I have been thinking constantly about the notion of whether the Queen Mary could have survived a
strike with Titanic’s iceberg. I’ve gone back and forth in my mind about various factors that could
have made her sink or swim -so to speak. And then I wondered, if she were to sink,
how would the situation play out? And how would it have gone differently than Titanic’s sinking?
Now, I am definitely not a marine engineer, nor do I have fancy computer models that could
put this to the test, but my hope is that this video is interesting and entertaining.
This video is just for fun, and the predictions I make in this video are
almost entirely speculation, so if you hate speculation, now’s your chance to click away.
First, we must look at why the Titanic sank, to begin with. From the moment the ship’s officers
noticed the iceberg, they had approximately 45 seconds to react, before the inevitable collision.
There’s a lot of speculation about whether the sinking could have been avoided if they
kept the engines running to steer away from the berg, or if they had rammed the berg head-on.
The fact of the matter is, they brought the engines to a stop, turned the ship to port,
and hoped to avoid the iceberg. She would have too if it wasn’t for a rare formation of ice that
created an overhang that pierced the ship’s hull. The Titanic sustained about 250 feet of damage
below the waterline which allowed water to rush into the hull.
Now, the titanic’s lower decks were divided by 16 watertight compartments which went as high as
5 decks from the keel. The ship could stay afloat with any 4 of the compartments flooded, however,
the water was rushing into 5 compartments, which caused a domino effect where the water
began spilling over the top of the watertight bulkheads, bringing the ship down by the head.
The Queen Mary in comparison was divided into 18 watertight compartments,
with bulkheads that extended up to 6 decks from the keel and could stay afloat with any 5 of
the compartments flooded. That might sound like a vast improvement, but here’s the interesting part,
if the same 250 feet of damage is applied to the Queen Mary, then that means she gets 6
compartments breached, pushing her over the limit. And here’s the difference: first, the Titanic was
famous for implementing a double bottom keel for strength, this simply means that instead
of having just one outer shell to keep out the ocean, it had a second one on the inside.
Well, the Queen Mary went a step further, she not only had a double bottom keel,
but she had what is nicknamed a double hull, which means there was an inner layer of watertight steel
along the walls of the ship, going up above the waterline. But let’s say this didn’t matter,
let’s say the iceberg pierced through both layers,
there was still one more fundamental difference between the Queen Mary and Titanic.
The Titanic burned coal in its boilers and had to store that coal in large bunkers along the
watertight bulkheads. But the Queen Mary didn’t burn coal, she burned Bunker C oil.
Since oil is viscous, you must store it in watertight containers. The Queen Mary’s oil tanks
were built along the length of the hull, allowing them to build longitudinal watertight bulkheads
in addition to the ones previously mentioned. The tanks ranged in width from 8 feet to 16 feet,
meaning that if an iceberg punctured the double hull, the ship might leak oil into the ocean,
but there would still be a third bulkhead protecting the boiler room.
Now I know you might be saying “Well Alex, that’s not fair,
the Queen Mary had technology that was 20 years ahead of the Titanic”
well no, not in this case. You see, the RMS Mauretania was Titanic’s older rival,
she had her maiden voyage in 1907, almost 5 years before the Titanic. Yet the Mauretania had a
double hull like the Queen Mary, and even though she burned coal, her coal bunkers were placed
along the hull and could act as watertight bulkheads in case there was a hull breach.
The reason Titanic didn’t place its coal bunkers along the hull
was because the ship could list to one side if the coal wasn’t removed from both sides equally.
It was thought that if Titanic had coal bunkers placed along the bulkheads, then it would take
a lot more to develop a list, so at least they had a good reason. As for why the Titanic did
not have a double hull like the Mauretania, I honestly could not tell you. But that is why
I believe the Queen Mary could have survived a collision with the iceberg without sinking.
But...what if the Queen Mary DID start sinking. Let’s say there was something I missed, and the
ship started going down. How would the situation have played out differently than the Titanic?
Well, let’s start by talking about the execution of the lifeboat deployment,
and then finish with the technical differences between the two ships sinking.
On the Titanic, the ship’s officers were in charge of the crew who prepared the lifeboats for deployment.
In the panic and confusion, mistakes were made. Lifeboats were being deployed far under
capacity, other lifeboats that were already in the water started rowing away from the ship
against orders, fearing the ship’s sinking could cause suction that would pull the lifeboat under.
