Page 139 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 23 - 26

The Commissioner: 1891, is it not? 24368. (Mr. Edwards.) Yes, my Lord; it sat pursuant to a Minute of March, 1890. (To the Witness.) Had you anything to do with the drawing up of Circular 1401? - Yes. 24369. Are you responsible for its draughtsmanship? - For its draughtsmanship, yes. 24370. Apart from Messrs. Harland and Wolff, has any discussion arisen with any firm of shipbuilders and yourself as to the precise meaning of this Rule? - I cannot recollect that any discussion has arisen as to the meaning of it. 24371. I will come to the discussion you had upon it with Messrs. Harland and Wolff in a moment or two; but take that circular in conjunction with Rule 16. What were those Rules based upon? Were they based upon the Report of the Bulkheads Committee of 1891? - No. 24372. When you are asked to decide whether there is an efficient and watertight system of efficient and watertight bulkheads in a ship, to what do you refer? What is your standard? What is your test of efficiency? - I am not asked whether there is an efficient system. The question is not put to me. 24373. By Rule 16 there is to be an efficient and watertight engine room and stokehold bulkhead, as well as a collision watertight bulkhead? - Yes. 24374. What is your test of efficiency? Or, I will put it in this way; have you any standard by which to test the efficiency of a watertight bulkhead? - We have two standards; we have the standard laid down by the Committee of 1891, and the standard in Lloyd’s Rules. 24375. You do, then, sometimes refer to the Report of 1891? - Yes. 24376. Is it not the fact that in that Report of 1891, part of the test of an efficient watertight system was that there should be watertight decks? - In the Bulkheads Committee of 1891? 24377. Yes? - If there is any requirement in the Report of the Bulkheads Committee that there ought to be watertight decks, it has escaped my memory; there may be such a thing. The Commissioner: Read it to us, Mr. Edwards. 24378. (Mr. Edwards.) The Committee were asked by the Minute, my Lord, to report: “As to the manner in which ships shall be subdivided, so that they may float in moderate weather with any two compartments in free connection with the sea; and what Rule there should be as to the proportion of freeboard of the watertight deck next above, to which such bulkheads are attached, as shall be sufficient to enable the ship so to float.” Upon which the Committee reported: “(1) Vessels may be considered able to float in moderate weather with any two adjoining compartments in free communication with the sea, if fitted with efficient transverse watertight bulkheads, so spaced that when two such compartments are laid open to the sea, the uppermost watertight deck to which all the bulkheads extend, and which we will call the bulkhead deck, is not brought nearer to the water surface than would be indicated by a line drawn round the side at a distance amidships of 3/l00ths of the depth at side at that place below the bulkhead deck, and gradually approaching it towards the ends, where it may be 3/200ths of the same depth below it. This line we may call the margin-of-safety line.” Do you know if in any of the ships it was insisted upon that they should have a watertight bulkhead deck? - Not watertight in the sense of resisting pressure from below. Leave out the question of watertight in regard to pressure, but watertight in the sense of water not being able to percolate. The Commissioner: To flow over. 24379. (Mr. Edwards.) That is so, my Lord, yes, to flow over. The Witness: No, we do not. 24380. And do you insist upon a watertight deck in the sense that there should be no openings in the deck up through which the water may come? - No. 24381. Can you say, in view of that recommendation, if you use that as a standard, why the Marine Department do not do so? - I think that the term “watertight deck” as used in this