What caused the Titanic to strike the iceberg?

In this video we discuss the possible theory as to why the RMS TITANIC struck the iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912
One small correction I noticed in the video. I say light molecules when in fact its light particles. Whoops lol

Support Historic Travels on patreon

Check out Historic Travels merch

[robertlol]

"You have to remember captain smith was no captain schettino" I laughed hard😂😂😂😂

[falcon]

This is the best and clearest explanation of the mirage effect that I have heard. Thanks.

[nickbon]

you can tell how thankful and how much of a good person sam is just because of the way he starts his videos, he always thanks everybody for watching and paying attention to him. He also goes after his passion of history and other things.

[newbatgirl]

I’m so fascinated by the mirage effect. You did a terrific job explaining it.

[tylerstein]

A video giving the entire story of Captain Smith would be really cool. His entire life/career.

[thebitsanpiecesman]

This has to be the most brilliant video you have done to date, it’s wonderful to see you talking about the weather and the cold water mirage!

I shall be showing this to all the haters and conspiracy theorists.

Thank you for this video, your channel is truly an asset to the titanic community

[jonathanlee]

I've seen the mirage affect a couple times in real life. After I saw this on a documentary, I knew this was the reason. Your explanation should be the official explanation as to why the titanic hit the iceberg! Great job!

[monsieurcommissaire]

RMS Titanic was not making a run at the Atlantic Record because, and I mean no insult to the great ship or her designers, she simply wasn't fast enough. Titanic had 50, 000 shaft horsepower to Mauretania's 68, 000 shp. Even with all boilers lit and with a strong tailwind (rather unlikely going westbound) Titanic had no chance of matching, let alone surpassing, the speed of Cunard's RMS Mauretania. She wasn't ever intended to. There is certainly no shame in this, as Mauretania's record stood until 1929, when the SS Bremen, a ship 150 ft longer and with twice her shaft horsepower, finally pulled ahead of Mauretania's 20-year record.
The Olympic class ships were by no means slow, but they were built for luxury and comfort, not speed. Mauretania and Lusitania were the fastest liners of the time, but not at all as comfortable as the Olympics. Propeller cavitation caused significant vibration in both Cunarders, while Olympic/Titanic had no such troubles.
J. Bruce Ismay had no illusions about making an Atlantic Record attempt, nor did Captain Smith. Thomas Andrews certainly would've know better as well. Add to all of this that during a coal strike would've been the wrong time to burn more fuel making a record speed run, especially when the Managing Director, Designer and Captain would've known it would be both wasteful and unsuccessful.
William Randolph Hearst is largely responsible for this and a number of other Titanic myths, as he hated Ismay, and saw in the tragedy a chance to do a character assassination on him. It wouldn't be the first time Hearst used his newspapers to 'get' someone who angered him, nor the last. Hearst seemed to enjoy ruining people. Just ask Orson Welles...

[azammirza]

Dr Ballard’s reaction when he found the ship I find it so relatable. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate finding something that you’ve spent years searching for and was considered impossible to find by the world due to the amount of failed attempts to find the Titanic and then realised what you’ve just discovered. Dr Ballard and his team were basically like “Yes, we found the Titanic” then they realised they found the Titanic: a spot where this terrible tragedy occurred and the final resting place of the 1500 souls who died that night.

[daavski]

I can see all of your hard work you put into these videos. It’s greatly appreciated, great video Sam!

[balieinstein]

Fantastic explanation, thank you! Just a note: Titanic detective Tim Maltin has shown after his 20-year investigation that the real culprits may have been forces beyond human control; the mirage could be to blame for the Titanic disaster.

[kingkermit]

Simple answer: lag did it
Sam it always brightens up my day when you upload so thanks man. 😃

[SkyKing]

Your theory makes a lot of sense. In fact, it makes more sense then my theory.

Mine was this: It's cold. Titanic is moving at 21 to 22 knots (close to 25 miles an hour). Temperature was close to freezing, or maybe under. I think I read it was 27 degrees F.

That creates wind chill of anywhere between 9 and 16 degrees F. That would give you frost bite in 10 minutes. So, Fredrick Fleet is literally freezing his face off. I theorized that they ducked under the rail of the crows nest on occasion to warm up, or turned away and looked aft, protecting their face flesh. They had a 4 hour watch, so ten minutes to frostbite was not appealing.

When they popped their head up, oh-oh, hole in the stars.

37 seconds. 37. Not enough time for ANYTHING. 37 seconds from when they either sighted the berg or called to the bridge to report. Another 2- 5 seconds, "Iceberg, right ahead!" "Thank you." Then, dead stop rung down while calling for hard over. How much time left to put the helm down? The procedure then was to idle the engines and coast around the obstruction. That's what the officers were taught. Reverse would have made for a slower rate of turn, that they could ill afford at the time. 37 measly seconds.

People say she had a small rudder. Nope; there are pictures from Father Brown that show her responding like a sports car heading up to Queenstown (er... Cobh) as Smith did some feeling out of his new command. Plus, with only a ten second impact time, Murdoch ordered hard over the other way to protect the screws and she responded in sub ten second time frame! So my theory takes into account that 1.) no one felt a heal over to starboard as she 'turned' to port, indicating not much of a turn to port, and 2.) the fact that they saw the berg only 37 seconds away - not enough time to have the ship react to either engine or helm commands - not at that speed.

So, not wanting to cast aspersions on the dead's reputation, you theory makes a lot of sense scientifically, assuming humans are doing the right thing. My theory takes into account human nature.

Perhaps, it came down to a combination of these theories.

Love the intellectual discussions!

[mikedicenso]

Thank you for being one of the few people to bring up that Captain Smith appears to have ordered Titanic further south than would've been normal when the ship "turned the Corner" in an apparent effort to avoid the icebergs that he'd been made aware of via wireless.

Some have tried to dismiss this as a simple navigation error, compounded by conflicting and faulty memory at the BOT and Senate hearings, but Captain Smith and his crew were too competent to not do something like this knowing full well what they did about the ice. Go up to 10 nautical miles further south and then maintain full cruise speed until past the area of danger.

Just as was standard procedure at the time.

[superfred]

I didn't realise how interested I was in sinking ships and the Titanic until I found your channel. Really good videos, thanks for making them.

[Zman]

Thank you Sam. Finally someone who understands. Also there was more evidence of temperature phenomenon. Smoke from the ship rose up and suddenly stopped midair. The crew said there was “much refraction” that night. All the evidence does point to a mirage effect. Not to mention that 1912 was an unusually active year for ice. One for the books for sure.

[fitnesswithsteve]

Can you do a video on the dazzle paint that the Olympic got during WW1?

[douglasgriffiths]

The weather phenomenon occurring probably explains the apparent close proximity of the Californian that night as observed by some survivors. She was probably further away than she appeared. Another great video, Sam. The Costa Concordia series was fab!! (Jan Griffiths).

[steffie_]

You're the 1st person that I've seen that actually has a great point on what truly might have happened to that night when Titanic hit the iceberg. I honestly never thought of this one at all... it makes the most sense of what what happening to them instead of carelessness. Thank you for your hard work

[nicholasmaude]

I'd love to see you do a video about the scrapping and recycling of the Costa Concordia, Sam, as nobody seems to have done a proper video about it.