Titanic -Improved Copy

[Matheous-2]

Sorry to use this section -but could not find a 'correct' section in AB.
I remember watching a Sky documentary about great ships and one in particular sticks in my mind except for it's name. The story goes that this cruise ship was built as an improved design based on the famous 'Titanic' eg., she had bulkheads all the way to the top deck but despite that she sank very quickly because of two important factors. One was that the weather was very hot and as a result -almost all portholes were opened allowing water to enter very quickly. The second major fatal error was that all bulkhead doors were left opened because the crew were ending/beginning their shifts at the same time which of course rendered them useless -allowing the sea to pour in and sink the ship within only two hours.....Can anyone name this vessel for me?? (Thanks)

[Coobeastie]

That'll be the Britannic. Titanics sister ship, sunk after hitting a mine off Greek island of Kea in 1916. She was being used as a hospital ship, and you're right the open port holes opened by the nurses to ventilated the wards quickened the sinking. Some of those who died were in two life boats that were sucked into the propellers which were still running.

[sir.prize]

The Britannic: She was fitted with all the improvements that were learnt from the Titanic disaster – including better bulkheads that ran all the way to the top deck of the ship. There were waterproof hatches deep in the hull to allow stokers and similar to service the engines bygoing from one waterproof compartment to the next. To cut a long story short, what happened was that by the time the ship was ready, World War II had broken out and she was comandeered as a hospital ship and sent to the Mediterranean. In spite of being painted white with a red cross on her side she was still hit by a torpedo and sank. In spite of having all the improvements, she went down quicker than the Titanic did, although the loss of life was not so great due to the location and the improvement in the number of lifeboats, the latter being another lesson learnt from the Titanic disaster.
The ship had been designed to operate in the cold North Atlantic, so in the Med, not only were the hatches in the bulkheads kept open to assist with air circulation for the stokers, the portholes were actually open too! Consequently, water just flooded in.

[Coobeastie]

Torpedoing has been discounted. Logs for the uboat (u73) show it had laid mines in the area and subsequent dives have found the mine anchors.

[Matheous-2]

Thanks to all- Just to clarify sir.prize...Did you mean World War I ?