Titanic: Systematic Failure

“There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers.”

Phillip Franklin, White Star Line vice-president, 1912

Titanic is a classic example of systematic cascade events, many unrelated to each other, any of which if corrected, would have averted the final event.

The Facts

 The Titanic sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The official death toll is 1,517 making it #5 on the all time fatality list for shipwrecks. What makes this sinking notable is that the Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time of its maiden voyage and was declared ‘unsinkable’ by its builders.

Hubris is the father of tragedy and catastrophe.

Timeline:

Roughly 1,000 BC: Snow falls on Greenland, which will eventually become the iceberg the Titanic strikes.

31 July 1908: Plans for Number 400 (Olympic) are presented to the White Star Line and approved. Number 401 (Titanic) is also approved.

31 March 1909: Construction begins on Titanic.

1909: The fatal iceberg calves off a glacier on the west coast of Greenland.

31 May 1911: Number 401 slides on 22 tons of soap and tallow into the water. It is not christened or formally named, keeping with White Star tradition.

2 April 1912: First sea trials of Titanic.

10 April 1912: Titanic sets out on her first, and last, voyage.

14 April 1912; 11:40 pm: Titanic strikes an iceberg.

15 April 1912; 2:20 am: Titanic sinks.

DEFINITION: Cascade Event: An event prior to a catastrophe that contributes to the actual catastrophe, but by itself, is not catastrophic.

Cascade Two  Rivets were of inferior material, some put in by inexperienced welders, causing more damage during the collision than should have occurred.

While many believe the hole ripped into the Titanic by the iceberg was huge, there were actually six small gashes, totaling just about one square meter. That is an incredibly small group of holes for such a large ship, totaling an area less than the size of your dining room table. But the six holes were stretched out along the side of the ship pouring water into six of sixteen watertight compartments: if four flooded, the ship was doomed. Additionally, the ‘watertight’ compartments were only that in terms of bottom and horizontal. They were open on the top.

If only the metal hide of the mighty ship had been able to block just three of those small punctures? But there were two major reasons why it couldn’t.

The iron rivets were class 3 (best) instead of 4 (best-best). If one is building the greatest ship of the time, one should be using the highest quality material.

As shear forces were brought to bear when the hull plates hit the iceberg, the rivets broke. In fact, the Cunard Line, which built the Lusitania, had been using steel rivets for several years. The company in charge of building the Titanic, used some steel rivets on the Titanic, but only in the core of the ship, not the bow and side where the collision would take place.

Why were inferior rivets, the glue that holds a ship together, used? Because of insufficient supply. While constructing Titanic, the builder was simultaneously building its sister ships, Olympia and Britannica. Ambitious plans automatically bring greater risk.

Building the three largest ships ever, all at the same time, in the same shipyard, stretched not only supply of material beyond safety limits, but the availability of skilled workers. At every meeting held by the company up to the completion of the ship, the lack of skilled welders was brought up as a problem. Welding by hand is an art form, and there is no doubt that some of those extra workers hired to do this critical job lacked the necessary experience. Given the way ships were constructed at the time, welders were absolutely essential for proper and safe construction.

For decades after the sinking, the builder fought the accusation that the bolts were substandard. But now, examination of rivets brought up from the wreckage prove that they contained four times as much slag than they should have, making them fragile. In essence, the ship was already doomed before it even touched water. On top of that, the cold water made the inferior metal even more brittle.

Lesson  Set realistic goals and don’t skimp on the cost of construction. Class 4 rivets should have been used at the very least, if not steel. Even more key was over-reaching in construction. Building the world’s three largest ships at the same time inevitably caused shortages of material and skilled labor. Yet, this did not deter the company from doing it. They set a goal, which exceeded safe capacity and many paid the price for it.

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