This blog is dedicated to the R.M.S. Titanic and its sister ships Olympic and Britannic, with a focus on the technical and historical, along with a variety of other Titanic and related content.
Please do not delete credits/sources and explanatory text from my posts.
This is not a blog for the 1997 film, however, I will post things from movies on occasion.
Hello everyone! Be sure to check out our online store for beautiful, hand-painted 3D-printed models! They are all created with the highest attention to detail and care. Check out our other items as well, as they’re sure to be a great addition to anyone’s collection!
All 3D printed ships are back-ordered; they are hand-painted and we prioritize quality over speed.
If you want a gray model to paint yourself, these are not back-ordered, and all our lifeboat plaques are ready-made and ready to ship!
When creating spaces with complex decor full of carvings and details, it’s necessary to relegate most of that detail to textures so as not to spend millions of triangles on a single carved panel. When a little extra dimension is needed, shader tricks can be used to give details the illusion of being 3D. The 1st Class Dining Saloon is one of the places these tricks are used. Just don’t get too close or else things will get trippy!
For those wondering about update videos, not to worry! We have a new one coming soon, and more in the pipeline as we move into next year! In the meantime, check out one of our last update videos, from July, if you missed it!
The July update video covers our attendance of Titanic at the Grand in May/June, general updates, and a little something neat we’ve been working on.
It’s not just the small things we print; we also tried our hand at the 21-light candelabrum from the 1st Class Reception Room! We already had a detailed model for the game, so it was a simple matter of putting it into a 3D-printing workflow instead. The result? A near-1:1 scale replica of the candelabrum, printed, painted, and wired by our marketing and printing man, Zeno Silva! Yes, that’s right, it’s wired and lights up.
In the process, we learned some new things about the candelabrum (including its true size) which we’ll incorporate into the game model. The same can be said for much of what we print, as working things out in detail for printing and handling physical objects often leads to new ways of looking at these objects.
With the help of our marketing man, Zeno Silva, we’ve paired our digital work with the power of 3D printing to bring bits of Titanic into solid reality! In addition to our 3D-printed ship models, we offer a growing selection of reproduction items including these signs. The lifeboat plaques are printed at 1:1 scale, and purchasing the full set gets you a bonus hardtack reproduction! The plaques are currently on sale on the THG Store!
Curious about how people aboard Titanic ate in the different classes? Historian David Kaplan, a friend of the team and fellow presenter at “Titanic at the Grand” in Mackinac, MI, walks us through the dinner settings of the three classes aboard Titanic. He explains how the table is set, how the dinner is organized, and what the role of every table item is.
Yes, we’re still here and working hard to bring Titanic to life, and as our team churns a path forward and into 2020 with new-found fervor, we plan to keep the updates moving!
Hello everyone! We would like to introduce the newest member of our team Matthew Howell. He will be taking over as our wireless operator. This includes posting on our social media pages, interacting with guests on the pages, and moderating roles. Matthew is a lifelong Titanic enthusiast, and is very passionate about the ship and history. We are excited to see what the future holds!
These are the numbers for Titanic’s total, deceased, and saved passenger counts. These numbers are based on the latest and best research from multiple researchers who all came to the same numbers. This accounts for those who were picked up by boats but then died shortly after, and people picked up from the water. These numbers are the correct numbers.
Anything, be it Wikipedia or the media, saying…
At least 1,500
Over 1,500
1,500
2,200
2,229
705
700
710
…or any number other than the three above is incorrect.
“The obvious question you might come up with at this point is, “why can’t you just put out the fire?” That’s because of the incendiary nature of coal. In general, a coal fire is extremely difficult to deal with under the best circumstances. If you had all the resources in the world and a good deal of space to work, they can be impossible to put out. Aboard a ship in tight quarters, it gets even more difficult.
An example of the difficulties with a coal fire would be the coal fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania. This fire broke out in a mine in the Northeast United States and has proven impossible to put out. How impossible you ask? It’s been burning since May 27, 1962.”
Holy shit
“Another issue that has always caused confusion was the Titanic’s speed. It was running at full speed when crossing the Atlantic Ocean, even when there were warnings of icebergs in the area. There were rumors that the ship was trying to break some kind of speed record, but the Titanic was not built for speed. This mammoth ship was a luxury liner. Molony indicates that this could have been caused by the fire-fighting activities.
In order to fight the fire, the stokers had been shoveling the burning coal into furnaces to burn the fire away. If the stokers had been shoveling as much coal as possible that could be the reason for the speed of the ship. As excess coal was burnt, the engines would work harder, generating speed. The stokers had been shoveling coal into the furnaces nonstop for 3 days fighting the fire during the maiden voyage. Molony thinks this is the reason why the ship was going at full speed when it hit the iceberg.”
