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October 23rd 04, 05:43 PM

(N2EY) wrote in message om...
Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
N2EY wrote:

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.

So their collapse was fundamentally an engineering screwup?

Comes up as a major screwup to me. We'll see how the pros call it.
Some of them claim that the architects screwed up when they failed to
factor in the prospect of fuel explosions in addition to the aircraft
impact loads. Apparently analyses are showing that if one or another
of the tower's steel stucture had been properly insulated it might
have not come down. There's a congressionally-mandated technical
report in the works which gets into the topic in depth which should be
released soon and is reported to pass out some spankings.

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 . . .

Big deal. Were you driving the things? Did they do the tests with a hull,
rudder and propulsion system identical to Titanic's? Didn't think so.

Well . . at least I'm more on topic than your biker and Amish buggy
thingey?

Sounds like fun as long as it is a drill! ;^)

Sure!

A few days into my first cruise on a carrier I was below in my
compartment when Mother Nature beckoned. A few steps down the
companionway and around the corner I'm in the head. Frigging water
dripping everywhere, the Navy's version of "cleaning the bathroom" is
to hose the entire space with a mix of hot water and steam, three
minutes and done. Thus it was when I parked myself on the throne.

I was deep into the usual set of contemplations one gets into in those
situations when a bunch of buzzers went off and a deep voice boomed
outta the PA system, "All hands prepare for . . ! ". Sinuous
something, didn't make any sense, I couldn't follow it.

Next thing I knew the whole space got tilted to some scary angle and I
slid right off the damned wet throne and landed bare-butt on the
damned wet deck. Was NOT fun, dammit . . . !

The rudder was sufficient to maneuver the ship at a certain rate at a
certain speed. Was the Titanic not very maneuverable? Possibly. Is an 18
wheeler as maneuverable as a 'Vette? Not hardly. But if the 18 wheeler
tries to head down a winding mountain road at the same speeds the "Vette
can, and it crashes, it isn't the designer's fault.

A few last comments: Note that at no point in this wifty sub-thread
have I disputed the fact that the Titanic was steaming too fast for
the conditions. Yes, it was running too fast which had nothing to do
with engineering good, bad or indifferent. The original topic (sort
of) was Titanic engineering screwups.

In the engineering sense I'll stick with my contention that it's
rudder was undersized vs. the design factors used to determine the
size of the rudders installed on other similar ships of the Titanic's
day. It's simply an indisputable matter of published numerical data.
It's blatantly obvious given the fact that the Titanic almost did
clear the berg that it would have missed it if the rudder had been
designed to the same standards as other state-of-the art ships. If
this wasn't the case the subject wouldn't even have come up 92 years
ago.

I might also add one more tidbit on my way outta this nonsense. As any
experienced power vessel helmsman knows rudder effectiveness drops
precipitously as the forward speed decreases ("Were you driving the
things?" Power vessels? Me? You bet! Have you?). This in *not* the
case with Corvettes and semi-rigs and such which are irrelevant no
counters in this discussion, they ain't floating objects.

I haven't seen the equations for years but I'm 90% sure that rudder
effectiveness drops as the *square* of the speed. Welcome to
Bernoulli's postulations. Brings up an interesting possibilty . . if
the Titanic had been drifting along nice and safely at only a couple
kt. the size of the rudder almost wouldn't have mattered, the thing
might have whacked the berg head on and everybody would have been
saved.

'Bye.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv