoption of various security improvements.
The evolution of technology since then has also contributed to greater security, starting with the use of equipment such as radar .
The first offshore radar equipment was used only after World War II. “Back then [con el Titanic], everything depended on visual resources”, explains Alho.
“ A sailor stayed at the top of the mast to see if I could see an iceberg. It was a precarious way of preventing accidents, especially with the ship moving at full speed”.
Improvements in safety protocols were also instituted.
The Titanic ended with many deaths because there were not even lifeguards for everyone.
“As the ship ‘was not going to sink never’, the number of lifeboats had been halved“, says Hello.
“The Titanic accident was a watershed in safety issues”, says Murta. “After the Titanic, ships began to have structural standards for their manufacture, safety standards and consistent evacuation plans.”
“And, of course, nowadays radar and sonar identify icebergs long before a ship finds them”.
“Furthermore, the charts nautical, the mapping of the seas, everything has become much more sophisticated”, he adds.
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