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Posted: 15-06-2007 23:42 Post subject:

Lets wait and see what the documentary is about: that piece was written by a journalist hack.

Case in point: the Titanic's sister, the Olympic, built to essentially the same design as the Titanic, once encountered a storm so strong that a hatch cover was ripped from her forecastle and flung into the forward part of the ship. She DIDN'T suffer catastrophic damage as the article says. The two ships were built side by side, with the same materials. Why should one be weak and not the other?

Posted: 16-06-2007 12:17 Post subject:

Posted: 16-06-2007 13:16 Post subject:

If that was the case, why wasn't the Olympic retrofitted with another expansion joint? Olympic only ever had two and sailed very successfully for two decades after the Titanic disaster, even through the 1929 undersea earthquake off the Grand Banks.

This whole story looks to me to be a non-story: create a controversy where none exists just for ratings or newspaper sales. It has certainly created a hell of a storm on Encyclopedia Titanica and the Titanic Research and Modelling Association website. Many of the contributors on that board were interviewed for the programmes, but due to Non Disclosure Agreements, they can't say a word about it.....until after the show airs that is.

Posted: 16-06-2007 14:37 Post subject:

Heres another point: in December 1912, 8 months after the Titanic disaster, the Olympic retrurned to its shipyard for massive structural improvements, including raising the watertight bulkheads, and raising the double bottom so that it formed a double skin above the waterline. The Britannic had already been building for 13 months at this point. Why wasn't the Olympic fitted with an extra expansion joint when all that extra - very major - work was being done?

Posted: 17-06-2007 23:22 Post subject:

Sorry if there is a thread on this elsewhere I couldnt see one.

What is the deal with that letter in this months issue about the people trapped in the Titanic who are still alive Shocked

The bloke, Patrick Smash, is clearly insane but the comment that there are fully documented accounts of SOS transmissions being heard to this day at the site of the sinking - is this the case?

Is there even one instance of someone reporting an SOS being heard. Im sure that would have been reported somewhere, or did the captains all choose just to tell Mr Smash of their amazing discovery?

Posted: 17-06-2007 23:32 Post subject:

See here:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28893&highlight=titanic

At best, it's an urban myth. Anyway, James Cameron's special cameras would have surely noticed them by now.

Posted: 18-06-2007 00:24 Post subject:

Simple answer: mental illness.

Posted: 29-08-2007 07:58 Post subject:

Missing key that sank Titanic for sale
Simon de Bruxelles

SOUTHAMPTON A small iron key that could have saved the Titanic from disaster is expected to fetch up to £70,000 when it is sold at auction in Devizes next month.

The key, which opened the locker containing the lookout’s binoculars, was left behind when the liner set off on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. The lives of 1,522 passengers and crew were lost when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic. When asked what difference the binoculars might have made, Fred Fleet, a lookout who survived the disaster, said: “Enough to get out of the way.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2343776.ece

Posted: 29-08-2007 08:09 Post subject:

A fuller version from the Telegraph:

Key that could have saved the Titanic
By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 6:29am BST 29/08/2007

It looks for all the world like an ordinary key but this unremarkable piece of metal could have saved the Titanic from disaster.

It is thought to have fitted the locker that contained the crow's nest binoculars, vital in detecting threats to the liner lurking in the sea in the pre-sonar days of 1912.

Catastrophically for the Titanic and the 1,522 lives lost with her, the key's owner, Second Officer David Blair, was removed from the crew at the last minute and in his haste forgot to hand it to his replacement.

Without access to the glasses, the lookouts in the crow's nest were forced to rely on their eyes and only saw the iceberg when it was too late to take action.

One, Fred Fleet, who survived the disaster, later told the official inquiry into the tragedy that if they had had binoculars they would have seen the obstacle sooner.

When asked by a US senator chairing the inquiry how much sooner, Mr Fleet replied: "Enough to get out of the way."

The key and its importance has only properly come to light 95 years later after it was put up for auction.

Alan Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Sons in Devizes, Wilts, said: "We think this key is one of the most important artefacts from the Titanic to have come to light.

"A few days before the Titanic sailed, Mr Blair was bumped off the ship, a decision which probably saved his life.

"But in Blair's rush to leave the Titanic he carried this key off with him in his pocket and forgot to hand it to his replacement, Charles Lightoller.

"Obviously he only realised this after the Titanic had left Southampton and kept the key as a memento. But had Lightoller had the key then there probably would have been a pair of binoculars in the crow's nest.

"It is the key that had the potential to save the Titanic."

Mr Blair, 37, from Broughty Ferry, Forfarshire, sailed on the Titanic from Belfast to Southampton on April 3, 1912.

He had been due to be the second officer for the Titanic's voyage to New York on April 10. But the White Star Line, the ship's owners, removed Mr Blair and drafted in Henry Wilde, a senior officer from sister ship, the Olympic, because of his experience of such large liners.

He wrote of his disappointment in a postcard he sent to his sister-in-law days before the Titanic left Southampton. In the card, which is also up for auction, he wrote: "Am afraid I shall have to step out to make room for chief officer of the Olympic.

This is a magnificent ship, I feel very disappointed I am not to make her first voyage." The 46,000-ton Titanic struck the iceberg in the north Atlantic at 11.45pm on April 14 and sank at 2.20am on April 15. Mr Wilde was among those who perished.

According to the US inquiry into the sinking, Mr Fleet recalled seeing Mr Blair with binoculars during the trip from Belfast to Southampton. Asked where Mr Blair's glasses went, Mr Fleet replied: "We do not know. We only know we never got a pair." Senator Smith, the chairman of the inquiry, said: "Suppose you had glasses… could you have seen this black object [at] a greater distance?"

Fleet: "We could have seen it a bit sooner."

Smith: "How much sooner?"

Fleet: "Well, enough to get out of the way."

Smith: "Were you disappointed that you had no glasses?"

Fleet: "Yes, sir."

Mr Blair, who was later awarded the King's Gallantry medal for jumping into the Atlantic to rescue a crewman, eventually passed the key on to his daughter Nancy. She gave it to the British and International Seamans Society in the 1980s.

Intriguingly, the key may not entirely unlock the Titanic mystery. According to an alternative account, it may have unlocked the crow's nest telephone.

It is expected to fetch up to £70,000 on September 22.

http://tinyurl.com/2ueetl

Posted: 29-08-2007 10:05 Post subject:

Somehow this sounds a bit dodgy. There was only one set of glasses on board? He couldn't borrow someone else's? No-one thought to force the lock?

Posted: 30-08-2007 15:04 Post subject:

The greater conspiracy here is that Blair's hometown (Broughty Ferry) has moved from being in the City of Dundee to being in the ancient county of Forfarshire...

Posted: 30-08-2007 16:07 Post subject:

Broughty Ferry was incorporated into the City of Dundee in 1913 - previously it was in Forfarshire. So the location is correct for the time of the sinking.

I agree with Anome - surely they weren't the only set of glasses on the entire ship?

Posted: 30-08-2007 19:37 Post subject: