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RMS Titanic: Theories, Exploration & Madness!

Human remains in the wreck?

People have been diving to the Titanic's wreck for 35 years. No one has found human remains, according to the company that owns the salvage rights.

But the company's plan to retrieve the ship's iconic radio equipment has sparked a debate: Could the world's most famous shipwreck still hold remains of passengers and crew who died a century ago?

Lawyers for the U.S. government have raised that question in an ongoing court battle to block the planned expedition. They cite archaeologists who say remains could still be there. And they say the company fails to consider the prospect in its dive plan.

"Fifteen hundred people died in that wreck," said Paul Johnston, curator of maritime history at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. "You can't possibly tell me that some human remains aren't buried deep somewhere where there are no currents." ...

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-titanic-radio-spurs-debate-human.html
 
ramonmercado said:
Human remains in the wreck?

People have been diving to the Titanic's wreck for 35 years. No one has found human remains, according to the company that owns the salvage rights.

But the company's plan to retrieve the ship's iconic radio equipment has sparked a debate: Could the world's most famous shipwreck still hold remains of passengers and crew who died a century ago?

Lawyers for the U.S. government have raised that question in an ongoing court battle to block the planned expedition. They cite archaeologists who say remains could still be there. And they say the company fails to consider the prospect in its dive plan.

"Fifteen hundred people died in that wreck," said Paul Johnston, curator of maritime history at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. "You can't possibly tell me that some human remains aren't buried deep somewhere where there are no currents." ...

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-titanic-radio-spurs-debate-human.html
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Didn't some wreck-explorers film pairs of shoes lying on the seabed, all that was left of corpses?
 
escargot said:
Didn't some wreck-explorers film pairs of shoes lying on the seabed, all that was left of corpses?
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shoes.jpg


maximus otter
 
DrPaulLee said:
Despite what some might say, there aren't a lot of shoe pairs down there...
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Yup, it did seem unlikely that the shoes'd still be lying neatly paired after 100 years! Perhaps I was thinking of some other wreck, or it's just a tall story.
 
The argument is that the shoes is all thats left that the bodies have rotted, or eaten. The more shrill anti-salvage campaigners talks about "hundreds" of shoe pairs down there, but there's no evidence for this. Titanic artist Ken Marschall reviewed all the footage and stills from the 1985/6 expeditions to the wreck and only saw three or four pairs.
 
That is what I have heard.

(If organic matter will decay or be eaten by something; what about leather??)
 
The leather is impervious to marine organisms. Something to do with the tannin?
 
DrPaulLee said:
The leather is impervious to marine organisms. Something to do with the tannin?
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Arthur C Clarke (?) wrote a short story about recovery of an item from the Titanic. To cushion its transport it had been packed in a tea chest. The tannins released into the water in the room had, if memory serves, preserved the bodies therein.
 
I think this was mentioned in his book "The Ghost From The Grand Banks" where a preserved body was recovered from the wreck and there was a discussion as to whether it could be revived.
 
I did a lot of research into this and it's pure bunk, yet another example of a theory concocted out of nothing probably for self publicity reasons.
The reasons for this are two fold.
First, the amount of refraction needed to cause such an effect are far greater than anything seen before or since.

Secondly, none of the ships in the area that night mentioned seeing this effect. At the British Inquiry, 2nd officer Lightoller talked about meteorological effects that night, including haze. He could have mentioned super refraction as a mitigating circumstance but he didn't. It would have been blindingly obvious to any mariner that refraction was at play.

There's also the issue of cherry picking and the optical illusion making those on the nearby Californian unsure what they'd seen. But one witness was very sure what he'd seen - and those who stood to lose of course, dismissed his evidence. Again, refraction was not mentioned as a mitigating phenomena. It would have smeared out the lights of any nearby ship into a looming, towering blaze of light the size of an oilrig.


As for the iceberg not being seen in time: again, two factors.
The biting cold wind chill caused by forward motion must have had a detrimental effect on the lookouts eyes.
Secondly, the iceberg would initially be seen as a tiny dot on the horizon, some 10 miles away. As you got closer, the berg would fall below the visible horizon. As you got closer, you might see it as a black area on the sea blocking out some of the reflected starlight. But this would only happen very close by, and by the time this "black spot" would be visible, it would be too late.

People think of the iceberg as a monster, towering well above the crows nest and blocking out the sky. Far from it.
 
Oh well, do forgive me. I am sorry that the explanation didn't meet your high expectations. But that's what you have to expect when trying to compile your thoughts through a fog of corona virus induced fever.
 
DrPaulLee said:
Oh well, do forgive me. I am sorry that the explanation didn't meet your high expectations. But that's what you have to expect when trying to compile your thoughts through a fog of corona virus induced fever.
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Yes, I was talking about the story, not your breakdown of it. I hope you feel better soon.
 
