Harry P.

Yeah, it's a controversial story with several "explanations."

Supposedly a ship named "Californian" saw Titanic's distress rockets and was close enough to respond, but didn't. Apparently Californian was stuck amid ice and the captain had decided to stay put overnight.

Yet another Titanic fun fact... After Titanic hit the iceberg, the radio man sent out a "CQD" distress signal, CQD being commonly used on British ships. But CQD had never been adopted as the universal distress call; in fact SOS had become the international Morse Code distress signal in 1906. Junior radio man Harold Bride suggested to senior radio man Jack Phillips that he might want to try using the fairly new SOS signal instead of CQD. Had Titanic sent out SOS in the first place instead of CQD, who knows what might have happened.

The theory was that the bulkheads had to only rise up above the water line (which they did), not necessarily go all the way up to create a true "watertight" compartment. The idea was that if any of the "watertight" compartments were somehow compromised, any water flowing into the compartment could only rise to the level of the water outside the ship. "Water seeks its own level," as they say. Any water flooding a given compartment couldn't possibly rise any higher than the general water level of the ocean, so as long as the tops of the bulkheads were well above the water line, everything was ok. But what happened is that Titanic grazed the iceberg for quite a distance, and several compartments were compromised. As the water rushed in and filled the compromised compartments, the weight of all that water forced the front of the ship down. And the further down the front of the ship went, the higher the water rose (actually the water didn't rise... it can only rise to its own level...but as the front of the ship went further and further down, the relative level of the water in the compartments rose). Finally the front of the ship went down so far that water spilled over the top of the bulkhead wall and began to flood the next compartment... and a chain reaction occurred as one compartment after another filled with water spilling over the tops of the bulkhead walls. Apparently the ship's designers and engineers never addressed the possibility of more than one compartment being compromised. Just before it sank, Titanic was nearly vertical, with all the forward compartments flooded. Obviously the ship was not designed to be vertical, and the stresses caused the ship to snap in two. The front and rear half of the ship sank separately and rest on the ocean floor several miles apart from one another.

Another interesting factoid... (yeah, I'm sort of a Titanic afficionado)... Titanic was thought to be "unsinkable" because of the design of the ship. The hull was divided into a series of bulkheads from stem to stern, each bulkhead considered "waterproof," so if one of the bulkheads was compromised, the rest would hold strong. But the walls that separated the bulkheads only reached part way up to the deck! If one bulkhead was compromised, it would fill with water, and then the water would splash over the top of the bulkhead wall into the next bulkhead... and so on! Which is exactly what happened and why Titanic sank. What were the designers thinking???

Another interesting Titanic factoid (I've got a million of 'em!)... White Star Line went with cheap rivets to save a few bucks up front. They were cheap because they were made of inferior metal with too many impurities in it. Many experts theorize that the iceberg split open Titanic's hull so easily because the el cheapo rivets gave way, whereas top-quality rivets would have held. Just a theory, of course... but it is a fact that they cheaped out on the rivets. Saved a few bucks up front... cost them dearly in PR later on...

Don't forget the Edmund Fitzgerald...

I was talking about Titanic.

Another interesting factoid... Only three of the smokestacks on Titanic were real. The fourth one was fake, added purely for looks and to make the ship seem more powerful. It's true!

Yeah, I'd guess the mechanicals will all be state-of-the-art. It's the parts that the passengers see that will be faithful to the original. I think it's a super cool idea, even if I could never afford a ticket. But I have to wonder why this wasn't done a few years ago to commemmorate the original Titanic's maiden (and only) voyage? Would have been cool to have the 100 year anniversary cruise...

Yeah... different times, for sure!

Interesting factoid... The original Titanic had way too few lifeboats... not nearly enough to evacuate all the passengers and crew. But it did have enough lifeboats to meet the legal requirements of the day. Apparently the powers that were figured saving everyone wasn't too important...

Wait... how many lifeboats on this thing?

So if we're talking about modern day replicas of ill-fated luxury liners... when will the Hindenberg II make its maiden flight?

If they were smart they would have Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane on the maiden voyage for publicity!

And while we're being specific... that plex roof panel was tinted a very obvious green on the real car. The photo also shows the chrome "tiara" that Tulio was talking about. Those parts are on the kit's chrome tree.

Just out of curiosity, I checked out milk home delivery prices for a local dairy. Of course they have a whole menu of products, but just for example... a gallon of milk is $7.38...plus $2.99 delivery charge! So more than ten bucks for a gallon of milk delivered to your door. Yikes... That's a lotta money for moo juice...

It must be pretty expensive to have milk delivered. I can't think there are too many people who still do that, so the cost per delivery has to be pretty high.

Ads are what keeps most websites free to you.

That's pretty cool how they kept the old-timey looks but have all the latest high-tech navigation stuff on it. It would be pretty cool to sail on this, I bet. And since they're sailing from China to Dubai... no icebergs along the way!

Looks pretty good to me!

Welcome aboard, Mack! Glad to have you...

Your tax dollars at work.

What does this have to do with the topic?

Oh, come on, now! What fun is the internet without pop-up ads?