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New incredible 3D imaging confirms a heartbreaking story from the Titanic's final moments

Eyewitness accounts from survivors have been confirmed.

via NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island (NOAA/IFE/URI)/Wikimedia Commons

The bow of the Titanic in 2004.

As technology improves, we learn more about the fate of the RMS Titanic, which sank into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912. In 1985, the sunken vessel was discovered 12,500 feet below the surface due to a remote-controlled deep-sea camera system called Argo, which could explore depths never thought possible.

In 2022, Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, gave the world incredible new insights into the Titanic’s final voyage by taking over 700,000 images from every angle of the ship, providing an exact 3D reconstruction. The new images, known as the ship's “digital twin,” are an incredible way to preserve the Titanic for future generations as it slowly decays at the bottom of the ocean. It’s believed that the iron in the ship's bow will eventually dissolve between 280 to 420 years.

"It allows you to see the wreck as you can never see it from a submersible, and you can see the wreck in its entirety, you can see it in context and perspective. And what it's showing you now is the true state of the wreck,” Parks Stephenson, who has studied the Titanic for many years, told the BBC.

Investigators working with Magellan and Atlantic Productions, which recently made the documentary Titanic: The Digital Resurrection (now streaming on Disney+), have found that evidence supports one of the most courageous stories about the ship’s sinking: The engineers put their lives on the line to keep the ship's power on as it slowly plunged into the water.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The Titanic had 25 engineers working on the ship, and they all perished when it sank. Six hundred ninety-six crew members died during the disaster, and only 212 survived. Eyewitness accounts said that the engineers remained in the engine and boiler rooms to keep the power on, to allow the boat to send distress signals, and to control flooding as much as possible. This kept the lights on during the night evacuation and allowed the wireless radio system to send distress calls. According to National Geographic, their bravery helped save the lives of more than 700 people, even though it cost their own.

Analysis of the digital twin confirmed the eyewitness accounts of the engineers’ bravery by studying the ship's boilers, which were concave at the time of its sinking, meaning that they were still running when the vessel sank. Additionally, a valve on the stern of the boat was open, indicating that steam was still powering the electrical system as the ship sank.

"They kept the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the lifeboats safely with some light instead of in absolute darkness," Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst, told the BBC.

The Titanic’s story continues to unfold over a century after its demise, thanks to those dedicated to keeping its memory alive. It’s wonderful to see that all these years later, we are not only learning more about how the ship sank but also about the people who gave everything to save the lives of its passengers and fellow crewmembers. The story of the Titanic will be remembered for many reasons. Hopefully, the message that survives the longest is the bravery of those who made the ultimate sacrifice on the ship.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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Man who lives on a cruise ship reveals the biggest threat to passengers and it isn’t icebergs

And it's not the buffet.

via Alonso Reyes/Unsplash

A beautiful ship crosses the ocean.

Bryan James has become popular on social media for documenting his time working on Royal Caribbean International’s Odyssey of the Seas. He boarded the ship on December 8, 2023, and will continue his voyage through April 9, 2024.

The Odyssey of the Seas is one of the largest cruise ships in operation. It is 1,138 feet long and has a gross tonnage of 167,704 with 16 decks.

In a recent video, he revealed the biggest threat to passengers on a cruise ship. While most people, citing the Titanic disaster of 1912, would say it’s icebergs, according to James, it’s fires. He recently shared a video that shows just how seriously the Odyssey of the Seas takes the fire threat. The ship has massive doors installed in the ship that can prevent fire from moving through the ship.

“All cruise ships have these things called fire doors and they do exactly what you think. They just help prevent the spreading of fire on a cruise ship. But if you are the biggest ship in the world, you need the biggest fire doors in the world. I've never seen these until this morning,” James explained in a YouTube short.

Look at these things; they are massive!" he continued, "They probably do a really good job at stopping fires."

