Titanic's Mysterious Secrets: Guess Why It Took So Long to Sink!

Bright Side

Prepare for a captivating journey into the heart of the Titanic's enigma. In this immersive investigation, we unravel the intriguing reasons behind the Titanic's slow sinking. Join us as we uncover the surprising factors that contributed to this legendary ship's prolonged descent. Don't miss out on this fascinating dive into history!  Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00 April 14, 1912. The dark night was filled with horrible sounds of a giant metal vessel breaking

00:08 into two. The largest ship of that time collided with an iceberg that was on its way. The Titanic,

00:14 one of the biggest stories of the 20th century that people still talk about.

00:19 The starboard side of the giant vessel brushed up against the iceberg. It was 1140 p.m. when

00:28 things started going wrong. This iceberg caused enough damage for at least five watertight

00:34 compartments in the hull to start filling with water. The crew immediately began a brief

00:41 investigation to see if they could do anything and fix things. They had no one to rely on,

00:47 all alone in the darkness of the cold night, far away from the land. The North Atlantic Ocean,

00:53 around 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. They needed time to figure out how to bring

00:58 people to safety. They had some time, true, but not enough. If you watched the movie,

01:06 you know the ship didn't plunge immediately after the icy doom had happened. The whole process

01:12 lasted a good 2 hours and 40 minutes. But the situation was hard. There were 2,200 people to

01:19 take care of, including crew and passengers. And things happening on the ship were chaotic.

01:25 The chief designer, Thomas Andrews, soon realized they wouldn't be able to stay afloat.

01:33 By midnight, the entire crew had begun preparing the lifeboats for launch. They had 20 boats with

01:39 space for only 1178 people, which was just a bit more than 50% of the people on board.

01:48 The order was to get women and children to safety first.

01:51 Crewmen were there to row and guide the boats.

01:54 The scene over the next 2 hours gradually started escalating. The crew members had a task to wake

02:02 up passengers and warn them something bad was happening. They wanted to place them into a fleet

02:07 of lifeboats as soon as possible. At 12.15 am, some crew members sent out a distress signal.

02:16 A steamship called Frankfurt was among the first ones that received the message and responded,

02:21 but they were about 170 nautical miles away. Some other ships also got the message

02:26 and offered their assistance, but sadly, they were too far away as well.

02:30 At 12.20 am, the canard liner Carpathia got a distress signal from the Titanic

02:39 and changed its course right away. They were 58 miles away at the time,

02:44 and it would take them more than 3 hours to get there.

02:47 20 minutes later, the crew was lowering the first lifeboat. It was carrying only 27 passengers,

02:56 although it had room for 65. Many of the lifeboats that were launched first were well below capacity.

03:02 Crew members were worried, thinking the Davids wouldn't be able to hold a fully loaded lifeboat.

03:11 And in the beginning, many passengers were just too afraid to leave the ship. They still thought

03:17 Titanic was unsinkable and couldn't imagine the scenario that was going to happen 1-2 hours later.

03:23 The crew was firing the first of 8 distress rockets. Unsuccessful. No one was close enough

03:31 to help. By 1.20 am, they lowered 10 lifeboats. Number 8 had only 28 people in it. One of the

03:41 passengers on the number 10 was 9-week-old Melvina Dean. She would later become the last survivor

03:48 who lived until 2009 and turned 97. It was 2 am already. Three of the collapsible

03:56 boats were the only lifeboats that remained on the ship. The bow of the vessel had sunk low and had

04:02 tipped far under the surface. People around it could now clearly see stern propellers above the

04:08 water. Crew members were lowering collapsible lifeboat D from the roof of the officer's quarters

04:16 with over 20 passengers in it. As the ship's bow went under, the water was washing collapsible A

04:22 from the deck. Those 20 people were struggling because their boat was partly filled with water.

04:27 As crew members were trying to release collapsible B, it fell. Before they righted it,

04:35 the water swept it off the ship. 30 passengers still managed to find safety on the overturned

04:41 lifeboat. At 2.17 am, the ship's wireless operator decided to transmit one last distress call.

04:50 A minute later, the light on the ship finally went out. Titanic and all left on board plunged

04:56 into darkness. The bow continued to sink, and the stern was rising higher above the surface,

05:02 which placed great strain on the midsection. Horrible sounds were filling the night.

05:09 Titanic, this massive legendary ship so many people placed their hopes in and were excited about,

05:15 broke into two between the third and fourth funnels.

05:19 Reports would speculate it took about 6 minutes for the bow section to reach the ocean bottom.

05:27 The stern settled back in the water before it rose again, into a vertical position.