I don't know if this is the right thread for this, but anyway...
According to www.titanicuniverse.com, a total of 1347 men and 103 women died in the Titanic disaster, but I wonder if the true figure is higher?
I had two great-uncles who died in the disaster, but their sister, my Great Aunt Lil, survived. She was a young girl, so she got a seat in a lifeboat, made it to America and lived with relatives in New Jersey. Sadly, she didn't live very long. Thoroughly traumatised by her experience, she could barely function. She hardly ate or slept, and wasted away in a few months. Presumably her death is not included in official statistics. I doubt if she was the only one in that situation, there may be many more, so the real death toll could be quite a bit higher than the official figure.
 
DrPaulLee said:
People think of the iceberg as a monster, towering well above the crows nest and blocking out the sky. Far from it.
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Wkipedia cites sources suggesting that there were 20 large bergs measuring up to 200 feet high (61 metres) and numerous smaller bergs. The actual iceberg was identified, with a mark on it consistent with the paint having scraped off the Titanic's hull.

The ship was doing around 21 kts (24 mph, or 39 kmh) which is pretty fast. The iceberg was spotted at 11:40 pm ship's time, so late at night. I suspect complacency and a poor lookout were bigger factors than any fancy meteorological explanation.

This is apparently a photo of the actual iceberg.
Titanic_iceberg.jpg
 
That photo was taken by a crewman on a ship called the Prinz Adalbert. Given that ships position, the location of the wrecksite and the current in the area, in the many hours since the sinking, the iceberg would have drifted so far south that it would be over the horizon. Sorry, but that iceberg is not the actual one. The red smear was probably algae.
A witness on the Titanic, Joseph Scarrott, described the iceberg as looking like the Rock of Gibraltar, which the Adalbert's berg doesn't. But one seen and photographed from another passing ship, the Bremen on the 20th, looks very much like Scarrot's berg. He even sketched if for a contemporary Journal.
 
Reading the fantastic Titanic Minute-By-Minute at the moment, which is a treasure trove of stories that don’t usually make the yearly retellings.

I’m particularly taken by the story of First Class passenger Renee Harris, who, on the afternoon of the sinking, was returning to her cabin for a game of poker when she failed to spot a discarded cream cake on the Grand Staircase and promptly slipped and broke her arm.
 
Saint of the Titanic.

A Catholic priest who heroically led dozens of Irish third-class passengers on the Titanic to safety in 1912 has been placed on the path to sainthood.

... Fr. Byles boarded the Titanic as a second-class passenger in Southampton on April 10 and enjoyed a quiet time on board before the ship struck an iceberg near midnight on April 14, 1912.

The priest, who was reportedly out on deck praying his breviary when the ship struck the iceberg, courageously ran in the opposite direction as lifeboats were being deployed. Fr. Byles made his way to the ship's steerage, where numerous third-class passengers were attempting to navigate the ship's labyrinth of stairwells but often found themselves trapped behind locked doors. The English priest calmly led dozens of third-class passengers, including many Irish passengers, to the top deck where they were able to access the limited supply of lifeboats.

"When the crash came, we were thrown from our berths," said Irish passenger Ellen Mary Mockler. "We saw before us, coming down the passageway, with his hand uplifted, Father Byles…. ‘Be calm, my good people,' he said, and then he went about the steerage giving absolution and blessings."

Mockler said that Fr. Byles was offered the chance to escape the ship but refused a place on one of the last lifeboats so that he could stay and pray with passengers who had been left behind. ...

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/catholic-priest-irish-passengers-titanic-saint
 
New doc "debunks myths".

A new documentary attempts to debunk a number of myths surrounding the sinking of the Titanic, including claims that Captain Edward Smith was reckless and that third-class passengers were locked below deck after the ship struck an iceberg.

"Debunking the Myths of the Titanic" was recently released on streaming platform History Hit and hears from world-leading Titanic expert Tim Maltin about some of the more famous myths surrounding the disaster. Maltin, who has written three books on the Titanic, said that Captain Smith wasn't reckless and going too fast on the fateful night of April 14, 1912, despite claims to the contrary by John Charles Bingham, the judge who led the British inquiry into the disaster.

Bingham noted in his journal that the ship was traveling at "excessive speed" and additionally noted that there was "no reduction in speed" while the ship navigated the icy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

However, Maltin pointed to the fact that "every captain who testified at the inquiry" claimed that they would have done the same thing. He said that the night of the disaster was "extremely clear" with excellent visibility, while the ship's crew were keeping a "very sharp lookout". ...

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/new-documentary-debunking-titanic-myths
 
I had a classmate who used to claim that he was related to Captain Smith of the Titanic, but this particular chap was full of BS usually so we never gave him much credit.
 
Graphic analyses of Titanic survival chances.

4qojkmwa9yy71.png


jxd26f0b9yy71.png

SOURCE:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/qrj0ur

Apparently, this picture is atypical for maritime disasters despite the long-term persistence of the 'women and children first' trope.

One could wish that the crew were given a separare analysis here—and, indeed, that the two graphs were combined.
 
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