Rescue From Titanic

Orianna2000

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I've been toying with the idea of a story set amidst the famous Titanic disaster. One bit of information I can't find is how the passengers that were rescued got from the lifeboats onto the Carpathia. I found one source that mentioned they rigged a kind of sling to haul children and the infirm aboard. But what about the rest of the survivors? Did they have to climb rope ladders? Or was there some other way of getting from sea level to the Carpathia's deck?

Specifically, I'm wondering how a woman with an infant would have been brought aboard the Carpathia. But I'm also curious about the other survivors. After floating in the North Atlantic, within view of icebergs, in the middle of the night, they must've been freezing. Factor in the women wearing corsets and narrow skirts, plus being affected by the cold--surely they would have had difficulty climbing aboard.

Any thoughts?
 

jclarkdawe

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Chair sling for anyone who needed it, rope ladders for the rest. Carpathia had four hours of planning and used them well. Many of the survivors had gone to bed and were probably not fully dressed. The Carpathia was also a smaller ship and there was not as much freeboard. Sailors in that day and age were used to slinging cargo on board, and had numerous cargo hoists to work with. My guess is that some of the Carpathia's crew went down into each lifeboat to assist. Sea was very calm for the North Atlantic that morning.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Orianna2000

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Great! Just what I needed to know. Thanks!
 

Cyia

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Accounts from people who were very young children also mention being hauled up onto the Carpathia in a mail bag lowered down because they were afraid the smallest kids would fall through the ropes using other methods.
 

jclarkdawe

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I forgot that the shell doors were unlatched and used. These are the doors along the side of a ship, used to bring cargo and passengers on board while in port. Normally these are secured during passage. Also lights were rigged along the side of the Carpathia.

As I said, it was exceptionally calm that night. Opening the shell doors would have been safe and provided doors closer to the waterline.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Orianna2000

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Jim, I was wondering if they might have used the doors, rather than hauling people all the way to the upper deck. Fascinating!

Cyia, thanks for that. The things those poor people endured, it's heartbreaking. The kids must've been terrified.
 

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Dreadful.

And Jim's comment -As I said, it was exceptionally calm that night.- emphasises the chilling backdrop to the whole tragedy.

Jim, I was wondering if they might have used the doors, rather than hauling people all the way to the upper deck. Fascinating!

Cyia, thanks for that. The things those poor people endured, it's heartbreaking. The kids must've been terrified.
 

jclarkdawe

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I have my doubts about the mailbags. I can't imagine an infant being happy about being stuffed into a mailbag. They might have been used to line the cargo nets.

The Captain of the Carpathia never really described what he did that night. One of his officers did write a book, which I understand is pretty good.

PinInterest has a picture of a lifeboat being hoisted on deck with survivors in it. You'd need to check the back story on this picture to see whether it actually was taken at the time. However, hoisting lifeboats with people on board would not have been unusual.

Many of the eyewitness accounts are crap. Jack Thayer is one of the best witnesses, and was on the Titanic until very close to the end. But Thayer was not on a lifeboat with children or women, so his recollection of boarding the Carpathia would be different. But Thayer was one of the few eyewitnesses who correctly stated that the Titanic broke apart on the surface.

Realize that writing about the Titanic is risky. People know the story very well. They will fault you on any mistakes. Take the band, for instance. It did not play NEARER TO GOD, but a lot of people still believe that it did. Relatively reliable witnesses who were on board to the end say that the band stopped playing about a half hour before the Titanic sank. This seems to be logically consistent. Yet writing that the band wasn't playing as the ship went under is going to be hard to deal with.

I can't find a good picture of the Carpathia's shell doors. Nor do I know what system the Carpathia used to load its coal bunkers and other supplies. But some of these doors can be very close to the waterline.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

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Lifeboats were often raised to a deck to unload them. Bosuns chairs are a standard practice even today. Ladders, ropes, strong men... What does your story actually need for the detail?

Jeff
 

Orianna2000

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It can work either way. I just want to be sure the details are accurate.
 

WriterDude

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WriterDude

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Don't know how to link to it but I saw an image on Pinterest claiming to be of titanic survivors being brought aboard the Carpathia.
 

Orianna2000

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Ah! I never thought to check Pinterest. Thanks for the tip! There's a few photos of the lifeboats. Most show them in the water. One shows the lifeboats hanging from the side of the Carpathia, but it's such low resolution, you can't tell if there are people in the lifeboats. They might've hauled the boats up after the people were already aboard the Carpathia.

Here's one photo.