Wow that makes *so much sense.*
I saw this article and just assumed it was political satire. What the fuck.
Ditto. What the fuck.
(
DuPage County Register, 26 Apr 1912, Fri, Page 7
- I found this in the Snopes article on the subject)
Dilleys’ report was in newspapers in 1912; how did this not get into the massive cultural memory of the Titanic? I’ve heard accounts of how it sunk at least 10 times and never about this.
Because it was covered up.
Oh, not this bunker fire bunkum again.
I won’t bother going into detail about any of the claims this theory makes as I already made a post about the bunker fire, which you can read here. And for those who want more detailed information from top Titanic historians and a more in-depth analysis of the fire and especially the cover-up claims, check out the article “Titanic: Fire and Ice (Or What You Will)”:
The fire likely wasn’t as big or raging as the accounts or claims suggest. Bunker fires were smoldering, slow-burning affairs.
The damage to the watertight bulkhead was likely limited to a minor bit of scorching or deformation, if that.
The bunker did not collapse during the sinking. It was likely a weaker, non-watertight bunker door, rather, that gave way after water spilled over the bulkhead into said bunker and filled it up.
The mark isn’t visible in all photos from the time.
The mark is nowhere near the fire (see below).
There wasn’t a coverup. The fire was discussed at the British inquiry and the story’s been known about since it happened. The fact that some of you haven’t heard of it just means that some of you hadn’t heard of it.
The one thing I will address here in any detail is that photo which Titanic “expert” Senan Molony and others claim is a scorch or heat deformation mark caused by the coal bunker fire. The photo that isn’t reproduced in the Fire and Ice article due to Molony’s copyrights on the photo, which is handy when you don’t want criticism. The photo which I’m more than happy to reproduce here. This one:
The mark also appears in this photo:
It would seem to slightly change shape between photos - the only two that ever show a “mark,” but never mind that. Let’s focus on the photo most used, this time with some vital information overlaid:
Blue shows where the water line is. Red shows the line of red paint on the lower hull. Yellow shows the decks. Green shows the approximate fore and aft bounds of the mark if you drew them vertically along the hull, taking into account the hull contour. And orange shows the outer bounds of the mark itself.
Okay, okay, so where is this mark in relation to the ship’s interior? If you project those details onto a profile view, you get this:
The mark is located well above the waterline, even above the antifouling line, along F and G Decks, below the forward well deck and a little aft of it. What actual rooms are in this area, you ask?
On F Deck, a bunch of 3rd class cabins. On G Deck, the Post Office, 1st Class Baggage Room, and some 3rd class cabins. It even crosses a watertight bulkhead. Funny, if this area was on fire, there are no accounts from any 3rd class survivors, crew, or anybody else to suggest that, nor any signs of broken portholes with flames shooting out of them or burning behind them in the photos.
So where is the bunker supposed to be? Well the grey area on G Deck is an upper coal bunker, but that’s not where the fire was, and even if it was, it wouldn’t be responsible for the mark. So where is the fire?
Down there, way under the waterline, near the bottom of the forward bunker of boiler room 5. It’s supposed by some that heat transfer through the bulkhead could have also caused smoldering coals in the aft bunker of boiler room 6, but that will never be known.
In conclusion, the mark was nowhere near the fire, as the fire was 50+ feet away, behind 1-3 watertight bulkheads depending on where you pin the fire and mark, far below the waterline while the mark is well above it, and in a location such that, if there was a blazing inferno there, there would have been utter panic aboard Titanic as smoke filled the ship and flames threatened the entire vessel, nor would there have been any mail left for the postal workers to save when the ship started sinking.
Additionally, some very smart person from CNN or possibly the very good Titanic expert Senan Molony also ran the above photo as further proof of the fire, claiming it shows another scorch mark/damage on the hull.
Convincing, right? Well, if you take more than 3.72 seconds to think about it and then look at the rest of the photo, you’ll find…
…that it’s actually the angled front of a coal barge in shadow, tied up next to the ship along with other coal barges with the same angled bows. Even if it was a mark, it’s STILL nowhere near the fire location.
So if the mark’s not fire damage, what is it? Is it actually there on the hull?
Once it’s actually studied closely, the most likely explanation is that it’s a reflection of the wharf that’s nearby as Titanic was pulling away from it. The hull was slightly reflective and easily would have reflected things to a viewer at the right angle, such as in the photos. The mark appears to follow the contour of the hull, appears to change place, and is not in any other photos but the two taken as Titanic is near the wharf, further cementing its reflective and transient nature.
