Page 24 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 19 - 22

not sufficiently definite, because closing the watertight doors between E and F deck would only have made a delay of a few minutes, perhaps five or ten minutes. The evidence is not accurate enough upon that. 20361. Now, there is one thing I want to ask you upon this plan in order to get it quite clear. On the top of the blue document, a sketch or section, you show her floating with the waterline below the top of the bulkheads, but you have flooded No. 1 hold, No. 3 hold, and No. 6 boiler section? - Quite right. 20362. You mean that, do you? - Yes, that is quite correct; that is what the plan shows. 20363. Therefore, that is two adjoining watertight compartments flooded, one being a boiler section, and also another flooded? - Yes. 20364. You have three compartments flooded, two adjoining? - Yes, and it would be quite fair to say that the effect of flooding No. 1 hold would be much the same as the effect of flooding No. 2 hold, the smaller space being counteracted by the difference in leverage, and therefore the evidence of these two plans goes to show that the ship would have floated at the time of the accident if any three of these forward compartments had been flooded - any three instead of any two. 20365. Now that is having regard to the actual waterline with which she started? - The estimated waterline at the time of the accident. 20366. The other calculations you made in the course of the building were, of course, upon an a priori assumption? - Yes, as to the moulded line there is one other flooding plan I would like to put in. 20367. (The Commissioner.) You mean a deeper line? - A much deeper line. 20368. And greater immersion in the water? - Yes, my Lord. This is a similar plan trying to illustrate, as far as I can, the accident as to what I understand happened; conditions D and E. 20369. (Mr. Rowlatt.) What shall we call the document itself? - Flooding plans D and E. The Attorney-General: If your Lordship would not mind putting on the blue ones A, B, C, and call them flooding plans A, B, C, that will identify them. The Witness: The first ones put in. The Attorney-General: Yes, those will be flooding plans A, B, and C. The Commissioner: They are marked A, B, and C. The Attorney-General: Then will your Lordship call them flooding plans A, B, and C, and the last ones that were handed up will be flooding plans D and E, and the other is flooding by compartments. The Commissioner: That identifies them properly. The Attorney-General: Yes, my Lord. 20370. (Mr. Rowlatt.) Now, what does this plan show? - This plan shows the condition of things shortly after, as far as I can make out, or about the time that Dillon was driven out of No. 4 boiler room and shortly after Barrett was driven out of No. 5. You will see the forepeak, No. 1 hold, No. 2 hold, and No. 3 hold, and No. 6 boiler room are completely flooded; that there is a considerable amount of water in No. 5, that corresponding to the fact that there was a rush of water, according to Barrett’s evidence, through the pass. He said before he went there, there was a considerable rush of water through the pass, meaning that some considerable amount of water was in there; and, according to Dillon’s evidence, the water was just above the stokehold plates. That is the condition shown by the blue tinting and the black waterline. That water would then, from the wound in the forward cross bunker in No. 5, be still rising in No. 5 boiler room, and when it reached a little more it would give what is indicated in red, the red water, and what I want to point out on this plan in particular, and the reason why it was made, is that to carry all the bulkheads up to D deck would not have saved the ship in this particular, if this water in No. 4 boiler room was merely accidental and the bulkhead not actually damaged, as I believe, because