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October 21st 04, 04:53 PM

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

The fundamental problem was that they were going too fast for the conditions.
That's an operational mistake, not an engineering mistake.

No, it was first and foremost an engineering screwup, if the rudder
had been properly sized the ship would have turned harder/quicker at
any speed and would have missed the iceberg. Particularly since the
collision was only a sideswipe.

Titanic was "state of the art" for its time.

So were the World Trade Center towers which were designed to survive
if an airliner plowed into them. But the engineers who designed the
towers didn't factor in the fact that airliners are not just
structural impact loads, the carry fuel too. Oops.

Other ships of that era with properly designed rudders would have
turned away from the berg and missed it with room to spare.

Perhaps if the rudder had been larger, the Titanic might have turned away
quicker and missed the berg. But that's really irrelevant.
The ship was clearly
going too fast for conditions.

There's no "might have beens" about it. Unless you can explain why a
larger rudder wouldn't have turned the Titanic quicker so that it
missed the berg.

Simple. In a ship like Titanic, putting the rudder over isn't like steering the
front wheels of a car. In landlubber terms . . .

Save it for the landlubbers.

massive snip

By the way, ya want the list of ships I've been on during sinuous
coursing anti-submarine drills at 30+ kts? Ever stand on the deck of a
ship which is bigger the Titanic doing multiple banked s-turns turns
at combat power speeds? There's some "rudder ops" which will get ya
yer sea legs real quick . . .

Now answer my question and thankew.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv