Talk:Empress of Ireland

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Shipwreck-related priority open tasks: To Do Shipwrecks Clean up typos Improve grammar Add any additions if needed Discuss desired additions Cattewater Wreck Needs expansion Done Shipwrecks Re-wrote the first paragraph Cleaned up Types of Shipwrecks it felt a bit jumbled Cattewater Wreck Started the article

Contents 1 Design Changes 2 Number lost source? 3 Relative movements of the ships 4 Photo is not the Empress of Ireland

[edit] Design Changes

"The disaster led to a change in thinking among naval architects with regard to the design of ships bows. The backward slanting bow design of the day (see picture above) caused, in the event of a collision, immediate massive fatal damage below the waterline. The effect of the Storstad's bows on the Empress of Ireland's has been likened to that of a "chisel being forced into an aluminium can" Designers began to employ the raked bows that we are familiar with today, ensuring that much of the energy of a collision is absorbed by the point of the bow impacting above the waterline of the other ship ensuring less damage under the surface."

This sounds suspicious to me, firstly because the bow does not "slope backward" -- it's vertical (this is obvious on the plans of many ships) -- and secondly, ships were built right up until the thirties with vertical stems (the Empress of Britain being an example). I've always thought raked stems were sea-handling feature. John.Conway 11:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number lost source?

See note at Talk:1914#Empress of Ireland where a different number of dead is quoted. KenWalker | Talk 02:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relative movements of the ships

I was part of a team that recently reviewed the sinking for a Canadian film company. The dynamics of the collision do not support the 'Empress' view that they were stationary and had been for some time. Evidence to the Inquiry from a number of sources spoke of the Storstad coming in at an angle on the starboard bow of the Empress, penetrating and then pivoting around the impact point so that she ended up drifting aft with her bow pointing towards the Empress. I would suggest this is only possible if there is a moment applied to the Storstad by movement of the Empress. There was also some technical evidence given to the Inquiry that showed that Storstad's bow below the waterline had been wrenched to starboard - the bow above the waterline had been crushed to port. The conclusion was that Empress was moving when Storstad hit and that the above water movement of the bow was caused by the Storstad's anchor bolster hitting the Empress's hull. Subsea 18:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo is not the Empress of Ireland

The photo is actually her sister ship, Empress of Britain. It is hard to see in the low resolution image, but the name on the ship has been retouched on the original photo to read "Ireland" instead of "Britain". It is easy to spot on the higher quality photo printed in the Reader's Digest book "True north strange & free" page 145.

Jon Dearden / 2007-Jan-03