05:32 It remained in this situation until it finally disappeared into the ocean.

05:37 At 2.20 am, the stern apparently retained air inside, and water pressure crushed it as it

05:45 went down. The stern landed about 2,000 feet away from the bow. People consider the Titanic

05:54 the fastest ship in the world. They thought it was unsinkable because 4 of its compartments

05:59 could be flooded, and that still wouldn't cause a critical loss of buoyancy.

06:03 Its life was problematic since its beginning.

06:06 While the ship was leaving port, it moved within a couple of feet of the steamer New York.

06:14 It managed to safely pass by, which was a huge relief for all those worried passengers

06:19 massed on the ship's decks. Titanic sailed off on the 10th of April. Its first journey was across

06:28 the highly competitive Atlantic route. On the launch day, the Titanic became the biggest

06:34 movable object in the history of humankind. 882 feet long, 92 feet wide.

06:40 Not that big if you compare it with today's ships. The biggest cruise ship in the world today

06:48 is Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas, which is roughly 5 times the size of Titanic.

06:55 If you put that ship in a vertical position, it would be nearly as tall as the Empire State

07:00 Building, which is 1,250 feet without antennas. But Titanic was a huge attraction back in its

07:09 time. At one moment of their journey, they stopped in France, after which they made another stop in

07:15 Ireland. Once the final passengers boarded, the massive ship set out at full speed for their final

07:21 destination, New York City. Four days after the beginning of its journey, Titanic failed

07:29 to divert its course from a huge iceberg, the story we all know about. Only 700 people survived,

07:38 and most of them were women and children. The night was extremely cold. One hour and 20 minutes

07:44 after Titanic had gone down to the bottom of the ocean, survivors weren't even sure

07:49 someone was coming to save them. Finally, they saw the light.

07:53 It was Carpathia coming towards them. They came for the people in the lifeboats. The crew brought

08:01 them aboard and pulled a handful of other passengers out of the water. Many ships tried

08:06 to contact Titanic a few hours after it sank. Their messages were never returned.

08:12 Later, when there was an investigation of what really happened, they discovered the Lailin Liner,

08:18 California, had been less than 20 miles away when Titanic was sinking. But the crew didn't hear the

08:24 distress signals coming from Titanic because their radio operator was off-duty.

08:29 Countries from both sides of the Atlantic were shocked and horrified

08:36 when they heard details of what happened to Titanic. They believed it was a miracle.

08:41 They decided to make changes to ship operations, rules that would help avoid such events in the

08:47 future. They held the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea,

08:53 where they adopted rules for every ship to have lifeboat space for each passenger on board.

08:59 Also, lifeboat drills became mandatory.

09:02 They also decided to establish an International Ice Patrol.

09:09 Its main role was to monitor icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

09:13 Ships also needed to maintain a 24-hour radio watch.

09:17 Titanic wasn't built alone. Because of the size of this magnificent ship and all the new equipment

09:26 it required, it would've been too expensive as a one-off. So the team built the Titanic

09:32 alongside two sister ships. And both of them had eventful lifetimes.

09:37 RMS Olympic came first. It was launched in 1910 and for a whole year was the biggest liner in the

09:43 world. The Britannic was another sister ship that sailed for a while before it too ended down on the

09:51 ocean bottom. But only Titanic became a legend and one of the most fascinating stories of modern

10:00 history. The Royal Mail Ship was built in 1912.

10:06 The Royal Mail Ship, or RMS Titanic, easily the most famous steamship in history, was once the

10:12 symbol of luxury and dreams that promised to come true. It took 3 years and 3,000 people to construct

10:19 it. On April 10, 1912, the brand-new ocean liner greeted its passengers with the smell of fresh

10:26 varnish, paint, and newly sawn wood. Back then, they still used lead for the production of paint

10:32 and linseed oil as a binder, so that smell must've been powerful. When it was fully operational,

10:39 the giant vessel consumed around 850 tons of coal per day, and the passengers would also smell its

10:46 fumes. Another odor that must've filled the Titanic's decks, at least the first-class ones,

10:52 was the new scent by the famous French perfume house Guerlain. It was released earlier in the

10:58 same year and quickly became a hit with the well-off ladies. The perfume that you can still

11:03 buy today is a mix of violets and iris with creamy vanilla. On the dramatic evening of April 14,

11:11 when Titanic only had hours to live, the unknowing waiters were serving oysters,

11:17 lamb in mint sauce, roast duck with applesauce, and other delicacies to their first-class guests.

11:23 The second-class was filled with the smells of curried chicken, spring lamb, and roast turkey.

