Least disasterous Titanic sinking?

Is it possible that had the Californian and one or two other ships had got the distress messages and acted on them that the sinking would have been only a minor disaster in human terms?
 
As far as I know there's lots of butterflies that could have flapped their wings in a slightly different way - the Titanic's Marconi Man not telling the nearest ship to 'shut up' and as a result make his counterpart go to sleep would be a start. The real question is what butterflies come from a less disastrous sinking.
 
I think your best bet is either a smaller leak or more partitions holding up. If the ship sank more slowly, the rescuers could well be in time for an orderly transfer of passengers. In that case, a heroic tale of brilliant engineering and British tenacity overcoming nature.
 
A good alternate Titanic sinking would be a combination of more lifeboats, say 40 instead of 20 and watertigh bulkheads that go higher than E Deck.
 
Is it possible that had the Californian and one or two other ships had got the distress messages and acted on them that the sinking would have been only a minor disaster in human terms?

It wasn't an issue of ships getting the SOS, well except for the Californian anyway; the Carpathia got it, that's why it raced to the scene in the first place. Even the Titanic's sister ship Olympic picked up the SOS. But it was the fact that the closest ships receiving the SOS were about four hours away, which is far too late for the Titanic.
 
As a minimalist POD, quality control engineers determine early on that the steel delivered to the shipyard is inferior, containing too much sulfur. (This made the hull plates brittle in cold conditions and may have contributed to the severity of the leak. (Of course that would have delayed the launch date of the Titanic, so there would have been no collision with the infamous iceberg.)

One definite butterfly, Titanic would have been available for moving large numbers troops and supplies from North America to Britain safely during WW I. The Titanic was much faster than any submarine of the era and faster than most surface warships.
 
The irony is that if Titanic had collided head-on with the iceburg it would have survived. Badly damaged, obviously, but it would have made it.
 
The least disasterous sinking scenario would have each lifeboat getting away with a full load. Even so, had every boat (including collapsables) gotten away fully loaded, 1,052 people still would have died. One boat, #1, built for 40, went off with 12, for example. Another one, capacity 65, left with 28. And so on....two of the boats were sufficiently underfilled when they left that nobody objected to passengers bringing their dogs with them into the boat.
 
Surely it was the rivets...

High-sulphur rivets were said to be the problem, rather than plate. When they sheered off (and that's why a head on collision would have been lethal, IMHO), the ship's seams would have opened up. The actual event was a series of glancing blows. I understand the plates pulled up were still in pretty good order.

One snag with a really large ship is that you need two helm orders - the first, to turn her, the second, to straighten her up so the vulnerable propellors and rudder don't hit the berg. Got that from a former watch officer of the USS Nimitz.

Even with all lifeboats filled, we're talking of hundreds dead - there were far too few for all aboard.

Maybe if the pumps could have had a slightly higher capacity and held back the flooding for longer?
 
It might well have been possible to save nearly everyone using the existing lifeboats.
The capacities were quite conservative - they were issued for 'normal' weather conditions (much worse than those existing), and for men (women and children weigh less). Given the sea conditions - flat calm - and knowing a ship is on the way, it would have been feasable to pack them properly and overload by 50%. Not something you'd do in poor conditions, obviously, but the weather isnt going to change in the few hours before rescue comes.

Youd probably need a better idea of when a ship is on the way, and a better acknowledgment that teh ship is going to go down (and how fast), but its not impossible.
 
I'm trying to mentally sort out my book and movie knowledge and I'm ashamed to admit I can't: was Andrews' proposal of a second set of lifeboats using the same davits historical or a movie fabrication? That would be a very minor design change that would have a large effect; by the time the second set of boats were being lowered the need to fill them would be clear (IIRC the later boats were somewhat fuller), so perhaps triple the survivors.

Of course, that assumes there would have been time to lower the first echelon of boats, re-rig the davits, and lower the second set. IIRC one of the collapsible boats was floated off.
 
Historical: Alexander Carlisle, the chief designer (Andrews was the builder's representative on the trip) suggested 42 boats-more than enough for the ship's designed capacity (crew and passengers). Ismay only had enough installed to meet the regs, which were out of date anyway.

And you're right: there wouldn't have been enough time to re-rig and lower most of the extras, but some would have been-and hopefully packed to capacity. Float off the rest as she goes down....not the best way, but that's the best you can hope for in that situation.
 
Sad to say it's true Titanic was fitted with a new design of divits that could hold up to three boats for use (48) but some idiots decided the extra boats were not needed so we end up with 16 and the collapsables despite the fact the ship could easily have had enough boats to save everyone. Someone cut corners people died same old same old.

The best option would be when the number of lifeboats came up ideally they go for the suggested total of 64 or someone says f**k off! And insists they stick to the 48 boats (or at least the 32 it's still not enough to save everyone but better than what they had).
 
And it's no surprise that after the sinking, companies quickly refitted their ships with those davits and enough boats...even before the U.S. and British governments changed their regs.
 
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