Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Imagine

Has anyone noticed and then wondered about the question mark on the image to this blog?  There is a good reason why that question mark is there—I had it put there—and for good reason.  Let me explain and to that I need to go back in time a bit.  A number of weeks ago, when I got bitten by the Titanic bug, the research on the sinking led into reading about the other victims of the sea—the Britannic and the Lusitania.  Their sinking stories are almost as interesting and intriguing as that of the Titanic.  So interesting and intriguing that I have decided to blog about them as well.  I am motivated to write these blogs simultaneously because the forensic analyses are interrelated.  The stewardess Violet Jessop links two of them together in addition.

While searching for a suitable image for this Lusitania blog, I ran across the image that is now displayed.  Having read about second explosion on the Lusitania that was bigger than the first (the torpedo) my initial reaction to the image was: that’s the Lusitania!  And then reality dawned—the big hole is on the wrong side; and then: that’s not the Lusitania—that’s the Britannic!  But the Britannic doesn’t have a large hole on its port side; one that looks like it was caused by an internal explosion with outward bent shell plating.  Instead, the Britannic has cracked hull just forward of the bridge caused by impact with the sea bottom.

I am embarrassed to admit that I have come to age in my old age and have to also admit, in my naivety, that I thought this image was really an underwater photograph.  The artifact behind this image for the blog does not exist anywhere but in the creator’s imagination.  But what a beautiful work of computer art it is.  I still want to use it.


There are other misrepresentations in art work for books and the like.  For example there are the well known sinking-of-the-Titanic depictions which show boiler smoke billowing out of the aft-most funnel.  Someone needs to be an accuracy sleuth and help these artists out—they do such great work otherwise.  Maybe someday I will write a blog about it.

Friday, July 29, 2016

Lusitania Analysis

In 1915, about three years after the Titanic sinking, another English large ocean liner went to the bottom; a victim, of a German submarine torpedo; this was of course the Lusitania.
[The following discussion is based mainly on abstraction from two books and the Wikipedia article on the Lusitania—Dead Wake by Erik Larson (ref. 5) and Lusitania by Greg King and Penny Wilson (ref.6)]

Sailing from New York to England, the Lusitania supposedly was carrying only passengers and ordinary freight (at least as far as the passengers knew).  Despite a German warning, the ship was fully loaded with ordinary passengers.  The freight was a different matter entirely—certainly not ordinary?   Not all the passengers were ordinary though, there were a few that weren’t; like the multi-millionaire A.G. Vanderbilt, but still nothing resembling the glamour aboard the Titanic.  The German military had proclaimed a war zone around the British Isles and any vessels, including passenger liners could be vulnerable to underwater mines and even submarine attack.  Most of the ordinary passengers would have been unaware of the warning and even those that were, like Vanderbilt, dismissed it because of the liners great speed (the Lusitania was then the fastest passenger vessel on the seas; (ref. 8).   Cunard personnel lied to passengers that passage would be made at normal full speed in an attempt to assuage their anxiety if they had any.  Captain Turner had no such intent and some boilers were never lit.  Lusitania’s speed never exceeded 22 knots as a consequence.  Although it was publicly stated by the Brits that the speed reduction was to conserve fuel, I suspect there was another reason for shutting down boiler room # 4.  But was it really boilers in # 4 that were shut down? 

Before we continue with the Lusitania sinking story, I find it necessary to dwell on some technical issues.  First there is the matter of boiler room numbering and boiler layout in response to the last question.

Thus far I have been unable to find readable deck plans for the Lusitania and have been forced instead to magnify what is available in ref. 8.    This procedure results in some uncertainty so corrections to what follows by those more knowledgeable than yours truly would be welcomed.  It is well established that the Lusitania had 23 double ended and 2 single ended scotch boilers and the 4 rooms containing them were numbered fore to aft (i.e.# 1 was closest to the bow) in contrast to the Titanic numbering system.  It is not completely clear to me, but my interpretation of the magnified deck plans is that boiler rooms 2,3,and 4 were identical in boiler layout with two pairs of 3 double boilers, each abreast one another and with their 22 ft. length parallel with the ships keel.  The number 1 boiler room was laid out differently, being the most forward, because of the narrowing of the hull.  In # 1 then, aft to bow, there was first a row of three double boilers, then a row of two double boilers, and finally a row of the two single ended boilers at the bow end of the room; seven in all.  Almost every reference I have read states that # 4 boiler room was shut down if they specify the number at all; many just mention one out of four boiler rooms being shut down.  Many references that specify number 4 boiler room being shut down, also state six boilers being involved; this precludes #1 boiler room which had seven boilers.  Mystery—which was it—room 1 or room 4?

From my limited perspective, it seems rather strange that boilers closest to the engine room would be shut down—call that reason number one; for those joining me in claiming #1 being shut down.  Reason two: pictures of the Lusitania that I have viewed show little or no smoke coming out of the funnel from #1 boiler room.  This is especially the case with pictures of the Lusitania undergoing sea trials.  Reason three: with 100 plus tons of water per second flowing into boiler room #1 (see below), with all seven boilers lit and operating at a 195 psi pressure, the resulting explosions in room # 1 would have torn the ship to pieces.  I rest my case and await rebuttal arguments.