And here's another, but again, it's hard to tell what's going on.
 

jclarkdawe

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Be careful with pictures of the lifeboats. There were definitely a couple of cameras on the Carpathian, but there are also a lot of posed pictures after the Carpathian got to New York and just downright wrong photos. My favorite is the bodies of Titanic victims on shore. Nope. Never happened. Those photos might be from the Lusitania, but the Titanic went down from from land.

Here's a site that looks likely to be accurate -- http://chillapple.blogspot.com/2010/01/titanic-interior-of-titanic-life-boats.html#.WHD_QpKKbNA I can independently verify various facts in the pictures to other reports.

Anyway, the picture of the lifeboats on the side of a ship looks like it was a posed picture taken in New York harbor after the fact. The other ships arrived at the site of the sinking after the lifeboats were emptied. The Carpathian hoisted the lifeboats onto the foredeck with cargo cranes.

The four lifeboats along the side of the Carpathian are definitely probable to have been taken later in the rescue operation. The Carpathian arrived before sunrise, and started rescuing in the dark, although there may have been a loom from the sun. The picture could have been taken right before sunrise, when there's a fair amount of light. If it was later in the morning, not as likely, as the weather the next morning was described as beautiful, mocking the challenge that the sun revealed.

The boat with what might be a ladder is almost definitely a harbor shot. There's no deep swell showing in the water. Although the weather was calm and the sea was flat, this statement has to be taken in context. What it really means is that surface waves were minimal or non-existent. These waves break against objects, were a factor in the iceberg not being seen, but their absence does not mean the sea was still. There would have been a deep sea swell running (and described by some of the survivors) that can be seen in the pictures from the site I reference above.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Orianna2000

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Good to know, Jim. Thanks!

Here's another Titanic question, but this one is highly theoretical. You know how when ships sink, air can get trapped in certain places, so there's a "bubble" or "pocket" inside as it's sinking? (Assuming that's not a myth made up by Hollywood. . . .) Supposing that happened on the Titanic, if someone was trapped in a room with an air bubble as the ship sank, what would happen, exactly? Would the air pocket become smaller and smaller as the ship descends, until water fills the whole room and the person drowns? Would they run out of oxygen from re-breathing the same air and die of suffocation? Or would the room implode as the ship sinks deeper, crushing the person long before they drown?

I'm just trying to imagine what kind of scenario is likely to play out if someone trapped in the ship was lucky enough to find an air pocket. They'd still die, but how? From drowning, or the pressure, or something else entirely? It's rather a horrifying prospect and it's creeping me out, but I'm obsessed with the idea now.
 

jclarkdawe

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What you're asking is exactly what happened and explains the differences between the state of the bow and the stern.

When the bow sank, it was full of water, and therefore everything was equal. As a result, as the bow sank it remained pretty much intact, with some damage from the collision with the bottom, but other than that, the structure is in good shape as far as appearance is concerned. (I'd have my doubts about the strength.)

The stern, on the other hand, was full of air. As the ship broke apart on the surface, the stern rose above the water level, and was significantly empty of water (or filled with air if you want to think of it that way). One air pressure at sea level is 14 and some odd pounds. In other words, the column of air over each square inch weights a bit over fourteen pounds.

Water is heavier than air. Every thirty-three feet, another fourteen pounds of weight is added. At thirty-three feet of depth, twenty-eight pounds (usually rounded up to thirty pounds to make life easier) is pressing on each inch. If you go 100 meters down, the pressure is now 11 atmospheres or something like 150 pounds per square inch. At one kilometer, we're now up to 101 atmospheres, or something like 1500 pounds per square inch.

At a certain point based upon the strength and construction of an object, it will collapse inward from this pressure in a process called an "implosion." It's the opposite of an explosion basically. This is what happened to all the compartments in the stern. The pressure of the sea eventually collapsed the compartments, blowing the stern to pieces. If you envision taking a soda can and stomping on it, you've got an idea of the force. Or you can watch the Mythbusters showing this -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDX4--py6ok

If there were any survivors inside the stern as it went down, when the stern imploded the pressure would have crushed them like a tin can. It's a very ugly way to die, although probably instant death. Your horrifying prospect is probably very close to accurate.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

jclarkdawe

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I should have mentioned that the bow and stern sank very differently. When the bow broke lose, it angled down and hit a speed estimated to be about 13 mph. When the bow hit the bottom, it drove itself into the sentiment. People were washed off the bow section as it went down and there are reports of suction from the bow.

The stern, which stayed on the surface for a minute or two after the bow went down, had a considerable amount of air within it. It went down slowly and reached about 4 mph in its descent. The stern went down slowly enough that some people probably floated off the stern and never got their heads wet. There doesn't seem to be any discussion of suction with the stern section by any survivor. The noise of it going below the water was very low, not that the bow made much of a plop.