Molony himself was seemingly aware of the possibility that the mark was a mere reflection quite some time before ‘Titanic: The New Evidence’ aired in January 2017 and the frenzy began. In his book ‘Titanic Unseen’ published in March 2016, you’ll find this:
I guess he didn’t listen to expert opinion. It would have saved him from making a bunch of money on a documentary and getting a ton of attention.
In this post, I will be looking at the story of Malinda Borden, a black passenger claimed to have died on the Titanic, and the various claims within the story. This is a long post, so I’m putting most of it under a cut. Given the nature of the story and the sensitive issues it involves, it also may be triggering. Continue at your own discretion. (Spoiler alert: The story is NOT true.) With that in mind…
This post has been making the rounds on Facebook lately. For those who don’t know the Titanic story beyond what they remember from the movie, it might seem plausible, but is it true? What’s the full story? Where did it come from? What’s the evidence? Let’s jump down the rabbit hole!
“The obvious question you might come up with at this point is, “why can’t you just put out the fire?” That’s because of the incendiary nature of coal. In general, a coal fire is extremely difficult to deal with under the best circumstances. If you had all the resources in the world and a good deal of space to work, they can be impossible to put out. Aboard a ship in tight quarters, it gets even more difficult.
An example of the difficulties with a coal fire would be the coal fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania. This fire broke out in a mine in the Northeast United States and has proven impossible to put out. How impossible you ask? It’s been burning since May 27, 1962.”
Holy shit
“Another issue that has always caused confusion was the Titanic’s speed. It was running at full speed when crossing the Atlantic Ocean, even when there were warnings of icebergs in the area. There were rumors that the ship was trying to break some kind of speed record, but the Titanic was not built for speed. This mammoth ship was a luxury liner. Molony indicates that this could have been caused by the fire-fighting activities.
In order to fight the fire, the stokers had been shoveling the burning coal into furnaces to burn the fire away. If the stokers had been shoveling as much coal as possible that could be the reason for the speed of the ship. As excess coal was burnt, the engines would work harder, generating speed. The stokers had been shoveling coal into the furnaces nonstop for 3 days fighting the fire during the maiden voyage. Molony thinks this is the reason why the ship was going at full speed when it hit the iceberg.”
Wow that makes *so much sense.*
I saw this article and just assumed it was political satire. What the fuck.
Ditto. What the fuck.
(
DuPage County Register, 26 Apr 1912, Fri, Page 7
- I found this in the Snopes article on the subject)
Dilleys’ report was in newspapers in 1912; how did this not get into the massive cultural memory of the Titanic? I’ve heard accounts of how it sunk at least 10 times and never about this.
Because it was covered up.
Oh, not this bunker fire bunkum again.
I won’t bother going into detail about any of the claims this theory makes as I already made a post about the bunker fire, which you can read here. And for those who want more detailed information from top Titanic historians and a more in-depth analysis of the fire and especially the cover-up claims, check out the article “Titanic: Fire and Ice (Or What You Will)”:
The fire likely wasn’t as big or raging as the accounts or claims suggest. Bunker fires were smoldering, slow-burning affairs.
The damage to the watertight bulkhead was likely limited to a minor bit of scorching or deformation, if that.
The bunker did not collapse during the sinking. It was likely a weaker, non-watertight bunker door, rather, that gave way after water spilled over the bulkhead into said bunker and filled it up.
The mark isn’t visible in all photos from the time.
The mark is nowhere near the fire (see below).
There wasn’t a coverup. The fire was discussed at the British inquiry and the story’s been known about since it happened. The fact that some of you haven’t heard of it just means that some of you hadn’t heard of it.
The one thing I will address here in any detail is that photo which Titanic “expert” Senan Molony and others claim is a scorch or heat deformation mark caused by the coal bunker fire. The photo that isn’t reproduced in the Fire and Ice article due to Molony’s copyrights on the photo, which is handy when you don’t want criticism. The photo which I’m more than happy to reproduce here. This one:
The mark also appears in this photo:
It would seem to slightly change shape between photos - the only two that ever show a “mark,” but never mind that. Let’s focus on the photo most used, this time with some vital information overlaid:
Blue shows where the water line is. Red shows the line of red paint on the lower hull. Yellow shows the decks. Green shows the approximate fore and aft bounds of the mark if you drew them vertically along the hull, taking into account the hull contour. And orange shows the outer bounds of the mark itself.