11:28 Third-class passengers had simple gruel and biscuits that night.

11:33 At 11 pm, as the ship got dangerously close to the iceberg, the new smell added to the mix.

11:40 It was a mineral odor with metallic notes. If you have ice in your fridge, you must've noticed it

11:46 takes the smell of neighboring foods. The same happens to icebergs. They take on the odors of

11:53 sea animals and maintain the chemical composition of the water that they're made of. If more people

11:58 had known about the meaning of this particular metallic smell, they probably still wouldn't

12:03 have saved the ship. But the number of people that managed to escape to safety could've been larger.

12:09 Speaking of smells, in case you've ever wondered what space smells like

12:15 but aren't planning to become an astronaut anytime soon, listen up. You can try out Eau de Space,

12:22 an aroma that was designed by NASA decades ago. The idea of the perfume was to help

12:27 astronauts prepare for their encounters with space at all levels during their training.

12:32 But hold on a second, space is a vacuum, so it technically shouldn't have any smell. Yet,

12:38 astronauts who have been out there remembered it as a pleasant metallic odor, something like the

12:44 smell of welding fumes or burnt gunpowder. They could smell it on their spacesuits after coming

12:49 back into their spacecraft. We can also guess what other planets smell like based on what their

12:55 atmospheres are made of. Venus has clouds of sulfuric acid in its atmosphere, so it must

13:01 smell like rotten eggs. Mars and Uranus also smell like rotten eggs, by the way. Each of the layers

13:08 of Jupiter's atmosphere is made up of different chemicals. That's why it smells different depending

13:13 on where you are. Some layers would greet you with a yummy aroma of bitter almonds or marzipan,

13:20 and others, closer to the top, smell like cleaning products. The remaining planets of

13:25 the Solar System are unlikely to have a distinctive scent because they're mostly odorless gases in

13:30 their atmospheres. As for our natural satellite, the Moon, the Apollo astronauts claim that its

13:37 dust smells like gunpowder. The fragrance of fresh-cut grass makes regular mowing it nearly

13:44 worth it. But did you know that the grass isn't having a great time while you're doing it?

13:50 In fact, it's sort of screaming for help. And because grass can't scream out loud,

13:55 it expresses discomfort by releasing a mix of smelly volatile molecules. It does it to protect

14:01 itself from insects. Caterpillars and other similar creatures just love to munch on sugary

14:07 plant snacks. When you mow the grass, it releases jasmonic acid, among other things. It's sort of a

14:13 signal to parasitic wasps that there is a caterpillar available. These creatures deal

14:18 with the grass's offenders, and it can keep growing happily ever after. From the point of

14:23 view of the grass, mowing is not much different from an insect attack, so it protects itself the

14:29 best way it can. - The rain has an easy-to-recognize powerful smell,

14:36 also known as petrichor. But where does it come from? Turns out, some plants secrete oils during

14:42 drought. The rocks and soil accumulate those oils' compounds, and when the raindrops hit,

14:48 they mix with water and release into the air. Sometimes, these oils combine with chemicals

14:53 produced by bacteria living in the soil. The result of this cooperation is a musky odor you

14:59 can smell in the woods or in your garden when you turn over the wet soil. - Ozone also adds to the

15:05 smell of rain, especially after thunderstorms. It happens when a lightning bolt's electrical charge

15:11 splits oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, and they later recombine into ozone.

15:18 One theory says we enjoy the aroma of rain so much because it's imprinted in our brains.

15:23 Different cultures have always associated rain with something positive,

15:27 and we could have inherited that perception. - Chocolate fans, of which I am one, this is for

15:34 you! There are flowers that smell exactly like your favorite tree. It's a product of a tropical

15:41 plant, after all. And since it's impossible to recreate the exact magical scent chocolate has

15:46 in a perfume, you can plant some chocolate flowers, also known as the green ilyra leaves,

15:53 in your garden. These flowers look like daisies, with yellow petals around a deep red center.

15:58 When you pick its petals, the flower releases the delicious smell we all love so much.

16:03 The leaves and branches of the plant also have the same fragrance.

16:07 In case I got you interested, you can find the flower in dry soils of Arizona, Texas,

16:14 Colorado, and other states with similar climates. It blooms all year, and the aroma is strongest

16:20 on warm days. - The bear cat, also known as the baturong,

16:25 does not only look super cute, but also smells like buttered popcorn. Baturongs prefer to stay

16:31 alone and use their aroma to mark their territory and find potential partners when they have to.

