Titanic's INCREDIBLE 'Big Piece' - Design Secrets

in the early hours of april 15 1912 the brand new luxury liner rms titanic was in its death throws since around midnight the ship and her compliment had fought a losing battle against flooding after they struck an iceberg and over two hours later the end finally come as the stern lifted higher and higher into the air the lights flicked out for the last time and all was plunged into blackness then suddenly something terrifying happened the ship began to tear itself apart [Applause] 25 000 tons of stern section broke free from the bow and everything inside the brake zone was utterly pulverized with clumps of passengers still clinging on for dear life the stern of the once great ship rising about the height of a 15-storey building clear above the waterline finally slipped beneath the waves and it was all over [Music] but in that breakup either at the surface or once the stern had disappeared from view something remarkable happened a huge chunk of titanic's side tore itself free from the wreck and free fell almost four kilometers to the bottom of the atlantic ocean where it sat undisturbed and in total blackness for 86 years [Music] las vegas nevada the city of lights if you've ever been chances are that you've seen something pretty remarkable sitting at an exhibit in a luxury hotel today you can find that piece of titanic's hull still bearing the scars from the incredible destructive forces that tore it free from the ship 110 years ago it's become known as the big piece and it's seen by thousands of curious visitors every year but what exactly is the big piece where did it come from on the ship what can it tell us about the way titanic was designed built and sailed possibly more than any other artifact recovered from the wreck the big piece gives us unprecedented insight into titanic's design and construction we all know the story the titanic was at that time the largest ship yet built and a triumph for her owners the white star line and builders the highland wolf shipyard nobody could have dreamed that days after her first departure from southampton the ship would be a twisted heap of metal on the ocean floor originally the big piece came from a section of titanic's hull between the third and fourth funnel it's about 13 feet tall and 30 feet long that's 4 meters tall by 9 meters long and weighs an astounding 20 tons the piece has a number of portholes still installed albeit cracked and broken and spans two decks from d-deck to c-deck originally though it was a little bit bigger in 1998 the big piece was retrieved from the sea floor and it was taller than it is today but a small section that ran down from d-deck was cut off to make it easier to display it naturally has two faces the outer was originally painted the black golden yellow and white of titanic's exterior hull but the reverse side formed the inside of the ship and included passenger cabins a bathroom and part of a pantry but more on that soon to understand what we're seeing with the big piece we have to break it and the titanic itself down into its core components first of all the frames this is what the inside of the big piece would have looked like the morning after titanic sank on the interior face of the hull fragment you can still see the twisted and buckled remains of titanic's frames these were the ship's ribs and were individually shaped to create the form of the hull the frames each ran up from the keel the ship's backbone all the way up to b deck where the hull ended and the superstructure began the ship had over 300 frames each space between 24 to 36 inches apart wide enough to fit a porthole in between on the big piece titanic's frames were at their widest 36 inches and that distance narrowed towards the bow and stern of the ship to provide rigidity and strength this is because the ship had to have a degree of flexibility in the middle they may look big and solid but ships need to be able to bend and flex in heavy seas if the ship was perfectly rigid it may break apart amidships and sink [Music] interconnected with the frames were the deck beams which titanic's floors would be riveted to if the frames and beams formed the ship's skeleton then it was the shell plating that made up the titanic skin the shell plating was made up of thousands of individually shaped steel plates each about 30 feet long and six feet tall weighing about four and a quarter tons each the plating itself was around half an inch thick or 1.5 centimeters they were arranged in long rows called shear strikes running the entire length of the ship's hull each plate had dozens of rivet holes punched in when it was being created and teams of riveters would then work to drive red-hot iron rivets in to hold the plating together to the ship's frames to that end you will have noticed that the big piece is absolutely covered in rivets and these weren't just any rivets if you look at photos of olympic and titanic you'll notice that the ship's side looks smooth and bare for the most part but further up you'll see it dotted with thousands and thousands of big rivets in one long line [Music] this is because the plating along this stretch of the hull was doubled or even tripled in its thickness i mentioned earlier that ships will heave and sag in heavy seas these intensive forces put huge strain on the ship's middle section and that one and a half centimeter thick plating would be no match for the gradual wear and tear that hundreds of transatlantic crossings would cause the solution to this was to reinforce the ship's hull where the sagging and bending forces would be concentrated the most and the hull may even tear on titanic this sets it around c and d deck so the plating was doubled up in thickness and riveted together with massive bulb-headed rivets which were big and strong enough to hold the plating together even under extreme forces but hang on i hear you ask isn't the rest of the ship riveted too why can't you see those rivets and only the ones up in the reinforced areas well to reduce drag and also for aesthetic reasons most rivets were countersunk and then smoothed off so that you could hardly tell that they were there at all the rivets up on the reinforced sections of the hull couldn't be countersunk because they would be under much higher stress than anywhere else on the ship it's these heavy-duty reinforcing rivets that cover the face of the big piece today giving it its iconic dotted exterior to also help hold the plating together large additional plates called doublers were riveted into place on top of the shell plating the harlender wolf shipyard made use of fairly recognizable octagonal shapes for the big doublers on titanic's hull and one of these doubler plates is still partly attached to the big piece you can just make out its iconic octagon shape but probably the most interesting parts of