At the time of the Titanic sinking in 1912 it was one of the most costly losses of life
at sea in peacetime history more than 1 400 people lost their lives
and since then the story has entered popular legend it might surprise you to know though that
things could have been far far worse and if things had even happened just a little bit differently
then many more people could have lost their lives that night from a broken wireless set
to a sinking rescue ship here are four ways the titanic disaster could have been far deadlier
number one officer Murdoch makes a mistake struck a glancing blow off the iceberg slightly enough
that it caused damage that slowly flooded the ship over the course of two and a bit hours but if
first officer William Murdoch had done things even a little bit differently while trying to avoid the
iceberg titanic could have sunk in minutes instead the nature of the damage the iceberg inflicted to
titanic has been the source of debate for decades when Titanic's lookouts and bridge
first spotted the iceberg they had less than 40 seconds to get their ship out of harm's way
but when you are steering a ship that weighs in excess of 50 000 tons that can be a bit
of a tricky prospect you see ships don't steer like cars from the front the rudder on an ocean
liner like titanic is located at the very back or stern of the ship and an immediate and urgent turn
will actually cause the ship to pivot at its middle and swing its back out not unlike
drifting in a sports car this means that if you're trying to avoid an object you can still hit it
even if the front of your ship or the bow is pointing in the direction that you actually want
it to go titanic's crew on watch that night well knew this fact and it was first officer William
Murdoch who ordered the ship's wheel swung hard over to get the bow pointing away from the iceberg
it was just too late though and the ship had only just begun to turn when she hit the berg then even
in the intense stress of the moment and with only seconds to think Murdoch did something remarkable
he had the foresight to order the ship's will be swung hard in the opposite direction
this was a maneuver intended to kick titanic's stern away from the iceberg as it swung around
and it worked the iceberg only damaged about two or three hundred feet
of the ship's bow but what if Murdoch hadn't had performed this maneuver
instead titanic's hull would have contacted the iceberg at the bow and it would have scraped
along the side of the ship possibly causing even more damage the further along it scraped
we know now that the real-life impact opened up the ship's hull in a series of small incisions
and Dr Robert Ballard noticed that the ship's hull plating or its skin was forced open in gaps
of only about one to six inches wide that's two to fifteen centimeters in areas where the iceberg
contacted the ship if Murdoch hadn't have swung the stern out of harm's way the iceberg could have
opened up many more compartments along the ship's hull flooding the ship much faster and even more
terrifyingly damage to all the boiler rooms along the hull or the generator room could have seen the
ship's power go out in only a matter of minutes plunging it into darkness how long the ship
could have been able to stay afloat for with this amount of damage is just a matter of conjecture
but almost definitely not long enough to get the lifeboats away safely this amount of damage could
easily have resulted in the loss of almost all of the ship's passengers and crew about 2 200 people
number two the sea is choppier the Atlantic ocean is one of the wildest toughest seas in the
world with winter gales that over the centuries have claimed hundreds if not thousands of ships
during storms waves can reach as high as 70 feet or 20 meters mid-Atlantic it can be a
scary place at one point in maritime history travelers looking for passage across the
ocean to the new world were really gambling with their lives simply by making the trip
back in those days the trip took a month but by the time of titanic's introduction
the voyage took little over five days things had changed the ships were much bigger too but then
the Atlantic could still strike at random in 1910 the Lusitania was mid-Atlantic in a storm
when she was battered by a monstrous seven-story tall wave that washed out as high up as the bridge
it is a vast violent deadly ocean so it's all the more remarkable that on the night the titanic sank
the sea was a flat calm these conditions were described well by famous survivor Violet Jessop
who said grayish skies replaced sunshine calm sea perfect serenity for miles gray sky deepening
into haziness as evening fell made the water look like molten silver as it caught the soft beams of
brilliant starlight after a night of calm seas and floating mists the wind rose to an icy keenness
cutting through our numbed bodies the sea surface was perfectly flat that night
like a mirror the condition which meteorologists suggest happens perhaps once in a lifetime this
created a problem for titanic's lookouts and crew because it meant that there would
be no waves breaking on any icebergs ahead which would usually produce a tell-tale white foam and
make them a little easier to see but these calm conditions also played a huge role in ensuring
the survival of hundreds of passengers when they took to the lifeboats during the sinking
after titanic struck the iceberg the crew began to make ready the lifeboats a process which took
a good deal of time in fact it wasn't until an entire hour after the collision when titanic's bow
was already well down in the water that the first boat began to be lowered away these first boats
were famously lowered half full as passengers seemed reluctant to evacuate at first but as the
night progressed the titanic's situation became more obvious and dire as the bow dipped lower and
which is the term used to describe the total height of a boat's top from the waterline
because of the night's flat calm the boats were lowered and floated away safely
however it's not hard to imagine what might have happened if the weather was a little bit different
for one thing if the sea was bigger and a heavy swell was rolling through titanic would have been
rolling and pitching as she sank probably slowing down the process of lowering the lifeboats in the
first place as they swung out away from the ship one moment and crashed back against it in the next
then the big wooden boats would need to be filled and lowered and somehow remained together
but in a heavy wavy ocean it would have been difficult or even impossible to maintain order
and it's likely the boats would have been scattered to the wind having been blown so far
off course after titanic sank it seems impossible to think that the rescue ship Carpathia would have
been able to find all the boats leaving their occupants to the mercy of the icy cold air
this alone could have resulted in the deaths of hundreds more but if the big wooden lifeboats had