Okay, okay, so where is this mark in relation to the ship’s interior? If you project those details onto a profile view, you get this:
The mark is located well above the waterline, even above the antifouling line, along F and G Decks, below the forward well deck and a little aft of it. What actual rooms are in this area, you ask?
On F Deck, a bunch of 3rd class cabins. On G Deck, the Post Office, 1st Class Baggage Room, and some 3rd class cabins. It even crosses a watertight bulkhead. Funny, if this area was on fire, there are no accounts from any 3rd class survivors, crew, or anybody else to suggest that, nor any signs of broken portholes with flames shooting out of them or burning behind them in the photos.
So where is the bunker supposed to be? Well the grey area on G Deck is an upper coal bunker, but that’s not where the fire was, and even if it was, it wouldn’t be responsible for the mark. So where is the fire?
Down there, way under the waterline, near the bottom of the forward bunker of boiler room 5. It’s supposed by some that heat transfer through the bulkhead could have also caused smoldering coals in the aft bunker of boiler room 6, but that will never be known.
In conclusion, the mark was nowhere near the fire, as the fire was 50+ feet away, behind 1-3 watertight bulkheads depending on where you pin the fire and mark, far below the waterline while the mark is well above it, and in a location such that, if there was a blazing inferno there, there would have been utter panic aboard Titanic as smoke filled the ship and flames threatened the entire vessel, nor would there have been any mail left for the postal workers to save when the ship started sinking.
Additionally, some very smart person from CNN or possibly the very good Titanic expert Senan Molony also ran the above photo as further proof of the fire, claiming it shows another scorch mark/damage on the hull.
Convincing, right? Well, if you take more than 3.72 seconds to think about it and then look at the rest of the photo, you’ll find…
…that it’s actually the angled front of a coal barge in shadow, tied up next to the ship along with other coal barges with the same angled bows. Even if it was a mark, it’s STILL nowhere near the fire location.
So if the mark’s not fire damage, what is it? Is it actually there on the hull?
Once it’s actually studied closely, the most likely explanation is that it’s a reflection of the wharf that’s nearby as Titanic was pulling away from it. The hull was slightly reflective and easily would have reflected things to a viewer at the right angle, such as in the photos. The mark appears to follow the contour of the hull, appears to change place, and is not in any other photos but the two taken as Titanic is near the wharf, further cementing its reflective and transient nature.
Molony himself was seemingly aware of the possibility that the mark was a mere reflection quite some time before ‘Titanic: The New Evidence’ aired in January 2017 and the frenzy began. In his book ‘Titanic Unseen’ published in March 2016, you’ll find this:
I guess he didn’t listen to expert opinion. It would have saved him from making a bunch of money on a documentary and getting a ton of attention.
While this blog has had the rare update to descriptions and whatnot, this is the first time in almost 8 years that it’s gotten a whole new layout, look, and overhaul, including a cleaning-out of old junk posts and reblogs.
As any remaining longtime followers may note, I haven’t updated or posted much outside of rare THG and other reblogs for a long time, going months at a time without posting anything. There are a few reasons for this. Part of it is because I’ve not paid as much attention to Tumblr since the site overall seems to be declining and I’ve just lost interest. On top of that, I’ve been rather busy and preoccupied.
Perhaps the biggest reason,m though, is my involvement in Titanic: Honor and Glory. When I started this blog, I intended to post a lot about Titanic itself. This would have included my CGI work, research-related things, facts, etc. Back then, I didn’t have a lot of material to go on, and the project - when it was in the form of Lost in the Darkness and early on as Honor and Glory - was much more open for me to do other Titanic things. This all changed as we became more serious and professional and took on some of the world’s top Titanic historians as consultants. Nowadays, we have access to some of the best research and, quite frankly, I’ve seen some pretty amazing material that’s not been seen by many. Most of that material comes with the caveat that it not be spread. Along with the increasing need to keep many elements of our Titanic recreation work under wraps in order to avoid our work being copied/stolen and competitive for the completed game, and that fact that it and any work I may do myself may rely on confidential material, it’s meant that I am extremely limited in what I can share here. Essentially, my safest bet is to publish things that show only released material and reblogs of other people’s things, and approved THG posts.
That doesn’t mean I can’t show/post anything, but it’s very difficult to keep track of what’s safe to show and what isn’t, and the more risky things would require approval. So, for now, I will probably just post the usual, while possibly picking up my management of the THG Tumblr page which has also seen neglect lately.
Thanks for sticking around, and please continue to do so!
Many people mistake that certain piece of wood for a door. Some people know it’s not a door, but don’t know what it actually is. This should clear things up.
