Inside Titanic's Catastrophic Breakup - An Analysis

What a brilliantly researched video, thank you.

It may be silly, but I wonder if they could have used tarps or large pieces of canvas to lower into the water, get caught in the tear in the ship, and slow the amount of water able to get in...

The first syllable in schenectady is pronounced as sken. FYSA

What a precise and well documented video ! Thank you

Thankyou for a very interesting video.

The fact the they were in "flat seas" was one of the reasons for the slow sinking. Heaver seas with 4 to 5 ft swells would have resulted in a different result and probably greater loss of life.

I've read almost everything I can on Titanic, ever since the mid-80s as a little kid. And it never ceases to amaze me how much I still don't know about this ship. Superb video!

Sorry Mike, but the quality of the steel was definitely inferior, even for the time period. Metallurgical testing of recovered hull sections have proven this. Your narrative concerning this issue falls in line with your apologist remarks concerning what you call the unfair blame laid at the feet of Mr. Ismay.... At the end of the day, policy decisions undertaken by Ismay and players in the British government were responsible for the inexcusable lack of lifeboats and prioritising the saving of 1st class passengers while others were either purposely kept below decks or simply left to fend for themselves. These issues are representative of the unspoken truths and tragedies of the Titanic sinking.

great breakdown, thanks... I did hear the bow section stayed connected for a while making the stern stand up before detaching then the stern sunk... 🤷‍♂

Strange, the number of people who said the ship broke apart and were eyewitness' and there were those who heard sounds to this effect, of course not knowing exactly what that was. Stuff falling out of the broken part and a few said they noticed no such thing. Further the stern falls back level. You would assume the front has broken away causing it to fall level. The few were believed, not the majority and it stayed that way till '85.

as you say in the end it really dos'nt matter but as with everything titanic still facinating . great video😁

I became obsessed with the Titanic in the early 70's, when I was around 13-14. I read everything I could, and I always thought that the ship undoubtedly broke apart as it was sinking. So there obviously was lots of information that pointed that way, and it made sense to me.

The fact that Britannic didn’t break might also have to do with how quickly she sank. Titanic was being stressed on for way longer. The phase at which Britannic sank would constantly change the place where the stress would be the most.

I find that actual recent photos of the two main parts of the ship are copyrighted to be completely absurd.

"That night she was simply stressed beyond her limits and then, they broke up"

Very insightful...nicely done.....

The USS Constitution “Old Ironsides” is actually the oldest commissioned naval ship still afloat in the world. It was commissioned in 1797. Although the argument that the Russian ship can be in the distinction “active”. USS Constitution remains commissioned, afloat and manned, and can sail, but she is really a museum ship. The oldest commissioned ship in the world is the HMS Victory in the UK, but Victory has been in dry dock since 1922 and not afloat.

Mike Brady is the Benchmark in Technical analysis of Maritime History. He also makes the analysis very warm by adding a warm narration to his work. Well done Mike !

It is truly remarkable that a supposed safe ship was able to fall to pieces under the slight damaged cased by what in hindsight was a likely collision with an iceberg in "iceberg" alley in the North Atlantic.

I saw a documentary about the Titanic different perspective yes, and they focused on the actual sinking of Titanic and in detail. How long it took to get too the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. Showed a huge gash where supposedly when the Titanic hits the bottom with such violent force it created the gash . I don't know that I am convinced of that. I think the fire actually took place & it could be a major factor in addition to the iceberg.

Great video!

A quite interesting story I've heard about Ismay is that around the time "A Night to Remember" was released in November 1955 Walter Lord got a letter from someone in England about the remarkable finish at the 1913 Derby in Epsom Downs. Craganour, the favourite, crossed the line first and was escorted to the winners' circle. Then, without a protest from anyone, it was placed second to Aboyeur. Craganour, Lord's correspondent said, was owned by Bruce Ismay, and I guess it doesn't really need saying that the horse racing establishment would never let his horse win the hallowed Derby after what happened.
Walter Lord then went to check the story. Everything turned out to be accurate except for one important detail. Joseph Bruce Ismay didn't own Craganour. His brother, Charles Bower Ismay, did. Still, Craganour remained placed second to Aboyeur. The reason? Craganour's original jockey had been replaced by an American one, Johnny Reiff. I don't know why that was but the move was regarded as immensely unpopular, and at the end of the race during discussions the judges had a golden opportunity to discredit Reiff.
Walter Lord, though, said that he still got letters afterwards still linking Bruce Ismay and Craganour together

My bet is on a complete or partially Boiler Explosion, of at least 1 of the Boilers.

👋🥲.................

Fascinating explanation of what doomed the Titanic. Thank you!

Too many adverts, unsubbed.

Anyone genuinely criticising the designers of Titanic for breaking in two under that much stress probably miss the point. Tongue in cheek, the barber's shop wasn't designed to serve as a fulcrum for the bow and the stern and they permitted themselves the luxury of assuming it wouldn't have to.

