ARE SHIPS 'UNSINKABLE' TODAY?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — A Night to Remember
snsurone — 14 years ago(March 13, 2012 01:06 PM)
I'm thinking of that ship that keeled over off the coast of Italy recently, with a considerable loss of life.
But it didn't actually "sink" in the literal sense.
Sohave the construction of liners been improved since the Titanic in order to make them truly "unsinkable"?
Of course, hardly anybody crosses the oceans by ship any more. -
contradad-1 — 14 years ago(March 13, 2012 01:43 PM)
The ship that was wrecked off the coast of Italy, The "Costa Concordia" did not sink.yet.only because it is lying on its side on a shelf of rock.
Ships today are welded, not riveted, and made of high tensile steel which is stronger.
The Queen Mary 2 still crosses the Atlantic. -
chimaera1249 — 14 years ago(March 14, 2012 08:26 PM)
Lusitania
was built before
Titanic
, not after. Her sinking also didn't do anything to bring the US into the war. The US stayed neutral for another two years, until the Zimmerman telegram was sent to Mexico. -
chimaera1249 — 14 years ago(March 15, 2012 03:21 PM)
The Zimmermann telegram was a message sent by a German official to the Mexican government encouraging them to attack and start a war against the US, with the Germans offering support as allies. The Germans were about to restart open submarine warfare and thought it might bring the US into the war, so they were trying to broker an alliance against the US if they did. In exchange, the Germans promised southwestern US land back to Mexico, like Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
This, along with the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare swayed a lot of opinion against the Germans, which then lead up to the US declaring war on Germany a couple of months later. -
chimaera1249 — 14 years ago(March 14, 2012 08:37 PM)
The only "unsinkable" ships are the ones that don't ever enter the water. Anything ship can sink. Ship construction has come along way since
Titanic
, but its still possible for a ship to take on enough damage to lose buoyancy. The
Costa Concordia
proves that.
Titanic
's design and construction was actually very well done. No ship since has had a third of her length open to the sea and still lasted as long as she did. -
deeveed — 14 years ago(March 15, 2012 12:30 PM)
Titanic's design and construction was actually very well done. No ship since has had a third of her length open to the sea and still lasted as long as she did.
With regard to the design of the "water-tight" compratments could one argue, post-sinking, that the design was flawed, i.e. that it did not take in particular conditions and catastrophic situations? I'd have to think there's a psychology and pragmatism when constructing a ship. -
chimaera1249 — 14 years ago(March 15, 2012 03:33 PM)
Maybe, but every design has flaws and weak points. There is always a point where it will fail. The Olympic-class ships were designed to withstand the common incidents of the time and then some. Problem was
Titanic
took on more damage than Harland and Wolff ever dreamed she would encounter. Being able to survive with four compartments flooded is pretty good, and the subdivision on those ships would rival that of a lot of ships in service today. -
ColinChapman — 14 years ago(March 17, 2012 04:08 PM)
No ship is unsinkable.
Neither was Titanic. She was never claimed to be by the White Star Line themselves. However popular media called her "practically unsinkable", and they had the watertight compartments to back that claim up. This became "unsinkable" in the minds of the people.
Especially AFTER it sank. -
deeveed — 13 years ago(April 03, 2012 06:47 AM)
Regarding the Costa Concordia, I'd be very interested in how the ship ran aground. Will it be faulty electronics or the captain's muff of a tricky situation? The Titanic was a tech marvel in its day. Only thing there's a human dimension that had to be applied to the rudders, screws and engine room. The confluence of that surely determines success or failure as a ship moves through the water.
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Darvidd — 13 years ago(April 10, 2012 02:00 PM)
It's worth noting that the half sister 'Britannic' sank after 1 torpedo hit in WW1 while acting as a hospital ship-and she had the post iceberg modifications built in. As far as people travelling by ship, far more do it now as cruise liner passengers than were doing it for actual transportation in 1912. One of the ironies of the modern age.
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