Supplementary Reading: Chapter 12 Titanic Titanic Disaster was one of the worst maritime disasters in history. The British luxury liner Titanic (46,000 gross tons) of the White Star Line, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, struck an iceberg about 153 km (about 95 mi) south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland just before midnight on April 14, 1912. Of the more than 2220 persons aboard, about 1513 died, including the American millionaires John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Isidor Straus. The ship had been proclaimed unsinkable because of its 16 watertight compartments. Nevertheless, the iceberg sufficiently damaged the Titanic to make it sink in less than three hours. Subsequent investigations found that the ship had been steaming too fast in dangerous waters, that lifeboat space had been provided for only about half of the passengers and crew, and that the Californian, close to the scene, had not come to the rescue because its radio operator was off duty and asleep. These findings led to many reforms, such as lifeboat space for every person on a ship, lifeboat drills, the maintenance of a full-time radio watch while at sea, and an international ice patrol. The Titanic was considered practically unsinkable because its hull was divided into 16 watertight compartments. The ship was designed to stay afloat with any two adjacent compartments or the front four compartments flooded. As a result, many authors of books on the disaster thought that only a huge tear, perhaps 90 m long, could have caused the 269 m ship to sink. But Edward Wilding, a naval architect, testified in the wake of the disaster that the total area damaged by the iceberg was small and probably did not exceed 1 sq m. Others, however, did not believe that so large a ship could be undone by so little damage, and so the myth of the huge gash began. Previous expeditions found no sign of a gash, however, and the latest sonar findings confirmed Wilding’s belief that the damage was slight: six thin breaches spread out along a 35 m section of the hull with a total surface area of about 1 sq m. The ruptures punctured six watertight compartments and were spread strategically along riveted seams. A 1991 expedition had also retrieved samples of the Titanic’s steel for analysis. Tests determined that the steel’s poor resistance to impact, a quality known as impact strength, combined with its chemical makeup, made the steel brittle. This problem was compounded by the fact that the Titanic was operating in unusually cold waters for that time of year. When exposed to near-freezing temperatures, tests showed that the steel became extremely brittle. The August 1996 expedition confirmed these findings and applied them to the question of whether the Titanic broke apart before sinking. At the time of the Titanic’s sinking there were conflicting reports as to whether the ship broke up at the surface or sank intact. All of the ship’s surviving officers said the Titanic sank intact. A number of passengers, however, said that the ship broke up at the surface. Earlier expeditions established that the ship was in two pieces on the ocean floor, but some experts had theorized that the ship broke up on its way to the bottom. There was even a claim that there might be a third piece. Based on the new findings about the nature of the damage sustained by the Titanic and the quality of the steel used in the hull, naval architects set out to determine the stresses that might have prevailed as the ship sank. The architects used a computer simulation of stresses in the hull, known as a finite element model. The simulation showed that the weight of the waterlogged bow would have generated enough stress to cause failures in the Titanic’s steel plates as the ship sank, confirming reports that the ship broke apart before sinking. Also, the 1996 expedition located a third piece of the ship, indicating that the ship broke in two places. Another series of tests performed in 1998 on some iron rivets brought back from the site found excess amounts of slag, a metal waste product added in small amounts to give iron strength. However, too much slag makes iron brittle, and there is evidence that weak rivets may have also contributed to the ruptures. (Microsoft Encarta Reference Library) Costa Concordia Costa Concordia was a Concordia-class cruise ship built in 2004 by the Fincantieri's Sestri Ponente yards in Italy and operated from 2005 until 2012 by Costa Crociere (a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation). It was wrecked off the coast of Isola del Giglio in Italy on 13 January 2012. The ship was irreparably damaged in the collision and was subsequently declared a total loss and later towed to the port of Genoa where it was scrapped. The name Concordia was intended to express the wish for "continuing harmony, unity, and peace between European nations." Costa Concordia was the first of the Concordia-class cruise ships, followed by similar ships Costa Serena, Costa Pacifica, Costa Favolosa and Costa Fascinosa, and Carnival Splendor built for Carnival Cruise Lines. When the 114,137 gross ton Costa Concordia and its sister ships entered service, they were among the largest ships built in Italy until the construction of the 130,000 gross ton Dream-class cruise ships. On 13 January 2012 at 21:45, in calm seas and overcast weather, under command of Captain Francesco Schettino, Costa Concordia struck a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea just off the eastern shore of Isola del Giglio, on the western coast of Italy about 100 km northwest of Rome. This tore open a 50 m gash on the port side of her hull, which soon flooded parts of the engine room resulting in power losses, leading to a loss of propulsion and loss of electrical systems, which crippled the ship. With water flooding in and listing, the ship drifted back to Giglio Island where she grounded 500 m north of the village of Giglio Porto, resting on her starboard side in shallow waters with most of her starboard side under water. Despite the gradual sinking of the ship, its complete loss of power, and its proximity to shore in calm seas, an order to abandon ship was not issued until over an hour after the initial impact. Although international maritime law requires all passengers to be evacuated within 30 minutes of an order to abandon ship, the evacuation of Costa Concordia took over six hours and not all passengers were evacuated. Of the 3229 passengers and 1023 crew known to have been aboard, 32 died. An investigation focused on shortcomings in the procedures followed by the crew and the actions of the Italian captain, who allegedly left the ship prematurely. About 300 passengers were left on board, most of whom were rescued by helicopter or motorboats in the area. The nature of the accident also prompted the media to immediately draw striking comparisons to the Sinking of the RMS Titanic of a century earlier. This led to rumors that some survivors who were in one of the restaurants, stated that they heard "My Heart Will Go On" (theme song of the Oscar-winning 1997 film Titanic) playing on the restaurant's speakers the moment the ship struck the rock. (Wikipedia) .