AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC
of foundering. The safety line represents the depth to which a ship will sink when any two adjoining compartments are opened to the sea and therefore flooded. If the two forward compartments are flooded, for instance, the bow may sink with safety, until the water is only three one-hundredths of the depth of the ship, at the side, from the bulkhead deck. If two central compartments are flooded, the ship is supposed to settle with safety until the bulkhead deck at that point is only three one-hundredths of the depth of the side, at that place, above the water.
The raising of the height of the bulkheads, by one deck, at the engine-room, is due to the operation of this rule; for here the two adjoining compartments, those containing the reciprocating engines and the turbine, are the largest in the ship, and their flooding would sink the ship proportionately lower in the water.
Now it takes but a glance at the diagrams on page 66 to show that the application of the Board of Trade rule brought the bulkhead line of the Titanic down to a lower level than that of any of the other notable ships shown in comparison with her. It was the low bulkheads,
[ 110 ]
