Is it the Titanic or the Olympic at the bottom of the sea?
I came across these photos today which pose and interesting question. Back in 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg and sunk to the bottom of the sea. In 1985 it was found and images were taken of it. However some of the images do not match the actual photos taken at the time of the ship. Clearly something is wrong. The photo's do however match the sister ship of the Titanic, that of the Olympic!
So which sunk?
There are several differences between the two ships mostly around the names and the portholes. Here is a comparison between the two ships:
As you can see the Titanic has larger windows. Also note the rectangler hole on the Olympic just below the curve of the structure. Not present on the Titanic.
Now have a look at the wreck pictures and comparisons with that.
As you can see the windows on the wreck do NOT match the Titanic, but do match the Olympic!
And the hole is present too!
Why would it be? Well the theory, branded one of those conspiracy theories of course, is that the two ships had be switched. With some quick alterations such as changing the name of the ships. This was due to the Olympic being so badly damaged, but still capable of sailing, after a collision with a UK warship. Apparently the Olympic ship would have been worth only the scrap value. So it was decided to have it meet with an accident at sea and claim on the insurance. But since the insurance companies would not ensure a ship that had already been in accidents (there were more than one). It was renamed the Titanic on it's maiden voyage!
This isn't anything new of course. There's even a TV documentary about it. But even if you think the insurance thing is nonsense. That doesn't take away the evidence that the wreck does not match the images of the real Titanic.
Remember the Olympic was launched before the Titanic.
Footnote:
There is a book on the subject by Steve Hall and Bruce Beveridge which looks at the evidence. I haven't had the book long so I haven't read all the details, but the conclusion basically is that it is the Titanic on the seabed. However the book has flaws in it. Despite extensive use of photographs nearly all of them are from the time of the ships. The actual wreck pictures you can count on one hand. I suspect the reason behind this is down to the fees charged for more recent pictures. Therefore a lot of the comparisons are between the contemporary images. Though they talk about putting things in laymen's terms, the photos describe the deck details and then equipment on them, which the laymen doesn't know. In several images which are in black and white, they point out "brown" fixtures, which reminded me of the guy on TV describing a snooker match to black and white viewers saying "the black ball is next to the pink".
So far I have not seen any reference to the rectangler window being unique to the Olympic or the Titanic. The book mentions James Cameron's exploration of the wreck, with High Definition cameras, but of course none of the images are shown. Saying state rooms for certain people that were only on the Titanic. However a lot of the work is based around details such as ventilation systems being different on the two ships.
The book lacks several things, including an index. However they have included large sections on the life of the other White Star Line ships, which are nothing to do with the two ships.
It points out that both ships were under-insured, so there was no reason to fraud. But even so setting sail with a damaged ship, would cause any insurance company to not pay anything out at all if anything then happened to the ship, especially if it turned out that the ship sailing was supposed to be brand new! And as far as I know they did a payout for the accident.
For me the story either falls flat or not on the Thomas Andrews issue. Being the designer of the two ships Andrews would have known the difference between them. So if the ships were switched he would have known. And therefore had to be in on the plot. Question for me would be what was the designer doing on the ship? Was it common practice for the designer of the ship to sail all the way on the maiden voyage of a ship?
It does open up his character a bit more. For in the stories of him, he is seen as a kind helpful man doing his best to see passengers get off the boat and giving advice to those stuck on it after the boats are gone. One of the few men onboard who knew how to survive, but yet doesn't. Eyewitness say he made no attempt to escape and for a man with a wife and children seems odd to me. However this can be accounted for by two reasons. First that he really felt himself to blame for not making the Titanic able to survive the disaster and knowing that nearly all the people on board were going to die. And the second reason being guilt for his part in the fraud and switch.