While fires are rare on cruise ships, in 2013, a blaze aboard one grabbed the public’s attention. A power generator on Carnival Cruise’s Triumph caught fire, which knocked out most of the ship’s power and left passengers with no lights, air conditioning, or working toilets. The ship drifted for 4 days at sea before it could be towed to Mobile, Alabama.

Fire is the BIGGEST threat to a cruise ship, not icebergs or sinking like with the Titanic


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How the Titanic's only Japanese passenger was shamed for surviving and won back his honor

Masabumi Hosono was subjected to what the Japanese refer to as "mura hachibu," or social ostracism, after jumping on a lifeboat.

Wikipedia

Masabumi Hosono, with his handwritten account of the Titanic tragedy

On the cold, fateful night of April 14, 1912, hundreds were spared a watery demise as they clamored onto the too-few lifeboats that accompanied the sinking Titanic on its one and only disastrous voyage.

Among the survivors was Masabumi Hosono, a 42-year-old civil servant and second-class passenger from Tokyo—and also the only Japanese passenger onboard.

Hosono would escape death that night, but his life would be forever changed, and not for the better. In many ways, he never escaped the Titanic’s curse.

A firsthand account of his experience reads like a tragic tale.

Hosono had been working on a long-term assignment in Russia for two years and was eager to return home to his beloved wife and children. In 1912, Hosono appeared to have received his wish—his assignment had ended, and he was able to leave Russia. Not only that, but he was able to travel back in style aboard the prestigious RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage.

So, after hopping over to London and buying a fresh new suit, Hosono joined the other passengers to marvel at the “Queen of the Ocean.”

In his writings, Hosono recalls the Titanic’s grand views, “enticing aromas,” and “lively music,” but what he treasured most of all was the thought of seeing his family again.

“With every golden sunrise, I was closer to home.”

Masabumi Hosono

A photo of Masabumi Hosono taken in 1912

Wikimedia Commons.

Then, just after midnight on April 14th, Hosono received a knock on his door. He was told to put on a lifebelt and head to the boat stations. As he made his way to the boat deck, Hosono was told to return to the lower part of the ship, despite his repeated attempts to inform the crewmen that he was traveling second class.

Finally, Hosono was able to slip past two talking guards and get to the ship deck, where he saw women and children being put into the lifeboats. Realizing he would have to go down with the ship, he prepared himself to “die an honorable samurai death.”

But then, an officer yelled, “Room for two more!” and Hosono saw another gentleman hop on. Knowing this was the only way to ever see his family again, he followed the man’s “bold example.”

As he helped row the small boat away from the chaos, Hosono had already begun to sense there would be consequences to his decision.

“We rowed at least two hundred feet away from the sinking vessel. From our position, I clearly saw the Titanic as it broke apart, then plunged beneath the waves. As the frightful shrills and cries from the drowning met my ears, I bowed my head in silence. Sobbing and weeping engulfed our small boat. Women and children were worried about the safety of their husbands and fathers. And feeling depressed and miserable, I worried what would become of me in the long run.”

titanic sinking

"Untergang der Titanic," as conceived by Willy Stöwer, 1912

Wikimedia Commons

Hosono’s suspicions were correct. After being rescued and put up in New York, he was labeled a coward, accused of disguising himself as a woman and made the target of cruel jokes, later being dubbed by an American newspaper as the “Lucky Japanese Boy.”


Back home, the repercussions were even harsher. According to Metropolis Japan, the sweetness of reuniting with his family was cut short for Hosono after he was found guilty of nonconformity to the “women and children first” principle and of evading an honorable death. Because of this, he was subjected to “mura hachibu”—the Japanese term for social ostracism.

He was bombarded with hate mail, and he would have lost his career had it not been for his qualifications. Numerous times, he was urged to commit suicide by the media—all for not embodying the samurai spirit, especially at a time when Japan was eager to impress the West with impressive displays of patriotic self-sacrifice and fervent nationalism, Metropolis Japan reported.

Stigma followed Hosono for the rest of his life, forcing him to live in shame as a recluse and forbidding discussion of the Titanic in his home until his death from natural causes in 1939.