The bow took about ten minutes to reach the bottom, while the stern took more than thirty minutes.

As the stern sank, more and more water poured into it, and began squeezing the individual compartments. It's likely there were a series of implosions, of varying sizes. Remember that a fair amount of portholes were open. Although pressure increases the amount of water flow through a restriction, a restriction does restrict water flow. My guess is that the stern leaked air from pockets for several days, but I don't know and there's no discussion of this. But these pockets would have been air under high pressure.

One could present a plausible argument in a couple of ways that there was an air pocket capable of survival, but it is extremely unlikely. But RAISE THE TITANIC presents as part of its theory that a safe on the ship survived intact. At 500 atmospheres, although a safe could have remained substantially intact, it would have shown significant deformity and the door would have been impossible to move. I know this but until I was looking at this discussion, I didn't realize the impossibility of a safe surviving without significant deformity.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

neandermagnon

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Good to know, Jim. Thanks!

Here's another Titanic question, but this one is highly theoretical. You know how when ships sink, air can get trapped in certain places, so there's a "bubble" or "pocket" inside as it's sinking? (Assuming that's not a myth made up by Hollywood. . . .) Supposing that happened on the Titanic, if someone was trapped in a room with an air bubble as the ship sank, what would happen, exactly? Would the air pocket become smaller and smaller as the ship descends, until water fills the whole room and the person drowns? Would they run out of oxygen from re-breathing the same air and die of suffocation? Or would the room implode as the ship sinks deeper, crushing the person long before they drown?

I'm just trying to imagine what kind of scenario is likely to play out if someone trapped in the ship was lucky enough to find an air pocket. They'd still die, but how? From drowning, or the pressure, or something else entirely? It's rather a horrifying prospect and it's creeping me out, but I'm obsessed with the idea now.

There's a man who survived 3 days (or thereabouts under water in an air pocket on a sunken boat (much smaller than the titanic).

The build up of carbon dioxide (which is toxic) is more of an issue than running out of oxygen. Both are a risk but AFAIK CO2 gets to toxic levels before O2 runs out. Air normally has only 0.04% CO2 (was just 0.03% a few decades ago) - the air you breathe out has 4% CO2 (which is a waste product from cellular respiration that your body has to get rid of). The more people you have breathing in any closed system with limited air, the more quickly you'll get a build up of CO2.

Due to increasing water pressure, the size of the bubble will get smaller but the amount of air (in terms of numbers of molecules) will remain the same.

They would probably die from exposure (i.e. falling body temperature) long before any of the above becomes an issue though, on account of the fact it sank in the North of the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. If your clothes are wet, death from exposure happens all the more quickly. Anyone who managed to find an air pocket would die of cold.

I think unless you're already in an air pocket when the boat capsizes then you're not going to be able to find one. If you're submerged in freezing water and drowning, you can't really focus on anything other than trying to breathe. If by fluke someone did find themselves in an air pocket, they'd die from cold rather than running out of air.

I just looked up the news report about the man who survived under the sea in an air bubble - he did survive 3 days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLaqisOudUk
 

jclarkdawe

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There are several reports of people surviving capsizes in air pockets. I believe one of the battleships at Pearl Harbor had several sailors who were rescued by cutting open the hull. But these are shallow water capsizes and sinkings, and I don't know of any that went beyond twenty meters. The pressure differential as you go deeper is where the problem arises.

I think that it is reasonable to assume that some people on the Titanic were in the stern as it went down. We have several reliable reports of individuals who either choose to die or were in such a state of shock as not to be acting reasonably. It is reasonable to assume that at least some of these people stayed inside where it was warm.

Water temperature that night was 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Air temperature was roughly the same.

Cause of death is difficult to determine as no autopsies were performed. The listed causes in 1912 were either drowning or shipwreck. Although many people died from drowning, more probably died from hypothermia. The life jackets were actually very effective once someone was in the water. There were quite a few deaths from trauma, both from falling equipment such as the funnels, to broken necks from jumping into the water (caused by the life jackets). There were also probably quite a few heart attacks when people entered the water.

I think in the bow it is safe to assume that nearly all or all compartments were filled with water by the time the bow was 100 meters below the surface. People who died in the bow most likely died from drowning. Some compartments may have imploded, but this was the exception rather than the rule.

In the stern, it is safe to assume that many compartments were filled with air when the stern went down. It is safe to assume that there were people alive and still inside the stern as it sank. Some of these people were trapped, and others were there voluntarily. These people would have survived for a measurable period as the boat sank. The stern was descending at a walking pace or even slower at first. People may have been alive for five or more minutes after the stern went under the surface.

