Lots of time to (nearly) fill and launch everything you can, only to leave behind a mass of people who have to face the waves? Plus heroic sacrifices from crew members etc?
Which ship would become an ATL "Titanic" if the namesake ship hasn't sunk in 1912?
- Thread starter SpaceMarathon
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Lots of time to (nearly) fill and launch everything you can, only to leave behind a mass of people who have to face the waves? Plus heroic sacrifices from crew members etc?
One possibility would be a case where the ship with sufficient lifeboats has an accident and suffers what appears to be minor damage, so the Captain decides to evacuate the passengers. However, many passengers refuse to leave and the lifeboats go out partially filled. Then a sudden explosion causes the ship to sink swiftly, killing many souls.
So lets run with Empress of Ireland in May 1914.
It a heavily Foggy night on the St Lawrence River.
Around 01:55 Empress of Ireland Impacts Storstad and despite Captain Kendell trying to keep the other ship as a 'plug' they drift away from the other ship almost immediately- her lights are lost to Storstad who is also slowly sinking. Captain Anderson of the Storstad has his ship sounded and secured while ordering attempts with her whistle and lookout to find the Empress - the delay in lowering her own boats to try and help Empress would become legendary, though many defend Captain Anderson for not risking his own crew in the freezing condition until cries where heard. Anderson orders his radio operator woken and a distress signal sent out.
The collision takes Empress' engines offline and remaining battery power to fluctuate, her radio fails. With the deteriorating situation in Europe and the risk of U-Boats increasing her Captain Henry Kendell had been travelling with watertight doors shut, so while she settles to the side of the collision she is slowly sinking rather than flooding- but her Master knows she is doomed. A evacuation is ordered- and there is generally order in filling the boats at first; women and children first is the rule and Kendell insists his officers fill boats, but some get off - esp early on not 100% full. Some passengers have no idea where to go since boat drills are not mandatory.
At first it all goes well Empress lists but not too heavily and half of her 14 boats have got away when 30 mins after the collision something collapses below decks and Empress lurches starboard- capsizing a boat in the process of lowering on starboard and smashing another into the port side, breaking the leg of 1st Class passenger actress Mabel Hackney. Panic sets in and a scramble for the boats happens. An unknown American passenger is reported shooting others to get into a boat; a Man dress as a woman to force a place; a stoker is pushed out of a boat as a 'darkie'; passengers and crew are seen scrambling out of the port side portholes - the stories are legion.
After 10 mins of rapid sinking Empress seems to settle again - at a precarious angle. Port boats are able to be slipped down her side- just. Starboard boats have to be pulled in under the under-hang of the superstructure. Several crew become legends for maintaining order- a ring of stewards protecting the last boat on the port side; a lone violinist playing For Those in Peril on the Sea from the top of the deckhouses in full evening wear; cabin boys passing around the few torches or making makeshift ones...
2.40am: Empress of Ireland had hung on another few minuets before lurching violently fully onto her starboard side, she lay on her side for a minute or two before the stern rose briefly out of the water and she sank below the freezing water. Hundreds of people were thrown into the freezing water. Debris bubbled up from below and some pulled themselves up on it. Robert Crellin of Liverpool saved 20 people pulling them onto the makeshift raft he'd made. Captain Kendell was fished out of the water and took command of a lifeboat, managing to rescue 15 people himself. In lifeboat 4 they where swamped by swimmers and the boat nearly capsized before another boat came and helped.
A radio operator at Father Point who picked up the SOS from Storstad notified two Canadian government steamers- the Eureka berthed at Father Point Wharf and Lady Evelyn at Rimouski Wharf who got up to steam and head out. Eureka was first on the scene and by 03:00 was picking up survivors alongside boats from the Storstad. After 90 minuets of searching the search was called off as any survivors in the water would have succumbed to hypothermia or drowned.
Empress of Ireland was sailing with far fewer boats than required for the 1,477 souls on-board. Despite the order to fill boats there are only 623 survivors. The boats contain mostly women and children. Most male survivors are either boat crew or plucked from the water. Captain Kendell had to resuscitated twice on-board Storstad.
The sinking and lost of life shocked the world. Most had assumed modern shipbuilding had gone beyond such incidents - Titanic had survived a brush with an iceberg that had opened 2 compartments to the sea only 2 years before and had steamed into New York under her own power. There would be Inquiries, songs, and many, many newspaper inches - most would be asking how had this happened?
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It's in the extreme twightlight of commercial oceanliners, so perhaps it is not on a grand enough scale to become a metaphor, but the Andrea Dora has some of the same characteristics of the Titanic in that it was thought to have superior safety, in this case, radar technology, that could help it avoid the exact fate that befell it. Additionally, the Andrea Dora was seen as Italy's fastest and most luxurious ship, before it had a collision off the east coast of the US with the Stockholm.
At the same time, there are numerous differences between the two, specifically, the engineering of the ship, following the catastrophic failure of the initial impact, held up quite well; the ship stayed afloat for nearly half a day, and everyone who was not harmed in the initial collision escaped. I can't quite recall the name of the book, but Robert Ballard wrote a chapter on the sinking in a book I had as a kid.
At the same time, there are numerous differences between the two, specifically, the engineering of the ship, following the catastrophic failure of the initial impact, held up quite well; the ship stayed afloat for nearly half a day, and everyone who was not harmed in the initial collision escaped. I can't quite recall the name of the book, but Robert Ballard wrote a chapter on the sinking in a book I had as a kid.
Grey Wolf
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So, not Titanic means no changes are made
No refits, no extra lifeboats, no boards of inquiry etc
There might be over a decade or more some evolution, e.g. to more lifeboats
But it's a timeline cleared of change, waiting the next disaster - BUT our understanding of this timeline includes all the time taken for refits, adding new lifeboats etc, so the butterflies flutter and play and we can't really say
No refits, no extra lifeboats, no boards of inquiry etc
There might be over a decade or more some evolution, e.g. to more lifeboats
But it's a timeline cleared of change, waiting the next disaster - BUT our understanding of this timeline includes all the time taken for refits, adding new lifeboats etc, so the butterflies flutter and play and we can't really say