"Is it serious?" "Yes, I'm afraid it is..."
"Thank you," Moody replied and repeated the warning to First Officer Murdoch, who was on watch. Running to the engine telegraph, Murdoch rang for full speed astern and simultaneously cried out "Hard a-starboard!" to Quartermaster Hitchens, who was manning the wheel. All then waited for the bow of the ship to swing to the left, out of the path of the iceberg. It seemed to take forever.
Below, in the engine room, the men raced frantically to shut down the center propeller (which only ran forward) and transfer the steam to the twin outer screws and put them in reverse. All this took time. To make matters worse, putting the engines into reverse disturbed the flow of water past "Titanic's" smallish rudder, slowing it's ability to turn away from the berg.
Up in the crow's nest, Fleet and Lee waited anxiously for the bow to turn as the dark berg came closer and closer. Then, slowly, the bow began to swerve to the left, gliding past the berg shaving large amounts of ice down on the forward well deck. Just as the men in the crow's nest and on the bridge thought the danger had past, they heard an ominous sound. Fleet described it as a "faint grinding noise." Murdoch, fearing the worst, rang the water-tight door alarm and threw the switch that closed the doors. Seconds later, Capt. Smith ran onto the bridge. "What have we struck?" "An iceberg, sir," replied Murdoch, I put her hard a-starboard and run the engines full astern, [but] she hit it." "Close the watertight doors." "The watertight doors are closed, sir." "All Stop. Mr. Boxhall, find the carpenter and have him sound the ship."
As Boxhall ran to carry out the Captain's order, the "Titanic's" carpenter rushed past him onto the bridge to inform Smith that the ship was making water fast. Checking the commutator (a device which measured a ship's balance) showed the "Titanic" was listing five degrees to starboard and two degrees down by the bow. Just then J. Bruce Ismay, having thrown a coat over his pajamas, appeared and ask Smith if he thought the ship was seriously damaged. Smith replied, "I'm afraid she is."
A short time later, Smith and Thomas Andrews, "Titanic's" designer, went into the bowels of the ship to ascertain the damage. Like a seriously ill patient, the prognosis was grim: the forward cargo holds were flooded, water was in the mail room and the squash court. The water was 14 feet deep in Boiler room 6 and was gaining ground in Boiler room 5. From their inspection, they determined that the iceberg scrapped along 300 feet of "Titanic's" starboard side, bending iron plates and popping rivets along the forepeak hold, cargo holds 1 & 2, the mail room, boiler room # 6 and about two feet into boiler room # 5. With these six forward compartments open to the sea, the "Titanic" was doomed. She was designed to be able to float with an extreme maximum of four compartments flooded. Since the watertight bulkheads did not extend higher than D deck, as the weight of the water pulled the head (bow) of the ship deeper, the water would spill over one compartment to the next, and the next, and the next. Andrews' prognosis stunned Smith and the others on the bridge. The "Titanic" would sink and take half the people on board with her, for although have 2207 souls on board, she had lifeboat capacity for only 1178. At 1205, Smith ordered Chief Officer Wilde to uncover the lifeboats.
Latest Articles