An analysis of the sinking of titanic and the finding of its wreckage

Triumph and Tragedy New York: New York Times83 May 16,p. Ocean Liners of the Past:

Almost immediately after Titanic sank on 15 Aprilproposals were advanced to salvage her from her resting place in the North Atlantic Oceandespite her exact location and condition being unknown. The families of several wealthy victims of the disaster — the GuggenheimsAstorsand Wideners — formed a consortium and contracted the Merritt and Chapman Derrick and Wrecking Company to raise Titanic.

The lack of submarine technology at the time as well as the outbreak of World War I also put off such a project. Whale fallsa phenomenon not discovered until — coincidentally, by the same submersible used for the first manned expedition to Titanic the year before [4] — demonstrate that water-filled corpses, in this case cetaceanscan sink to the bottom essentially intact.

However, all fell afoul of practical and technological difficulties, a lack of funding and, in many cases, a lack of understanding of the physical conditions at the wreck site.

Having found its exact position, more electromagnets would be sent down from a fleet of barges which would winch Titanic to the surface.

Another proposal involved raising Titanic by means of attaching balloons to her hull using electromagnets. Once enough balloons had been attached, the ship would float gently to the surface.

Again, the idea got no further than the drawing board. In the mids, a hosiery worker from Baldock named Douglas Woolley devised a plan to find Titanic using a bathyscaphe like Triesteused to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench in and raise the wreck by inflating nylon balloons that would be attached to her hull.

Calculations showed that it could take ten years to generate enough gas to overcome the water pressure. One proposal called fortons of molten wax or alternatively, Vaseline to be pumped into Titanic, lifting her to the surface. This, being lighter than liquid water, would float to the surface and could be towed to shore.

The BOC Group calculated that this would require half a million tons of liquid nitrogen to be pumped down to the sea bed. Despite early negotiations with possible backers being abandoned when it emerged that they wanted to turn the wreck into souvenir paperweights, more sympathetic backers joined Ballard to form a company named Seasonics International Ltd.

This was essentially a drillship with sonar equipment and cameras attached to the end of the drilling pipe. It could lift objects from the seabed using a remote-controlled mechanical claw. His aim was to use the publicity of finding Titanic to promote his newly established magazine, NOW!

An expedition to the North Atlantic was scheduled for but was cancelled due to financial difficulties.

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However, he was unable to obtain financial backing for his planned expedition. To raise funds for his Titanic expedition, he obtained sponsorship from friends with whom he played poker, sold media rights through the William Morris Agencycommissioned a book, and obtained the services of Orson Welles to narrate a documentary.

The scientists issued an ultimatum: The problem was exacerbated by technological limitations; the Sea MARC sonar used by the expedition had a relatively low resolution and was a new and untested piece of equipment. Nonetheless it managed to survey an area of some square nautical miles and identified 14 possible targets.

To increase their chances of finding the wreck, the team employed a much more capable sonar device, the Scripps Deep Tow. The weather was again very poor, but all 14 of the targets were successfully covered and found to be natural features.

On the last day of the expedition, an object that looked like a propeller was found. Conrad to have another look at the "propeller". This time nothing was found and very bad weather brought an early end to the expedition. Michael Harris and Jack Grimm had failed to find Titanic but their expeditions did succeed in producing fairly detailed mapping of the area in which the ship had sunk.

Despite the failure of his expedition, Robert Ballard had not given up hope and devised new technologies and a new search strategy to tackle the problem. This consisted of a remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle called Argo, equipped with sonar and cameras and towed behind a ship, with a robot called Jason tethered to it that could roam the sea floor, take close-up images and gather specimens.

The images from the system would be transmitted back to a control room on the towing vessel where they could be assessed immediately.

As Thresher and Scorpion sank, debris spilled out from them across a wide area of the seabed and was sorted by the currents, so that light debris drifted furthest away from the site of the sinking.The Break-up of Titanic.

The Titanic broke apart from the bottom up, mainly. Background. The break-up story has a bit of history to it that is useful to understand. A metallurgical analysis of steel taken from the hull of the Titanic's wreckage reveals that it had a high ductile-brittle transition temperature, making it unsuitable for service at low temperatures; at the time of the collision, the temperature of the sea water was -2°C.

The analysis also shows, however, that the steel used was probably the best plain carbon ship plate available at the time. Titanic Universe - This well-designed web resource features articles on the construction, sinking, and wreckage of the Titanic.

You'll also find a fascinating collection of Titanic artifacts and videos. As the th anniversary of Titanic's sinking approaches, experts have joined forces to find out how the ship plunged into the North Atlantic on April 15, The Hindenburg was a film based off a book about its last flight, with its plot centered around a fictional conspiracy to destroy the airship.

It is notable for being one of the iconic disaster films in the heyday of that genre, and for having extremely accurate sets and depictions of the airship. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products.