Water would have been pouring in, but many compartments would have been sealed enough to slow water ingress. I think we can reasonably assume that some people were still alive when the stern passed 100 meters. But between 100 meters (10 atmospheres pressure) to 1,000 meters (100 atmospheres pressure), the stern was destroyed with numerous implosions, as these compartments started collapsing. When these compartments collapsed, the rapid change in pressure would have caused death by compression. I think it unlikely anyone survived below 1,000 meters, although there is a possibility. Anyone unlucky enough to survive that long probably died eventually either from compression or hypothermia.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Orianna2000

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Wow. I had no idea that my theoretical scenario was not only plausible, but actually happened! I was going to ask, how many minutes could someone have stayed alive in an air pocket before it imploded . . . (I know you gave an estimate of how fast the stern sank and how deep it could've gone before the implosions occurred, but I have a math disability.) But then I realized, it doesn't matter because I have absolutely no desire to write such a scenario. I mean, it's utterly fascinating, in a morbid sort of way. But . . . I think it would affect me too much if I tried to write it. I'm highly empathic, I feel what my characters feel. So writing this, well, it would definitely put me in a scary depression. But it's still fascinating, my gosh! Could anyone have still been alive when the stern hit the ocean floor? In the movie, they say that if the submarine's windows cracked, the people inside would be crushed instantly. So I'm guessing it's extremely unlikely anyone would still be alive when the ship reached the bottom of the ocean. What a way to die, though, geez!

Am I correct in assuming that anyone who was in the water with a life vest died of hypothermia? Awhile back, I wrote a story where a woman who survived the Titanic's sinking is floating in the water, she finds another woman who's dead, floating on her back, with a baby on her chest. The first woman rescues the baby and basically does the same thing, laying back and keeping the baby on her chest, so it's out of the water. When a lifeboat comes searching for survivors, she gets pulled aboard and both her and the baby survive. But in reality. . .? I'm guessing the life vests wouldn't have allowed her to lay on her back in the water. And even if she did, the baby would still be partially submerged, I'm guessing. So my story is highly implausible, right?

So in "Titanic," when Rose and Jack are holding onto the railing as the stern sinks like a fast elevator, that's not the way it happened, right? It sank a lot slower than that? (I think Jim said 4 mph.) Just curious!
 

jclarkdawe

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Something like 30 sailors on the USS Oklahoma survived the ship capsizing and were rescued through holes cut into the hull. Quite a few other sailors were trapped and were not able to be rescued and lived for some time after the capsize.

I doubt anyone on the Titanic survived below 1,000 meters. By that point, the pressure would have crushed any viable compartments. If you ever see a deep-sea sub, you'll be amazed at how thick the hull is. As far as the story possibilities are concerned, I think this is a dead end. However, a modern story, where someone survived inside some container when a ship sank and could establish communication with the surface could be a fascinating story.

The life jackets on the Titanic force a very vertical position. This is why it is unlikely that most of the people died from drowning. These life jackets made getting your head into the water virtually impossible. Understand that a ship's life jacket is very different from PFDs used on most pleasure craft.

There are rumors of several people arriving at life boats with babies, not that can be confirmed. Included in this is the story of Captain Smith doing so. It's unlikely this would have been possible while wearing a life jacket. Floating on your back would not have been possible with the life jackets.

Several people survived going into the water. Jack Thayer, Charles Lightoller, and Harold Bride all survived immersion.

I never saw the movie. Probably good for my blood pressure. Anyway, Charles Joughin was on the stern of the Titanic as it sank, describing it as riding down an elevator, and reporting that his head may have been wetted, but no more. But this would have been describing a 1912 elevator, not one of those modern ones. Joughin was the last survivor to leave the Titanic, and had a very unusual story.

The sinking speed of the stern is calculated based upon its impact into the bottom, plus computer simulations. But logically it sank slowly, as it slowly filled with water.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

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Re: the floating baby.
Was there much of a debris field? What if the first woman was dead, floating upright, with some sort of a waterproof bucket or box clutched in her arms? Second woman wants to take the 'float' as the dead woman won't need it, discovers there's a baby in it, so hangs onto it, and is able to hand the baby up to rescuers, rather than it being unnoticed and left to die?
I think the scenario works if there's a lot of potential stuff to stick a baby on. No plastic, no Rubbermaid, most baby stuff would be wicker. Maybe a small suitcase, or something wooden? I don't know how much flotsam would be floating around.