it bad it's the collapsible boats which would have suffered the most titanic carried four
of these little boats known as Englehardt type collapsibles they were essentially a flat wooden
barge with canvas sides that could be raised up to create a hull of sorts they were almost impossible
to sink because of their enhanced flotation but once titanic sank these little rafts would have
been battered by big waves that likely would have overwhelmed their fragile canvas sides
the passengers inside would have been assaulted by icy water from the start with many succumbing to
the cold on the night of the sinking collapsible bee actually floated from the ship upside down and
thanks to the calm conditions about 30 men survived through the night balanced on top
if the sea were just a bit heavier they would probably all have been overcome
and lost number three Carpathia strikes an iceberg I've made a video studying carpathia's
actions that night in detail the heroic crew under the command of captain Arthur Rostron
sailed at full speed for titanic's location after receiving her wireless distress calls Rostron
knew full well that he was sailing directly into an ice field where huge icebergs loomed in the
dark and on such a moonless night it would be extremely difficult to spot the icebergs ahead
regardless rostron posted a dozen men to the very front of the ship to keep a sharp lookout and
ordered that all steam be put on so that carpathia would arrive at titanic's location as soon as
possible in doing so though rostron actually took a fair gamble with his own ship and its passengers
in fact carpathia did almost run directly into an iceberg that night but it was spotted just in
time by the ship's second officer james bisset with around 740 passengers aboard and 300 crew
carpathia could have been in serious trouble if she too encountered an iceberg that night
built in 1903 she simply didn't have the safety features that titanic did in fact she carried
as many lifeboats as titanic even though she was just a fraction of titanic's size the reasoning
for this was actually explained by captain rostron himself who said that the ships are
built nowadays to be practically unsinkable and each ship is supposed to be a lifeboat in itself
are merely supposed to be put on as a standby the ships are supposed to be built and the
naval architects say they are unsinkable under certain conditions what the exact conditions are
i do not know as to whether it is with alternate compartments full or what it may be that is why
in our ship we carry more lifeboats for the simple reason that we are built differently
from the titanic differently constructed if carpathia had hit an iceberg hard enough that
night to begin flooding it is difficult to say how long it would have taken her to sink exactly
if she sank quickly say in under an hour the crew may not have had enough time to lure away
all of her boats leaving hundreds to freeze in the water which that night was 28 degrees Fahrenheit
or negative 2.2 degrees Celsius assuming she had enough time to launch all her lifeboats and get
all her passengers and crew away safely there remained the fact that the nearest help would
still be four or five hours away or more and now rescue ships would be needed for both the titanic
and the carpathia's survivors some victims of the titanic disaster had initially survived the
ship's sinking but in the lifeboats succumbed to the cold night adrift for hours on end
titanic 706 survivors and carpathias 1040 passengers and crew would have had to have
held on to mid-morning and many more would have suffered and been lost thanks to the extreme cold
it's frightening to think how close carpathia could have come to disaster that night
and captain rostron himself even recalled that when day broke i saw the eyesight steam through
during the night i shuddered and could only think that some other hand than mine was on the helm
during the night number four the Marconi wireless isn't fixed when she departed Southampton for a
maiden voyage titanic had aboard her one of the most powerful wireless sets afloat
but the technology was still in its infancy in fact many ships didn't even carry a wireless set
and still relied on lamps flags and rockets for communicating because of her size and passenger
capacity however titanic carried two wireless operators who would be expected to deal with a
large amount of passenger radiograms throughout the voyage John ‘Jack’ Phillips 25 and Harold
Bride 22 worked in alternating shifts to contact distant radio stations and other ships to pass
on messages from passengers to loved ones or business associates waiting for them in New York
the two men had been hard at work tapping messages out when late at night on the fourth day at sea
Phillips began to have difficulty with his machine the men were actually white star line crew but
were employees of the Marconi international marine company and the organization had trained its men
not to attempt repairs at sea for fear of causing further damage instead it was recommended that the
machine be left alone until a rival import where a technician could properly assess and fix it
instead of this though bride and Phillips worked all night to get it up and running again
so that finally about five or six hours later titanic could again begin transmitting messages
then the two wireless operators would begin to catch up on the huge backlog of passenger messages
waiting for them that was Sunday morning and it was that very night the titanic struck the iceberg
and thanks to the repaired Marconi wireless set with its huge range Phillips and bride were able
to coordinate a rescue reaching Carpathia the mount temple and more ensuring that these ships
would be sailing on route to rescue titanic's passengers but if the wireless set was still not
operational when titanic hit the iceberg things could have been very different indeed with no way
of reaching ships beyond visual distance titanic's passengers would have taken to the lifeboats but
without any ships coming to their rescue they'd have drifted for hours and hours with their
occupants succumbing slowly to the cold scattered by the choppy seas that developed the next morning
it's easy to imagine that the newspapers in New York the next week would have instead proclaimed
the titanic had disappeared with all hands lost likely sunk by an iceberg maybe a lifeboat or two
would have been stumbled across by a passing steamer in the weeks and months to follow
but titanic at all 2200 of her passengers and crew would have simply vanished into thin air
it's thanks to the efforts of jack phillips and harold bride that more than 700 people
survived the sinking of the titanic that night but things almost could have been very very different
ladies and gentlemen it's your friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs thank you so
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