The bow section is dug into the bottom roughly 60 feet at the anchors. At the rear it sits almost on top of the mud, fully exposed. How did this elegant liner end up as it did? Consult the sections on the sinking and the breakup.

What do we see when examining the bow? The bow section is 450 feet long (137 meters long). That's a LONG city block. It stands 11 stories tall at the #2 funnel. That's the forward half of the ship.

In examining the bow section we have the illusion of the grand and clean lines of the ship but also the subtle devastation that makes the wreck a permanent possession of the sea.

The bow section broke free of the stern section at the surface and began the five minute journey to the bottom. It didn't "plane away" and fly through the water on it's sleek lines to arrive 1970 feet from the stern section. Rather it settled nearly straight down, it's forward speed never reaching 10 knots. The drop is so great that an average forward speed of 5-6 knots gets you the 2000 feet (600 meters) separation between the bow and the center of the wreck site. The fall-to-travel ratio was 6-1.

The bow section descended at close to a 45 degree angle, tottering between resistance from the superstructure and the more hydrodynamic shape of the lower bow, with the resistance to the broad bottom in the rear and gravity providing the slight forward propulsion.

The bow didn't impact with the bottom the way a plane might plow in. Tilted at a steep angle, the tip of the bow impacted with the bottom but the inertia of 30,000 tons kept the remainder of the bow section falling on the original, almost vertical line, driving the tip of the bow forward and deeper into the mud. The rear of the bow section hit the bottom at a speed of 25-30 mph.

The impact also caused two bends in the hull. The forward bend under the well deck cranes was estimated by Dr. Robert Ballard at about 6 degrees. Ken Marschall claimed the more recent views by James Cameron in filming the movie "Titanic" showed the cranes were cocked at more like a 10 degree angle.

The second bend under the forward expansion joint is about 4 degrees. Both bends represent a portion of the keel that has been compressed and the decks above are deformed corresponding to their level and the degree of bend. Together this indicates that the hull integrity is fractured in two places. This makes raising the bow section for salvage extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Copyright 1997 Roy Mengot