Hosono’s handwritten pages detailing his tumultuous ordeal remained hidden in a book at the bottom of a drawer until 1997, when his family published his writings. That's when Matt Taylor, an American researcher and Titanic scholar, noted how his letter contradicted other stories at the time, which mistook him for another Asian man on a different lifeboat, who was accused of acting "ignobly." Rather, Hosono helped save his fellow passengers by rowing them to safety.

The discovery immediately "restores his honor and credibility," Taylor told the AP.

And to this day, Hosono’s gut-wrenching narration, written on Titanic stationery, remains one of the most expressive and detailed accounts of the anguish experienced by the passengers of the blighted vessel. Without it, a part of the story would be lost forever.

Hosono was portrayed by the media as a self-serving coward, but in truth, he was a man thrown into an impossible moral predicament, whose only sin was having a love for his family that outweighed any patriotic loyalty or societal expectation of chivalry. When seen through the eyes of compassion, knowing that we all fear what awaits us beyond that final goodbye, knowing that if given the opportunity, many of us would do the same to reach our dear ones, his decision seems anything other than disgraceful.

As Hosono wrote: “On that cold and terrifying April night, in a single moment, I seized an opportunity. And I chose life.”

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Science

Why did the Titan submarine implode, but the Titanic made it to the ocean floor intact?

Why did one implode and the other didn't?

via NOAA/Wikimedia Commons

The hull of the Titanic.

The violent implosion of the Titan submersible on the way to visit the Titanic captured people’s attention across the globe. It brought up a lot of conversations about social class, the vehicle's questionable construction and the haunting history of death surrounding the Titanic itself.

For those of us who don’t work in oceanography or physics, it also brought up a lot of questions about underwater implosion. A big one circulating among conspiracy theorists and confused laypeople alike: Why did the Titan implode while the Titanic didn’t?

The Titan submersible is understood to have disintegrated in milliseconds somewhere neat a depth of 11,500 feet. In comparison, we can still see most of the wreckage of the Titanic 12,500 feet down on the ocean floor.

A lot of people are asking the question on Twitter.

First, what is an implosion versus an explosion? “In an explosion, the force acts outwards, but in an implosion, the force acts inwards,” Arun Bansil, professor of physics at Northeastern University, said. “When a submersible is deep in the ocean, it experiences the force on its surface due to water pressure. When this force becomes larger than the force hull can withstand, the vessel implodes violently.”

Blair Thornton, a professor at the University of Southampton, told NBC that the force of the implosion was up to 10,000 tons of physical force, the equivalent of the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

So, if the Titanic also traveled through the same depths en route to the bottom of the ocean, why didn’t it suffer a similar fate?

In some ways, it's quite simple: There was a difference in pressure between the enclosed submarine and the Titanic, which had doors and windows so that water could easily travel through it, equalizing the pressure on the inside and the outside.

However, researchers believe there may have been two implosions on the Titanic's journey to the bottom of the ocean. Research published by Dave Gleicher posits that parts of the stern and the poop deck imploded as the ship sank. But most of the boat was water permeable, so the wreckage was recognizable when it was first discovered in 1985.

Although no one is sure why the Titan submersible, created by OceanGate Expeditions, succumbed to the pressures of the ocean depths, many experts are pointing to its carbon fiber hull as the culprit. Carbon fiber is a relatively new material, especially for submarines, that hasn’t been adequately tested in extreme depths. Some speculate that the Titan’s hull could have been compromised due to its 2 dozen previous dives. Like a balloon, all it takes is one hole at extreme depths for the entire vessel to collapse.

“It was very clear that these people were operating a submersible that was unsafe,” Katy Croff Bell, president and founder of the Ocean Discovery League, told NBC News.

“They knew it. They had been warned on multiple occasions,” she added. “And I think that we can only hope that we ensure in the future that something like this does not happen, and people take this very, very seriously.”

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