16:36 Scientists tried to figure out the secret of their unusual smell, and suggested it could come from

16:42 secretions from the scent glands under the animal's tail. Further research showed that the popcorn

16:48 smell comes from the bear cat's urine. After the animal answers nature's call, it leaves a scent

16:54 trail in the trees with its tail that often gets soaked. But if the real popcorn only releases its

17:01 amazing smell when it's popping under heat, how do bear cats manage to do it without a microwave?

17:07 Well, the answer could be in their diet, or, more likely,

17:10 in the bacteria that come in contact with the animal's natural fluid.

17:14 Durian is a fruit popular in Southeast Asia that smells sweet and nice to some people,

17:22 but to the majority, it's a mix of rotten onions and sweaty socks. The stench is so powerful that

17:29 it's banned on public transportation and hotels in some countries. The secret of durian is its

17:35 44 odor-active components. The mix is so complex that you can never tell what it's going to smell

17:41 like. And despite that horrible smell, durian is considered a delicacy and is used to make mostly

17:48 sweet dishes like cakes and candy. There was a smelly incident involving durian at a library

17:55 in Australia. The smell of rotting fruit in a cupboard has spread across the entire building

18:00 through the air conditioning system. They mistook it for gas leakage and had to evacuate around 500

18:06 students and teachers. That stinks! And finally, if you've ever been to natural hot springs or

18:12 went to see some geysers, you'll never forget the smell of hydrogen sulfide, or, less poetically,

18:19 rotten eggs. It's actually not only yucky but also highly flammable. But it can also be quite useful.

18:26 Most households in Iceland use geothermal springs as a source of hot water. Although it doesn't smell

18:32 fresh, it's perfectly safe to drink, and the smell doesn't stay on your body after you take a shower.

18:38 It was 11.39 at night when the Titanic's lookout shouted, "Iceberg right ahead!" Swift action on

18:52 the bridge to reduce speed and change the ship's course didn't help. And you already know how the

18:57 story ends. Since then, we've regarded what happened at Titanic as a once-in-a-lifetime event.

19:03 Is it, though? The Titanic sank in 1912. Forget about fancy GPSs or weather satellites. At the

19:12 time, ships were responsible for warning each other about the location of icebergs, like a "hey man,

19:18 trust me on this" situation. Then the Titanic disaster happened. To call it a disaster is an

19:25 understatement, so specialists felt the need to form an organization to avoid this kind of

19:30 accident happening again. That's why, a year later, they created the International Ice Patrol,

19:37 or IIP for short. Up to this day, this group has been responsible for giving ships advanced

19:45 warnings about ice threats. IIP improved their methods over the years, from ship reports and

19:51 aircraft patrols to satellite images. Recently, they've also been using oceanographic buoys,

19:57 floating devices providing real-time information about ocean conditions up to 164 feet below the

20:04 surface to predict the potential drift of icebergs. Luckily, IIP is doing an excellent job in reducing

20:11 ship iceberg collisions. But don't get too comfortable, because even the most advanced

20:16 detection equipment can't entirely avoid an unfortunate situation. Between 1980 and 2005,

20:24 there were 57 incidents involving vessels and icebergs. And the chilling truth is that today's

20:30 ships are more likely to run into an iceberg than the Titanic was. Studies have shown that 1,038

20:40 icebergs crossed the area where the Titanic sank back in 1912. You might think that's a lot,

20:46 but scientists say it's not really a big deal. I mean, yeah, it's on the higher side,

20:52 but there have been 14 years with even more iceberg activity since then. Nowadays,

20:57 the number of icebergs is going up due to the accelerated melting of Greenland's glaciers.

21:02 And since more ships are heading into polar waters, the chances of ships bumping into icebergs

21:08 are higher. But the real danger for captains is invisible enemies called growlers and burgey bits.

21:15 Growlers are these small icebergs that can be the size of a regular door. And burgey bits

21:23 are also considered small, measuring around the size of a school bus. These icebergs might seem

21:29 harmless, but they're actually tricky since they can be completely invisible to radars or satellites.

21:35 Let's see what happens when a modern cruise ship as big as the Titanic hits one of these small

21:40 icebergs. Meet the Norwegian Sun, a luxurious cruise ship like Titanic as it has the capacity

21:47 to accommodate 2,400 passengers and more than 900 crew members. On July 2022, this cruise ship was

21:55 on its way to Hubbard Glacier in Alaska when it found itself in the middle of a dense fog.

22:01 Suddenly, passengers felt an impact and were terrified as the ship experienced a severe jolt.

22:07 The fog immediately cleared, and they realized what had happened. The Norwegian Sun had collided

22:13 with an iceberg of the growler type. But the outcome was entirely different from Titanic.