Where they did err was in their assumption that five compartments wouldn't flood, put measures in place to prevent relatively minor damage from causing it (additional skins), or implement backup watertight doors to completely seal any and all compartments. Subsequent ship designs show the key learnings were understood and implemented; look at how much damage the Bismarck took before finally sinking.

Love these videos. I found your channel two days ago and your videos have been riveting (sorry).

Had no one witnessed this sinking the idea that it would have jacked up on a fulcrum as it did wouldn't even be imagined, much less considered. Makes one think of other catastrophic failures that are hard to explain. One in New York comes to mind, but...forgetaboutit.

Respect brother, I am obsessed with titanic like yourself

Love your videos their so interesting .

This will one day have tens of millions of views

I must look and see if you have anything on the Liberty ships that Henry J Kaiser made that infamously would break up from time to time during WWII

I am guessing any White Star employee who wanted to continued to work preferred to paint the ship as so sturdy that she couldn't break in two

I was watch "A Night to Remember " for about the 10th time and I suddenly wondered how they got the fires started in a coal fired ship. In the movie they show them putting the fires out....
My mom had some coal for our fireplace (or to put in our stockings at Christmas, maybe) but I never could get it to burn. I tried and tried. Never could I get actual coal to burn. It's quite different from bbq briquettes.

I was on a refrigerated cargo ship in the Persian gulf which snapped, it was built in Germany in the late 1960's and lengthened with an additional hatch in Sweden 1970's, fully loaded with frozen lamb from New Zealand so the hold temperature would have been -30c , the deck temperature at that time would have been high 40c, the crack across the deck was very visable and went exactly across the old and new deck , fortunately the ship survived , M/v Halifax Star.

I would imagine time played a part in Titanic breaking up. Lusitania sank in 20 minutes, not a lot of time to build up stress to the point of breaking. Britannic took 55 minutes. Again, a difference in the time allowed for stress to build up. Titanic took almost 3 hours to sink. That’s a lot of time to build up the stress. I could be wrong but it makes sense to my logic

Um sounds like something a Boeing PR agent would put out today. Ofcourse you arent interested in the other theories because the other theories show how bad the design and materials of Titianic were. That would put the manufactures under a microscope and tank their shares- i.e. . the company harland and Wolff which is still operational in the areas of Defence, Energy, Cruise & Ferry, Renewables and commercial. So thy are the Boeing of British navy, I guess. Hence the perpetual coverup. And just beccause other comoanies have made the same corrupt choices doesnt absolve titanic's manufacturers. And NO, the ship would not have been ";domed" had it not been for the dumb design choices, bad materials and bnad practices of the White Starline Company. Like Not having drills to test lifeboat capaicty or train the crew or shutting down iceberg aleryt medssages to send and receive passenger messages .Or not turning south despite the arnings because they wanted to comnpete with Cunard. I hate company men telling me to shut down my brain and let the past be because some dickwad's wallet might get hurt.

I am sorry but heat treatement of steel to increase its stength is known since 15 th century. Even earlier in many parts pf the world. What you are trying to say is that ship buildsers didnt use it byconvention because the process was expensive. Plus what is the excuse for high oxygen content in the steel. Which you conveniently leave out? That happens when low carbon steel is used. High carbon steel has been known for thousands of year. So no, they DID use low quality steel. You kind of gave that away when you talked about cracks forming in the engine room and boiler room and hatch corners of their shafts all the way up all the decks which are not at freezing temp and were above water until the break.

Second, the keel actually caused more damage than it helped. The fact that the broken ships would hang on from the keel was kind of known. And had the Titanic not had that double renforced keel. (not the double bottom, but the keel was double too), the aft section would not have been pulled down violently and would have just floated around for 2-3 more hours awaiting rescue like a giant lifeboat.
Also the keel didn't snap that soon after the break. It would have already set the stern in a plunge before snapping else we wouldn't have seen the violent destructiona nd sinking of the stern moving down diagonally.

The person who found the keel fragment of titanic had said that the twisting looked more like the ship was tense at the bottom and crushed at the top, Meaning that the double bootm and keel were effectively collapsing rather than being pulled apart. the OPPPOSITE of what we have been led to believe. . This also explains how the keel would have stayed in pace for longer and pulled the stern down with it before snapping. Because in this scenario, the strength deck would also have been attached until it got crushed. had the keel been pulled apart and snapped, the stern would have listed to the side and sunk sideways even when the keel had pulled it down enough to force it to sink. In that scenario the fall and ship spinning due to airpockets bursting is cited as exp,anaton for the violent sinking. But the compression and structural failure better explain the downward sinking we know Titanic underwent. We know that the Titanic hit the iceberg on the starboard side and yet after an initial star-list it went into a port list and stayed that way till the end. About 7-10 degrees. This cannot be explained unless the structural deck is intact until the break. Otherwise, it should have listed only when stern got pulled by the bow. We see that one side of Titianic seems to have been crushed while the other side seems to have been blown out and has intact pieces. And we see that in how the debris are spread out as well. All on the starboard side of the direction (in regard to the intact ship near the stern.) I don't think this can be explained without factoring the structural deck into the equation. In which case the port list would have caused torsion causing the compression strain on port side and tension on starboard side.. Which then matches tension on the keel and compression on the upper part of the ship. This also better explains why the stern is turned around 180 degrees in the wreck and why there are large sections of side plates that are bent at 90 degrees. But That would not match the mechanics of this fulcrum and points more towards multiple material and design flaws .