As the ship dipped further underwater, panic began to set in, and it became harder for the
crew to maintain order. Many of the issues that took place that night could have been
managed with the wisdom from the Captain, but he couldn’t possibly be in several places at once,
he relied on his highly trained officers to manage the evacuation.
It’s possible this situation wouldn’t have happened on the Queen Mary,
simply because, unlike the Titanic, the Mary was equipped with an intercom system.
This means that the Captain of the Queen Mary could coordinate the ship’s evacuation
by using the loudaphone intercom to give orders to the crew, and direct passengers to the escape routes.
Not to mention, hearing the Captain give commands and assurances over the intercom
could have helped prevent panic since everyone on the ship would look to him for guidance and order.
When it comes to the differences between the lifeboats on the two ships, the most noticeable
thing is that the Titanic’s 16 clinker-built lifeboats and 4 collapsible lifeboats could
not carry the full capacity of the ship. The conventional thinking was that the lifeboats
would only be used to ferry passengers from the sinking ship to the rescue ship. Titanic was
without aid for several hours and therefore more than half the people on the ship died as a result.
The lifeboats were lowered from the ship using nothing but ropes and manpower.
The Queen Mary, on the other hand, had 24 steel lifeboats, together they were capable of carrying
the entire capacity of the ship plus an extra 46 people. They were lowered down from the ship
with her electrically powered davits, but even if the electricity had gone out, the lifeboats
could still be lowered with gravity, although the descent would be slower and harder to control.
Once Titanic’s wooden lifeboats were in the water, they could be rowed with oars,
but the Queen Mary’s were made of riveted steel, and were the first fleet of lifeboats
to be mechanically powered, they each had a diesel engine which drove a propeller.
Another issue that plagued Titanic’s lifeboats was that the ship developed a port-list as it sank,
which meant that the lifeboats that went down on the starboard side began to scrape against the
hull, getting caught on rivets and steel plates, which made the boats swing and bump erratically.
To prevent this from happening to the Queen Mary’s lifeboats, steel ribs were designed into the side
of the boats, these not only added strength, but they acted like sleds so if the boats went down
against the wall of the ship, they slid past the rivets and hull plates with minimal disturbance.
There is one more topic to discuss, you see the hypothetical scenario where water managed to rush
into six compartments on the Queen Mary, doesn’t necessarily spell out doom. Remember when I said
that water spilled over the watertight bulkheads on Titanic, which was like a domino effect?
Well, the Queen Mary’s watertight compartments were all capped with a watertight roof, meaning
that even if the room filled up, water couldn’t spill over the bulkheads. But would the weight
of 5 compartments filled with water, be enough to doom the ship? Well...to be honest, I don’t know,
but one thing is for sure, she wouldn’t have been able to continue sailing. Even if she didn’t sink,
the angle of her pitch or any possible list she could have developed would have made her
dangerous for people to walk on, and at least two of her propellers would be partially out of water.
So here is a full rundown, in my opinion, of what would have happened if the Queen Mary
collided with Titanic’s Iceberg. First, the ship would have sustained 250 feet of damage,
flooding the first five compartments, but the sixth compartment would have possibly remained
dry due to the iceberg being unable to puncture the longitudinal watertight bulkhead eight feet
further in. However, the oil tank would have started leaking oil and filling with water. Due
to the 5 compartments filling with water, the ship would probably have developed a list. The Captain
would have ordered the bilge pumps to be run in order to slow the filling of the compartments,
and the ballast tanks inside the double bottom hull would probably
be adjusted to help right the ship and decrease its angle of pitch and roll.
From there, the Captain would have roused the crew and had them prepare to launch the lifeboats.
The ship could technically stay afloat with five compartments breached but depending on the risk
of the sixth compartment flooding, they would probably launch the lifeboats as a precaution.
If a rescue ship arrived, the Queen Mary’s passengers would probably take that ship
to the nearest port. If the Queen Mary remained afloat, then Cunard would make
attempts to salvage it by patching the holes and pumping out the compartments.
So I suppose with everything said and done, I think the Queen Mary would have survived
a collision with the iceberg, so long as the conditions were the same as that of Titanic’s tragic night.
And even if the ship sank, I still believe that most -if not all of the
ship’s passengers and crew, would have survived just due to the fact that the
sinking would have been much slower because of the superior watertight features of the ship,
and the ability to coordinate and communicate through the loudspeaker system.
Well everyone, I hope this video was intriguing and entertaining.
Let me know if you think the Queen Mary would have survived the iceberg collision, I’d love to
hear your opinion. Be sure to like the video and subscribe for more content! Thanks for watching!