22:19 Thankfully, there were no injuries, and both the passengers and staff reached the Alaskan docks

22:24 safely. Expert divers checked the condition of the boat, and they discovered that the ship had

22:30 suffered some damage after the collision. So, the rest of the trip was cancelled.

22:34 Don't stress about packing for your next trip across the Atlantic because accidents like the

22:42 one with the Norwegian Sun are really rare. I mean, it's common for ships to encounter ice,

22:47 but what's unusual is for it to be a problem. Most modern cruise ships wouldn't get physically

22:53 damaged by an iceberg, and there's a reason for that. You see, the steel used in the Titanic

22:59 also played a significant role in the disaster. The unsinkable ship, after all, was not so

23:05 impact-resistant. Back then, the Titanic's hull was constructed using around 2,000 steel plates,

23:12 which are believed to have been produced in an open-hearth furnace. As a result,

23:17 the steel contained a high concentration of phosphorus, oxygen, and sulfur. High levels

23:22 of these elements make steel brittle at low temperatures, causing it to fail upon impact.

23:28 While the steel used on the Titanic was of the highest quality available at the time,

23:34 it wouldn't meet the safety standards of modern ships,

23:37 and it was approximately 10 times less safe than what today's vessels use.

23:41 But the most significant difference between the design of the Titanic and a modern ship

23:49 lies in how the hull is put together. You see, the Titanic was built using over 3 million rivets

23:56 for its hull and upper deck structure. So, when it struck the iceberg, the rivets started a chain

24:01 reaction, causing the entire section of the hull to collapse simultaneously, causing an uncontrollable

24:08 flood of water. In contrast, modern ships use a method called submerged arc welding,

24:14 which fuses the edges of metal pieces together, creating a strong and continuous bond. This is

24:20 safer because if any part of the ship gets damaged, the tear doesn't spread, making things worse.

24:26 The damage remains contained within that section. Okay, so small icebergs are becoming more common,

24:33 and vessels have been adapted to deal with them. But there's still one more scenario to consider.

24:38 What if a huge cruise ship hit an iceberg the size of a 5-story building?

24:43 Imagine we've just created the world's largest cruise ship on the planet.

24:50 Let's call it the Bright Seaside. Our floating resort is massive, 4 times the size of the

24:56 Statue of Liberty. It's longer than the Titanic by 318 feet and carries about 3 times more passengers

25:04 and crew. And just like the Titanic, our fictional ship can cruise at a top speed of around 23 knots.

25:11 Now picture this scenario. The Bright Seaside is cruising at full speed in freezing waters.

25:17 It's the middle of the night, and the captain doesn't realize that all the iceberg-detecting

25:22 equipment on board isn't functioning. It stopped working 3 days ago. It's very foggy out there,

25:29 and the lookout also fails to spot a 45-foot-tall iceberg. If that whole situation played out,

25:36 and the ship smacked into the iceberg head-on, well, it could potentially lead to a sinking.

25:42 But you can see how unlikely that is, right? That's why experts are quite confident in saying

25:48 that ice isn't likely to sink modern cruise ships. It's also worth mentioning that safety

25:53 measures have improved a lot since Titanic. A modern large vessel can take days to sink,

25:59 which provides enough time to keep everyone safe. Crews are definitely better prepared to handle

26:04 evacuation procedures, and passengers should also go through safety training before cruising.

26:10 I know, I know, it is annoying to do that when all you want to do is drink a lemonade or some

26:15 other beverage by the pool. But, you know, all these safety tips are what saved the MS Explorer

26:22 from becoming a modern Titanic. You see, back in 2007, all 154 people on board this Antarctic

26:32 cruise ship managed to get into lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg. Now imagine their panic

26:38 as they waited for help for 4 hours! The crew did an excellent job in keeping everybody safe,

26:44 no doubt. But a report that came out 2 years later said that the MS Explorer accident had

26:50 happened because of the inexperience of the captain who had pushed the ship too fast into

26:55 a wall of ice in the freezing waters of Antarctica. That means that no matter how much tech a ship's

27:02 got or how fancy its materials are, if you've got a careless captain and a crew that doesn't know

27:07 how to handle an iceberg hit, yep, a disaster similar to Titanic could happen again. But hey,

27:14 you shouldn't stress over it. Trust the professionals and keep in mind the odds. In

27:19 the last 30 years, the MS Explorer was the only cruise ship that sank thanks to an iceberg,

27:25 and everyone survived. So kick back and enjoy your sea vacation!

27:33 That's it for today! So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and

27:38 share it with your friends. Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright

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