Posted by Scott Andrews on September 27, 1999 at 17:33:22 in 192.11.221.98:
In Reply to: Re: Britannic's increased length and beam posted by James Pepper on September 27, 1999 at 08:20:51:
James,
Like Bruce, I have numerous copies of original H&W construction drawings for all three sisters. After reading your posts, I spent quite a few hours going over them this weekend. The first thing I did was to check all of the frame spacing on each of the three sisters. The frames both fore and aft on all three ships are the same in both number and spacing, leading me to the same conclusion as Bruce that all three ships must be the same length within acceptable tolerances. The next thing I checked was the location of the watertight bulkheads. As built, the Olympic and Titanic were again identical with each bulkhead located at the same frame and joggled at the same locations as they rise through the hull. In the Britannic, at the tank top level all of the WTB's are at the same location as the two previous ships right through to the what would normally have been the aft bulkhead of the generator room, though this compartment was divided into fore and aft generator rooms (this was also done later to the Olympic, and shows up on her later G/A's). The Brit's after peak bulkhead is in the exact same location those on the O & T. There are the same number of bulkheads between the aft peak and the aft bulkhead of the generator room as on O & T, but they have been relocated a few frames one way or the other from those on the sister ships. Additionally, On O & T, the bunker bulkheads are on the same frame locations in both ships. As far as the funnel locations are concerned, none of the internal steel drawings show any shift in the location of the boiler casings which would be necessary for this to happen, nor do they show any relocation of the bulkheads separating boiler rooms 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 which acted as the main structural support under each set of uptakes and risers. I fact, when I tried overlaying the copies of the rigging plans of each ship on top of the other, I was able to do so without any appreciable discrepancy. The little I did see would have amounted to only two or three inches at the 1/144 scale of these copies, and was more likely due to the inherent inaccuracies involved in making photocopies of drawings than to any intentional change in spacing. More than likely, any loctional changes in this area would be in increments of 36 inches due to the frame spacing in this portion of the ship (1/4" at this scale). I've encountered no variations of this magnitude.
Best Regards,
Scott