Steven Ujifusa

The video below indicates a new, disturbing theory that caused the “Titanic” to split in half, not at a high angle, but at a shallow one. She split along one of her expansion joints, which allowed her rigid steel superstructure to flex slightly with the movement of the sea. For naval architects, this was a necessary evil in ocean liner construction, especially as ships grew longer than 700 feet, and these expansion joints were dangerous weak points. The “Titanic” might have actually cracked (albeit not lethally) during her first Atlantic gale, had she ever faced one. The United States Lines flagship “Leviathan,” built in 1914 as the German “Vaterland,” actually cracked along her forward expansion joint during a North Atlantic gale in late 1929 while running at full speed. William Francis Gibbs, who had overseen the renovation of “Leviathan” from 1920 to 1923, never forgot this lesson.

In the case of the “Titanic,” the new theory of the break up suggests that the ship actually split apart while she was at a relatively shallow 10-15 angle downwards. This probably means that the 1,500 people trapped onboard the ship after the lifeboats had gone were caught completely by surprise when the lights went out and the ship began to rapidly sink.

The SS “United States,” built with an aluminum superstructure, did not require these expansion joints. Aluminum, unlike steel, has greater flexibility while having a comparable level of strength. Aluminum however is very difficult to shape, and it was not until after World War II did shipyards have the ability to construct upperworks of commercial ships with large amounts of the metal. Joining the steel hull and the aluminum superstructure was an immense challenge for the shipyard. To prevent galvanic corrosion, an extremely durable insulation had to be placed between the two metals to prevent the aluminum from disintegrating where it came into contact with steel.

Not only would the “United States” have probably survived the iceberg strike which sank the “Titanic,” but also would never have split in such a catastrophic manner.