water tight doors

[Keith Moody]

P&O (1953) Arcadia had watertight doors on all decks below waterline, they could be remotely closed (sideways) or wound shut with a handle which was always kept next to the doors, whenever we had fire or boat drills these doors were always closed, I beleive that there was always an exit upwards from each compartment.
keith moody
R635978

[John Arton]

Rob
Re. the water tight doors on the Titanic.
Am I right in thinking that when they eventually found the wreck and were able to get the r.o.v. into the interior, its video showed that the watertight doors were closed? In that case the escape route up by the funnels should have been available, is that not correct? Another theory I seem to recall as to why so few engineers survived was that when the boiler rooms suffered such a huge ingress of water there was an explosion caused by water hitting the boilers or that a coal dust explosion occurred.
If my memory is correct these theories were proven when they found that on sinking the Titanic did not go down bow first but rather slid below the surface and then broke in half under water in the region of the boiler room.
rgds
JA
rgds
JA

[alf corbyn]

i was on the Llandovery Castle (built 1925?) and thedoorway between the pantry and the saloon was a side opening water tight door with a large open ended spanner to operate it in emergency. on rough days you had to judge very carefully and wait for the ship to end her roll then quickly get through with your arms full of plates.it was reported many times but nothing was done and the passengers on my tables complained about the noise when it slammed shut or opened.

[robpage]

The legend was that these men stood bravely by their posts , to maintain steam for the generators keeping the electrics and the bilge pumps running . from my recollections of the steam ships I as on forty years more modern than the Titanic the funnel escape was a difficult route on a good day . I am assuming that in those days a sense of duty prevailed . I suspect that in this day and age , there may be a reluctance to stand by your post as the ship sinks about you . I am though convinced that there was not a local control fitted .

[j.sabourn]

Inclined to agree with you Rob. They stayed at their posts more than likely they were unaware of the situation until it was too late, and had no known means of escape. It is only on the knowledge that nothing can be done that one accepts the inevitable. Any human being with the strength to do so would have taken a course of action to prevent death. JS

[robpage]

I understand the doors as full height , but the watertight compartments did not go all the way to the weather deck . and one tipped into the next .

[Ivan Cloherty]

From the plans I've seen the w/t doors were the full height of the bulkheads, but the bulkheads were not high enough to prevent water passing from one compartment to another, so the result was inevitable, but as Richard says it was early days and no one, but no one ever expected such an unsinkable vessel to be faced with such a situation. Unfortunately safety only becomes safety after an accident proves the safety feature incorrect, and thus it has ever been, we learn by our mistakes, but they did try to foresee every conceivable eventuality at that time, but alas human error played a major part, as well as the new steering gear system where-in when the wheel was put to starboard the vessel went to starboard, where as the majority of the ships at that time putting the wheel to starboard the vessel went to port, as in the tiller system, and you can bet your bottom dollar that all the senior bridge staff had recently sailed with the tiller system and the sight of thousands of tons of ice approaching at speed meant familiarality probably took over in those moments and added to the cause that may have been avoided, we will never know!

[robpage]

I always took blame to be a modern invention , but I have seen everyone from the look out to the designer blamed for the loss of the Titanic , I worked for a whilst in British rail , they had a culture of lets not worry about blame ., lets get to the truth , than meant let's truly find out who is to blame

[happy daze john in oz]

Went to the Titanic exhibition here in Oz some years back. It would appear that from the drawings and reports from survivors it was the case thta the doors were not high enough. Not going up to higher decks allowed water to flow from one section to the next. But it is believed one boiler did explode whan the ice cold water flowed in when the burg struck.