There is NEVER a bad time for a Toonces reference. When I say NEVER, I really mean NEVER FREAKING EVER! Toonces FTW!
i remember hearing that they actually threw the engines in reversed and then tried to turn, which doesnt make you turn as sharp. If they had kept going forward and turned they would have cleared it.
James Cameron is going to have to re-film some scenes I guess of the guy operating the steering mechanism and some of the conversations that went on. Imagine some dumbass official with the power to tell the captain of the boat to disregard safety for more speed in regards to operating the boat. They were stupid in more ways than one. It all seems to go back to the same thing...beating a speed record. Too bad that dumbass Ismay lived. They should have hanged him.
Bad steering or not, the real flaw was in the design of the hull. Basically it boils down to this: hull got weaker in cold water. Of course back then, material design wasn't very advanced.
It was also a materials engineering failure. http://www.materialstoday.com/view/1618/what-really-sank-the-titanic/ Titanic sank in as little time as it did because of faulty and low grade rivets. They used steel rivets for the center hull and low-grade iron ones for front and back. The panels came off much more than it did had they used steel ones throughout, which meant it sank in as little as 2 and a half hours. Also, because they were building 3 ships at once, there was a shortage of material and man-power for rivets. The company was aware of this but to meet the deadline they resorted to low-grade rivets. The company still exists to this day so I wonder if lawsuit can be brought up against it.