the big piece are on the other side this would have been the inside of the ship and because the big piece spanned three decks it can tell an interesting story about life on board let's start at the top and work our way down running along cdec were huge portholes known as utley pivoting sidelights which were about 19 inches wide and 24 inches tall two of them are still installed on the big piece these had brass frames and could be rotated outwards so that as the ship was moving along at 21 knots the wind would catch the sidelight and fresh air would be diverted into the passenger staterooms inside these portholes were only used on c and d deck and could be mostly found in the first class state rooms but on the big piece why are two of the portholes the big utley sidelights and the other two smaller conventional portholes to figure this out we need to know what was inside the ship where those portholes are today the big piece actually spans two individual staterooms and an adjoining bathroom these were some of the most luxurious staterooms aboard titanic and they're part of what made the ship so famous and appealing for the time the state rooms were numbered c79 and c81 and both had very distinct interior decor they're thought to have been unoccupied during titanic's voyage c79 was located here on the big piece in titanic's day it was common to decorate different staterooms and cabins in different historic themes which resulted in eclectic interiors to say the least c79 was completed in the louis cans or louis xv style a style drawing from the french decor dating from about 1710 to 1730 during the reign of you guessed it king louis xv the wood paneling was painted over a light grey and featured balanced geometric patterns by contrast c81 was completed in a totally different look this was the early georgian style a british period dating to the same era as louis xv with ornate carved walnut panels and furniture between the two staterooms were two bathrooms and the inside face of the big piece forms the bulkhead for c79's bathroom here and c81's toilet here this is a photograph of a similar bathroom on olympic you can see that the shower is uniquely shaped typical of those found on ocean liners at the time with brass pipes and fittings when the big piece was retrieved in 1998 there was still the remnants of one of these brass fittings which secured the shower to the ship you may notice the various colours on display on this inside view of the hull this is thanks to the way harland and wolf painted the inside of their ships depending on what that area would be used for staterooms and cabins in first and second class would be richly paneled with wood so the ship's bare steel hull would not be seen bathrooms however would not be paneled so the rivets and plates of the ship's hull would be seen and had to be painted accordingly the standard practice was to take the bare steel and apply a primer known as red lead oxide which prevented rust a few layers would be painted on and allowed to dry and then as many as five layers of white enamel paint would be laid on top for areas out of sight however such as the bulkheads and walls beneath the wood paneling like these in c79 and c81 only the red lead was ever applied then the wood panels could be laid over the top and secured in place between the wood panels and the hull insulation had to be placed to keep the harsh atlantic weather conditions from impacting on the temperature of the stateroom a favorite material for this was cork indeed following the break up and sinking of titanic witnesses recalled seeing a vast field of shattered cork panels floating across the atlantic the cork seems to have been supplemented with a horse hair type insulation when the big piece was recovered in 1998 clumps of horse hair and even fragments of the georgian and louis xv style wood paneling which survived were pressure washed off of the hull amazingly some of the enamel white paint survived the recovery and today even a section of bulkhead shows the red lead primer one deck down from those staterooms was the enormous galley and pantry on d-deck which serviced both the first and second-class dining saloons this enormous complex spanned the full 92 foot width of the ship and featured the massive amounts of equipment that would be needed to feed all 830 odd first class and 600 odd second-class passengers the big piece would have shown evidence of having been part of the galley complex with white enamel painted walls twisted and bent around from its impact with the sea floor is even the remnants of a thin bulkhead which formed part of a glass storage room for the first class pantry this is the portion of the big piece which has since been cut away and is actually on display elsewhere by itself but the twisted remnants of the glass storage room's wall is still attached to the hull plating with rivets [Music] looking at the big piece can teach us a lot about how titanic was built but it can also give horrifying perspective on the way the ship died the force of the breakup was so extreme and yet even so the humble rivets mostly held in place and it was the shell plating itself that tore like paper the area where the big piece originally fit was totally obliterated during the ship's sinking compare this view of titanic as new with the big pieces location marked in red with this view of titanic's two main sections after the sinking the working theory on this level of destruction has to largely do with hydrodynamics the titanic's open stern section after the breakup presented a flat broad surface which the sea water had to somehow bypass as the stern sank faster and deeper it's likely that whole chunks of the stern perhaps including the big piece itself were torn free during the ship's descent to the sea floor today the big piece is a source of contemplation and inspiration for thousands by visiting it and gazing at it it is possible if only for a moment to rewind history to wind back the horrific events of that night to remember titanic in that brief but glorious moment before april 14 1912 when she was the largest and most luxurious ocean liner afloat the toast of high society and the very pinnacle of engineering [Music] ladies and gentlemen it's your friend mike brady from ocean liner designs thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video let me know what you thought in the comments section and please feel very welcome to subscribe to my channel it'll be great to have you aboard this video was brought to you by the patrons of ocean liner designs please feel free to join the crew on my patreon as always stay safe stay happy and i'll see you again next time [Music] you

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 488,770

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Id: GNqSYJePcMk

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 10 2022