And we do know there were design flaws. Like the hatch corners, large empty spaces, Beams made of cheap materials, scanty in numbers and poorly attached to name a few. Flaws that contributed to the diaster being much worse than it otherwise would have been.

Then there are the water tight compartments. They did not reach the top of the structure of the ship. They only reached the water line. Cost cutting. And that allowed the water to continue filling infrom the forward section once it had tipped a little below the waterline. So tey were utterly useless.
More than that, they contributed to the diaster. They caused the water to be held in the forward section causing all the seesawing and violent sinking of the stern.. If they had not been there, the ship would have filled slowly and evenly and would have stayed afloat for another 6 hours, allowing many many more lives to be saved.
And then there is the stupid orientation of the said compartments. Positioned horizontally rather than vertically. That would cause the ship to list rather than tip on the stern or bow end. I say this is stupid because ships usually have flooding mechanisms to correct the list and they could be implement to correct the problem if some controlled flooding occurred. The reason whyy Britannic didn't break was because after Titanic this very obvious fact was pointed out to the company and they made the changes to the watertight compartments - rating their height and changing their orientation.

We also know that the rivets were not properly fitted. Probably due to the rushed construction of the ship. Analysts have said that even without the iceberg, those rivets would have given out within the first few voyages. Even in the wreck, many of the rivets ave been found popped off without any damage. Which means they gave out at a slight strain (not just at the fracture region but all over). If they had held up to specifications and then broken or popped, the stress and bending etc would have deformed them. Incidentally, rivets are still a problem with Boeing today for the same reason - Rushing, cost cutting and skipping safety examinations. And even their wrecks show the same problem. Parts blowing off without any strain on rivets because they arent properly attached.

The truth is as long as corporations have existed, they have always priritised profits over safety and cost cutting and cutting corners in manufacturing while a lot of pomp and bluster in PR. Titanic was no different. And the people who protect that company for who knows what unfathomable reason. probably their egos, are the same kind of people that will protect Boeing today.

Amazing content! Thanks!

Amazing content! Thanks!

I agree. Hindsight is 20 20. We can sit here and say oh if this happened, more lives would’ve been saved or avoided the tragedy all together. What happened happened. It’s good to figure out how this happened. It’s good information to avoid future tragedies as much as we can. But at the end of the day you can prepare to the max to avoid tragic results. But nothing is guaranteed to go swimmingly if you do everything you need to do in order to be prepared

Why can't people ACCEPT The stories of those WHO WERE THERE vs. nay sayers??? Now concerning the "Fulcrum" I say there were HOT boilers.. and Hot vs. Ice cold could make boilers explode. Couldn't that also be part of the cause of structural failure too?

Before Ballard, probably in the 70s, I watched an Eva Hart interview. She was absolutely adamant that ship broke in two. She didn't care what experts said, she saw it break and described the process you've discussed and explained here. She lived til 1996 so was vindicated! I can hear her saying she'd known that since 1912. She was just a child that night, but she remembered such detail. He father perished. 😮Such horrors, so tragic.

will you date me?? Micheal

My goodness Mike, your research and presentation continues to amaze me and I am blessed to call you my friend too.

Didn't Lightoller actually admit later that he'd been attempting to cover White Star Line's ass? Maybe not specifically on whether it broke in 2--after all he was kind of busy at the time--but his general approach.

Mr. Brady, this is an excellent and very informative video. This disaster will always hurt my heart. I hope those not fortunate enough to survive the disaster did not suffer long, especially those still below decks after the stern went under.

I agree that it was the PRIDE and ARROGANCE of British shipbuilding that disallowed them to accept the fact that she split in two during her sinking. It was this same PRIDE and ARROGANCE that also prevented the placement of more lifeboats, which would have inevitably save more lives, if not all. May those who were not fortunate enough to survive the sinking will forever RIP!

Thank you, Mr. Brady.

If I was on that ship I would never get on an ocean liner ever again I wouldn't give a damn if they wanted my testimony.

What did these gigantic steamships do with all the coal ash (waste) generated by these coal burning engines?
I'll wager that the mountain of ash generated on a long voyage would approximate the size of the iceberg that brought her down in the first place.
I will research this topic and post.