Each operational end of these boilers had four doors; each split in two with the upper half used for loading coal and the lower half for the removal of ash and clinkers.
At this point I must again part company with other Lusitania authors.  There was a total of 48 operational boiler ends—46 total for the 23 double boilers and two more for the single ones.  Each operational end had four doors which makes a total of 192 doors; that’s doors not furnaces.  To the best of my knowledge, the scotch double boilers shared furnaces.  Therefore, there would have been 23 times four or 92 furnaces in the double boilers plus two more times four furnaces in the single boilers for a total of 100 furnaces; not 192.  Just a minor error perhaps but one must be careful and I’m as mistake prone as the next guy or author; maybe more so.

On the Lusitania, the coal bunkers were for the most part laid-out longitudinally i.e. parallel to the keel), battleship fashion at that time, and next to the hull shell plating.  Thus design was vulnerable to transverse instability if below waterline plating in these bunker areas was compromised.  Harland and Wolff, designers and builders of the Titanic, wisely insisted on transverse bulkheads only with transverse coal bunkers on either side of the bulkheads.  British Admiralty later abandoned the Lusitania bunker concept.  The Lusitania did have one large transverse coal bunker forward of the single ended boilers with a main structural watertight bulkhead on the forward side of the bunker.

The Lusitania was about the same size as the Titanic and steam powered (turbines only unlike the Titanic).  On the last leg of an event free voyage, it had entered the war zone but had its speed reduced by an additional twenty per-cent  to 18 knots in order for the crew to get  bearings and to wait for high tide at the Liverpool port entry.  Unfortunately, the elderly captain was uncertain about zigzagging to avoid submarines and did not do it—on steady course the Lusitania became a good target.  The submarine captain could not believe his luck and gave orders to the torpedo room--fire.  Bad luck for the liner captain, a torpedo hit the bow region at a point below bridge.  Within micro seconds there was a second tremendous explosion which disabled the communication to the rudder mechanism at the stern and the ship became unsteer-able (ref. 5,6,& 8).  Plus, there was now a rapid list simultaneously to both the bow and starboard (how come these disasters are all on the starboard side?).  Captain Turner reportedly orders full speed astern but the ship plows on ahead making it impossible to safely lower the lifeboats   By the time the lifeboats can be lowered as the ship slowed down, they can’t be lowered because the list to starboard is too great and only a few can make it down to the water’s surface undamaged.    Because of extensive damage to the hull, the Lusitania disappears in just eighteen minutes and almost as many passengers and crew were killed as with the Titanic—Captain Turner was not one of them.

Now about the freight the ship carried; but first a word or two about the subterfuge the ordinary passengers were unaware of.   As far as the Germans were concerned Lusitania was foremost a war machine.  Because she had been constructed under subsidy, the owners had agreed to have her built pretty much to battleship standards of the time (e.g longitudinal coal bunkers) including on-deck provisions for armament.  She was registered as an AMC; that is an Armed Merchant Cruiser.

In addition, the German spies in New York knew that the cargo onboard was not ordinary cargo.  In fact, an additional manifest provided to US officials four days after the ship left the New York port, showed hundreds of tons of conventional munitions were stored in her holds (ref. 8).  As far as the German Military’s rationale was concerned the Lusitania was a legitimate target and submarines could attack given a chance.   US law said munitions of the type stated on the manifest were ok.

Could there have been more to it, the freight story that is?  The Wikipedia article states “…there was a large consignment of “fur” from Dupont de Nemours, an explosives manufacturer, and some 90 tons of butter and lard destined for the Royal Navy Weapons Testing Establishment in Essex.  Although it was May, this Lard and Butter were not refrigerated…”  Dupont was the world's largest manufacturer of explosives at that time.  Adding to my suspicsions, there was an additional listing in the manifest of tons of powdered aluminum and bronze which are used in the manufacture of explosives.

So, now my speculation on the Lusitania disaster.  During WWI the British were having battlefield success in Europe using a cheap alternative to TNT— an explosive known as ammonal.  In one instance alone, 10,000 German troops were claimed to have been annihilated.  It is made from fertilizer, powdered metal like aluminum, and a small amount of petroleum.  It was in high demand by the British.  My speculation is that at least some of the 90 tons of “lard and butter and fur” was in reality, ammonal.  Ammonal is highly shock sensitive and a torpedo explosion would have detonated it.

As the Lusitania approached the “war zone”, Captain turner reduced speed to 18 knots (or possibly less?) and, in my opinion, this could have allowed for boiler room  # 2 to be shut down as well as # 1. The explosion of ammonal would have torn a huge hole in the starboard side of the bow already damaged and weakened by the torpedo explosion.  The author of ref. 5 states (pg. 147-148):  “A hole the size of a small house now existed below the waterline.  Its shape was more horizontal than vertical, roughly 40 feet wide by 15 feet high.” [how the hole size and shape was determined is beyond me; that hole size is about what a torpedo would do and does not account for any damage done by the second explosion.]    Bulkheads aft may have been compromised such that the watertight doors in boiler rooms # 1 and # 2 did not close as they should have.  The bulkhead between rooms 2 and 3 could also have been damaged such that some ocean water from boiler room #2, already quickly flooding, was soon entering.  Since the boilers in rooms 3 and 4 were operating at full pressure, water coming into boiler room #3 would have given Captain Taylor added incentive to run the turbines even though the lifeboats could not be lowered safely (if in reality he even knew about it).


                                                           TO BE CONTINUED