water tight doors

[William Gardner]

on the empress of britain 58 qms mess boy it was on the working alleyway which run the full lengh of the ship all the galleys and plte houses was below the water line on asaturday they used shut the water tight doors for drill great big steel doores would come down if you wear in section with a spirel stair case ok but if not you wear sealled in kissed your a*** good by have ofton thourt about that one

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmates, Never came across any water tight doors on ships I sailed on , were they on the passenger ships , war ships .and submarines.Hi William your right not a nice way to go...

[vic mcclymont]

On cargo ships, usually fitted between shaft tunnell and engine room

[Jim Brady]

William I was a bellboy on the Britain our cabin was on the working alleyway right next to a watertight door.People passing of a night especialy in Montreal would press the bleddy hooter.They went port to starboard actually they did'nt come down from the deckhead and I always thought that there was a escape route from all compartments.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[happy daze john in oz]

Watertight doors on all passenger ships as far as I know, and now all cruise ships have them. You know when they arer being tested as the announcement comes into passenger areas as well as crew accomodation.

[j.sabourn]

#2... Louis what sort of ships were you on. As soon as you stepped on to the weather deck, you would of gone through a water tight door. Every ship apart from maybe arab dhows had watertight doors. Too much time in pub before sailing, good job no one had battened down would of had a hard time getting open and that geet big green sea which you lovingly watched in the tropics would of had you. Cheers Cheers and Cheers again, look for the little bit of piping next to the door to give you a bit of leverage on the dogs. JS

[j.sabourn]

Re- reading post Louis must be referring to Automatic doors only. In which case Vic has answered. An alarm bell used to ring continuously on the door with a red flashing light until the door had made a seal JS

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmates,Must be me? but I dont remember any water-tight doors on any ship,{ not automatic }Never was in engine room for long, far too much noise and too hot... Hi J seabourn I was on a few ships sailed on 22 of them all types, and tonnage, been on most of the passenger ships that were in Southampton waters{bunkering them } all the tall ships on the {round the world race} a few Royal navy ships and U.S.A warships on a M.T.B. boat U.S.A. and a couple of subs, British and Russia My first trip to sea was on a paddle steamer age 13 yrs, Been on a few trawlers {line and stern} from milford haven and many small craft. Maybe mixing up steel doors with dogs = water -tight? it was many years ago...

[John Arton]

On a traditional 3 island general cargo ship you would/will have one watertight door, usually manually operated, at the entrance to the shaft tunnel in the engine room. It could be automatic operated from the bridge if the company so wished. On all aft accommodation/engine room ships there will be a watertight door between the steering gear room and the engine room. All doors leading from the accommodation out onto the decks, if they are above the freeboard deck, will be weathertight. Any opening in the ships hull below the free board deck, be it in the side shell or in a transverse watertight bulkhead, has to be watertight.
Watertight=capable of withstanding water pressure from both sides
weathertight=capable of being able to withstand water pressure from one side only.
Any compartment enclosed by a watertight door has to have an escape route leading to above the freeboard deck fitted.
Even the Titanic had watertight doors, its problem was that they did not lead the watertight transverse bulkheads up far enough so when one compartment started filling as the ship sank lower in the water then water was able to spill over the top of one watertight bulkhead into the adjacent compartments. Obviously after that disaster rules were changed to increase the height of the watertight transverse bulkheads to prevent such re-occurrence. Freeboard decks on these modern liners are quite low down so they are subdivided below the freeboard deck (which is not necessarily where the plimsoll line is marked) into far more compartments than any of the older liners. As an aside the Captain of the Costa Concordia is using as part of his defence the claimed fact that the watertight doors did not close properly when he ordered them to be closed, which resulted in more compartments being flooded and hence his ship sinking.
If you look at the side of a ship where the load lines are marked you will see above them a white line painted. This indicates the position where freeboards are measured from.
rgds
JA

[robpage]

You would need some force to stop them closing , re Capittano Schettino , I have seen a shovel handle snapped like a matchstick , in a closing door . I think the problem with the Titanic was when they were remotely shut they could not be locally opened ., hence all the Engineers were trapped down there