Did the Titanic have to sink?

I do not wish to appear rude, especially to a new member but you are mistaken.

One of the points you are missing is, water is free to flow sideways, your idea of increased pressure on the inclined flat bottom due to movement assumes the water beneath the hull is prevented from moving sideways.
Any theoretical rise in pressure will be dissipated by the water being squeezed out the sides.

Long narrow boats do not plane.

I have not the time or energy to address all your misconceptions and find from experience it is often unproductive. However as an example you are confusing surface tension with viscosity.

I shall leave you with this thought, have you seen a ship motoring with the bow trimmed up, does it leap out of the water?

 

I don't think the OP was suggesting the Titanic would actually plane. His thought was that with the screws in the stern and a long flat bottomed hull dragging behind, the pressure of the water moving past the hull in reverse would have the effect of trying to lift the bow. The vessel may still take on water, but the reverse headway may have enabled it to do so without dropping its bow so quickly.

I can see the logic in this idea. However, I couldn't say that it would have slowed water ingress. I don't know anything about the design of the Titanic.

If going bow down meant that water was able to flood over the top of partial bulkheads and increase the rate of sinking because of that, then maintaining better trim would certainly have slowed the ship's sinking.

As a the ship continues to take on water, the stern would also drop lower, and if the boiler rooms weren't rendered inoperative, the screws would remain in the water longer because it would not come up or off the water.

It seems like a worthy idea to explore. I don't have the expertise to work the physics, but it feels right to me.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

Titanic had sustained damage to 6 adjacent compartments after having endured raking damage along the immersed hull volume. That is a large amount of floodwater accumulation, almost a third of the WT volume.
Now perhaps the vessel could have reached reverse speeds of 10+ knots in the intact condition, but certainly not with the consideration of added mass due to floodwater, which largely dismisses the false notion being perpetuated that some form of “Venturi” effect would drain the compartments at certain threshold speed value.

On the other hand, one of the most credible solutions to this problem was made in a James Cameron documentary, where the deployment of all life jackets within a given fore space would have reduced permeability and thus floodable volume towards the fore, which would in turn work to offset sinkage and trim, thus preventing spill over the upper extremities of the bulkheads.

“Fallguy” also, quite rightly introduced the notion of system availability post flooding , which would most likely have been heavily impaired due to damage in furnace areas.this too reduces the probably of a large reverse speed, premised on the notion that propulsion has not been impaired in any way following the accident.

Speed would be imperative across all proposals. Though I might say that aa are tackling the wrong problem.


All the best,
Donald P, PhD, MEmg, BENg

 

As long as I got mentioned, I'll speak more, and thanks to @Don92, (the at sign works well Don to inform the person they have been referred to). I've always wondered whether there would be any practical way to have sealed the lower floors or forward damaged areas? And whether any of the new monster cruise ships have a way to contain a hull breach of such magnitude. It seems slowing the sinking rate would have saved lives, so could it have been as simple as some sealable doors, or is there just too much open between floors for service like heating and mechanicals?