Posted by Scott Andrews on September 27, 1999 at 21:38:10 in 192.11.221.98:
In Reply to: Re: Britannic's increased length and beam posted by James Pepper on September 27, 1999 at 18:48:53:
: Dear Scott and Bruce:
: I think the problem here may be the difference between "published" plans,(Engineering magazine, The Engineer, The Shipbuilder, Public Record Office) vs. the Harland and Wolff plans. If this is the case then minor discrepancies in the detail that is argued over this site may have to be classified based on which plans you are using. If you compare Harland & Wolff plans to other Harland & Wolff plans of the same scale and the same source, they will be the same. Perhaps those plans that "Tommy McCluskie" took out of the archives could clear all of this up.
: The Olympic and Titanic are the same lengths, I am refering to the internal arrangements.
: Also it looks like I was comparing a later set of Olympic plans to the "published" plans, these plans did read 400/01. The Engineering magazine articles shows an extra bulkhead in Britannic, 17 water-tight compartments and the compass platform above the bridge.
:
: Why are these two sets of plans slightly different? These "published" plans I refer to were published during construction of the ships. Perhaps that is where the difference lies, they were not altered after the ships were built. If they were published while the ship was being built then they had to be drawn up before construction, approved by Harland and Wolff and White Star for publication and then submitted to the publishers. This takes time. So when it came time to actually fabricate the ships, like any other construction project, the Harland & Wolff plans show the necessary changes to actually construct the ship. And they show the finished ship.
: Sincerely,
: James Pepper
James,
what you suggest is entirely possible, if I understand you correctly. These published drawings may have been the result of "Prelimnary" information as opposed to final drawings. In my profession, I can tell you without hesistation that most of the drawings that get passed onto the machine shop and the sales people and other sources outside of the engineering offices as "preliminary" information rarely reflect the final approved product. Given the lead time necessary to publish printed material ca. 1911, when many of these articles first appeared, many of the drawings that Engineering, The Shipbuilder, etc. had to work with were probably well past a year old and no where near "Final".
By the way, even though the compass platform didn't end up in it's final intended position, that bulkhead transversely dividing the generator room was added. This was a change also carried out on the Olympic.
Sincerely,
Scott