A cold, rainy and windy morning greets us as we hit Windows for our coffee, then the gym for a quick morning workout. Jay has opened early, so no need to sneak in, even though we do come through the Spa Suite door. This morning is our Loyalty breakfast, we’ve either never had one scheduled on a sailing or have skipped it because we don’t remember how it even works. Arriving a few minutes early to Discoveries, we find the lounge there packed. As the line forms, we allow a few who were seated to come in front of us, as it is only fair – they were there before us. Most of the seated folks missed the time change. Well, let’s say didn’t change their clocks. This one woman says her TV didn’t change, so she didn’t realize what time it was. Huh? Did you get the card in your room? Yes. Did you not change your clocks? No, I was using the TV to tell me the time. Just imagine my head shake here. Yikes. Ok, well, fortunately it is at this moment the breakfast opens and turns out it is an open seating buffet (phew!). Grabbing our little, secluded table #4, we hit the food tables for some good breakfast food without the scrum of upstairs.
Later, after a cappuccino in Mosaics, we decamp to the Cabaret for a morning and early afternoon of presentations. Beginning with Dr. Hal and the “Search for the Unknown Titanic Child” where he starts off with an overview/history of the Titanic, where there are definitely factoids of history we never knew.
We knew where she was built, about the disagreement between Ismay (owner) and Andrews (architect) over construction leading to fewer lifeboats and single hull design, but we did not know about the replacement of steel rivets with iron rivets due to lack of inventor. 60% of Titanic was covered in steel rivets (in the middle only) and iron in the front and back. Hmmm. We knew there were 16 water tight compartments, but didn’t remember they didn’t go all the way to the ceiling. More specific details on the 16 lifeboats was interesting – 64 originally planned (that we knew), a fully loaded ship would hold 3,339 passengers, but the lifeboats only had a capacity of 1,178. The rationale was that the sailors would do 3 runs to get everyone off the ship. Oy. At least on the inaugural sailing, Titanic did not sail full, only 2,229 passengers.
Onto the reason we are here – the unknown child. We all know that only 712 passengers survived, 54 of them children. Of the remaining 53 children on board, only 1 body of a child was recovered. A total of 337 bodies recovered of which 119 were buried at sea and 209 taken to Halifax. Only 59 bodies were claimed by relatives, another 121 were buried in Halifax, with 44 of those unidentified. There was no DNA testing at that time, obviously, and the only way to identify some of the bodies was through “death” cards that detailed what the body looked like, approximate age and anything they had in their possession at the time of drowning. The bodies in the grave yard were identified by the number in the order in which they were pulled from the water.
At the time of the wreck, the crew of the ship that brought the bodies back sort of adopted the little child’s corpse when no one claimed it – paid for the grave and gave the body an amulet with which to be buried. The graves lay undisturbed until 1998, when a woman went searching for her relative who worked onboard Titanic. Sadly, though, when the graves were unearthed in 1998, they found they were all submerged under water, which had disintegrated all the bodies, eliminating any hope of DNA testing. But by reviewing the death cards, the woman found her relative, body 281, from the description of a wart on her finger. Body 240 was also identified by a silver watch and chain. Body 4, the young boy, from his death card approximately 2 years old from 3rd class, was in a grave at the high end of the graveyard, and luckily one little bone fragment was found, underneath the amulet which protected it, as well as 3 teeth.
From these archeological finds, DNA testing began with a false identification of a Finnish boy who was only 13 months old, which didn’t seem right because of the death card age. But then, in 2002, a guard who had stolen the shoes the unknown body wore gave them to a museum. The shoes were 15 cm long, way too for a 13-month-old, setting off a new round of DNA testing that finally concluded in 2007, confirming another boy, Sidney Leslie Goodwin, as the unknown body. Quite the tale!
We’re camped here now – because at 12:15, of all the weird timeslots, Captain Les is back with the Concorde Paris disaster. But first is the future cruise presentation, and while we are interested to see if Ke gives us more info on the Grand Voyage benefits, we are more interested in keeping our seats! Yeah, we know, we know, but what we can we say? We love these first 2 seats up on the rail – best seats in the house in our opinion. Thus, we stay. It isn’t all bad – the Captain joins Ke and is his usual funny-self and we do find out a little information about the airfare on the Grand Voyage. Not a total waste.
Due to the noon announcement, we are running a bit late for the 12:15 Captain Les presentation, but since we’ve already had a huge breakfast, our lunch is going to be light – even if late. Finally, Les is on with fascinating/horrifying facts about the Paris Concorde crash on 25 July 2000 where 100 passengers, a crew of 9 and 4 people on the ground perished.
What we all remember is that the Concorde hit metal debris from a Continental jet that had taken off just before them, the metal piece blew a tire, which punctured the fuel tank and caused the crash. But at Les goes on to explain – the crash was more complicated than that. The basics are that the Concorde hit debris, burst a tire, the tire debris hit the fuel tank, fuel was lost, fire started, the pilot took off early (before the normal 195 knot speed), the plane crashed. There is so much more there though – in his last presentation Les had already explained about weight and fuel (specific weight allowed to take off, fuel always filled to only 95% of tank to reduce risk of explosion, fuel shifted between tanks to adjust the center of gravity for take off) – and that plays a big part in this story.
He believes (only supposition) that the plane had about 1.5 to 2 tons of excess fuel aboard due to various circumstances. At take-off when they were moving the fuel to the front tanks, they probably filled them to 100% because of that excess. As it turns out, tank #5 (the front left tank) was the one to burst, which would be where the extra fuel was moved. Plus, the fuel tank actually blew itself out – it wasn’t pierced by anything, providing no evidence of explosion inside fuel tank. It became fairly clear a shockwave bounced around inside the fuel tank causing the explosion, which is why the pilots always left a 5% gap in fuel level to avoid such situations.
A fire erupts from the explosion, as the fuel hits some broken wires from the fans that are positioned over the tires, as they are approaching 174 knots on the runway, a fire sensor goes off on #2 engine. The Flight Engineer shuts it down, but as they are taking off, #1 engine is acting wonky too – surging and such – and then the pilot veers to the left, possibly because of a part missing on the wheel axle, hitting a light stanchion on runway, which probably damaged engine 1.
The engines were acting strangely, ATC tells them they had fire out the back, but they were at the point of no return to lift off, at 174 knots, and even though the pilot lifted off early, before the standard 195 knots, they had to go. Then #1 engine failed, just after they were just airborne. Now they had no power at all on the left side of the plane, which is very difficult to get to altitude in a normal situation, yet the pilots still managed to maintain altitude for 40 seconds. Sadly, the fire, the drag and the loss of control just doomed them. So sad, but so incredibly interesting too.
Now it is the race for lunch – it is already close to 1pm and oh my! Everyone is heading to Windows. Fortunately, we are younger and spritelier than most of the passengers, managing to get to the buffet before most of the Cabaret audience, grabbing the first table we find right by the coffee/water station and weaving our way through the hordes. The sunset bar deck area is closed because it is cold, windy and raining, which just makes the inside seating massively packed. A quick light lunch (there may be Filipino food in our future tonight, and it is late) complete, we head back to the cabin for the rest of the dreary afternoon blogging, reading and watching TV.
Evening proceeds as norm – gym, Living Room, then dinner where, ay, yi, yi, the lines! We’ve never had lines to get into the dining room on Azamara before. It is crazy. See previous comments as to maybe the reasons? Who knows? But, we are golden. Obviously the guys have developed a strategy to save the table by putting out the menus underneath the napkins, thereby looking like the table is taken. Too sweet. Tonight is normal menu night – and we told Joel that whenever he wants to do the Filipino food he can, just surprise us! This is so fun. It’s a surprise every night!
Typical after dinner activities, drinks in a for once empty Living Room, then back to the cabin for TV – where I promptly fall fast asleep and miss the entire evening in oblivious slumber. Guess I needed it!
Andiamo 