The Worst Idea Of All Time - Did Titanic Sink? 03: Fire in the Hull!
Episode Date: July 13, 2024Could an insurance-fuelled switch-a-roo really be at the heart of Titanic's downfall?With the fellas hard at work on the next chapter of TWIOAT, we present the first season of Did Titanic Sink?, the a...ward-winning pod series from the Worst Idea Extended Universe. Join Tim Batt and Carlo Ritchie on their maiden voyage into the unknown.Enjoying DTS? Season two is releasing now on RNZ! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Kia ora, welcome back. I'm Tim and this is the podcast where I'm trying to explore a massive
conspiracy theory involving the Titanic that my mate Carlo, who's obsessed with the Titanic,
is convinced happened. Basically it goes like this. Carlo's utterly convinced that the very
rich people that owned the Titanic switched it with its sister ship the Olympic, which was struck
by a naval vessel
and cost them a whole lot of money so they pulled a switcheroo and an insurance job to
try and claim their money back. But what I want to hear a little bit more about is this bit.
What if I told you the Titanic was on fire when it left Southampton? And I can prove it.
Let's see if we can. This is, Did Titanic Sink?
G'day, Carlo.
Hello, Tim.
We're back.
We are indeed.
Now, I want to ask you about the fact that Titanic was apparently on fire.
Yes, and this is actually probably a good time to mention, Tim,
that every time I talk about the Titanic,
I'm talking about the ship that you
and the listener think is Titanic
but is in actual fact
the Olympic. Okay, cool.
I'm glad we could sort of clear that up.
I think I understand. It will get confusing though
because in this episode I'm going to talk a lot about the Olympic
and when I talk about the Olympic,
I'm talking about the real Olympic.
Oh my god, we need to come up with some sort of rule here.
Maybe you can say so-called Titanic? Something like that i'll figure it out tim okay now i want to get to the fire but
before we do i did a little bit of googling last night and your theory isn't all it's cracked up
to be man because i went on wikipedia and they've got whole pages dedicated to this conspiracy
theory and other related titanic conspiracy theories
and your one doesn't even work because the olympic and the titanic they weren't identical
you claim that they're identical ships they've got differences you could tell which one was which
i'm so glad that you brought this up tim this is actually something that i really wanted to talk
about hold on you were already ready preemptively for my debunking of your conspiracy theory.
Oh, yes.
You don't bring a knife to a gunfight, Tim.
So you and a lot of other naysayers get very caught up in this idea about the Titanic and the Olympic not being identical.
It's not so much a question, though, of how Titanic and Olympic were different as much as when they were different.
Do you sound insane to yourself when you say these things out loud?
Far from it, Tim. Far from it. You see, all of the changes that were made to Titanic were made
after Olympic had been out at sea. And this is very important, right? Because these changes
were made to Titanic based on the passenger experience of the Olympic. So up until the Olympic is out on the sea
and actually has passengers on it,
the Olympic and Titanic are designed to be exactly identical ships.
Right.
But you see, as people start to actually be on these ships,
the designer, Thomas Andrews,
in listening to some of the feedback he's getting,
realises there's some things that could change
to make it a better experience,
particularly for first-class passengers. So the two things i read about on wikipedia that are
different is a covered promenade and there's bigger suites in a deck i think in b deck tim
yes you're exactly right there's a covered promenade which is essentially like a deck or
veranda if you will on a deck which on on Olympic is open. But passengers traveling on the Olympic
complained about the fact that sea spray would come in onto this deck. And so they decided to
fill it in, basically, to make it a covered veranda, which also allowed them to make some
more space for cafes and restaurants that are on that deck. Right. So this is like if you get to a
house and you move a non-structural wall. Exactly, exactly.
It's a completely non-structural change, and that's very important.
And the B deck changes are, again, there was another series of promenades on B deck
which they decided to also get rid of to make the suites bigger there
because they figured, well, there's already a massive promenade on A deck.
Let's just let them hang out there instead of hanging out on B deck you know everyone wants to go to a instead of b sure so those are the two big changes
but that's the important thing these changes weren't designed for the titanic until the olympic
was at c okay i think i get what you're saying i'm pretty sure at least basically the changes
are cosmetic and pretty easy to sort of do.
Yes.
But what I don't understand is what you're saying about the wind thing.
Like, why is that so important?
Yes.
And this is good, Tim.
I mean, this is where I want you to be.
I want you to know that these ships were originally meant to be completely identical.
And it's just that they changed one of these ships to look slightly differently.
Okay.
And to really understand that, you just need to look at how long it took to build each of these ships.
The Olympic took eight months to complete after it was launched.
Right. The Olympic was the first ship, took eight months, got it.
Yes. And that launch bit is important, right?
Oh God, there's more.
Yeah. So when a ship is launched,
that is the point at which it leaves dry dock.
So all of the heavy stuff, all of the building of the hull,
all the big metal work,
that all happens with the ship out of the water.
And when it goes into the water, that's called the launch.
And after that, they're filling the ship in.
They're basically building the decks, putting in the rooms,
appointing the ship, making it finish.
I always thought the launch was when they smash the big bottle of champers on it.
I actually don't know what that is called.
I think it might be called the christening of the ship.
Right, but launch is when it splashes down. Yes, exactly. And interestingly, as a side note, a lot of people
thought that the White Star lines was cursed because they didn't practice the tradition of
smashing a bottle on their ships. Interesting, but for the love of God, we are now on some sort
of tangent of a tangent of a tangent. Please tell me about the timing importance.
Yes.
So it takes eight months after the Olympic makes the splash for it to be finished, for all the decks to be put in.
Now, the Titanic comes a year later.
But after its launch, it takes 11 months to complete.
Right.
So Olympic from Splishy Splosh to getting out there, eight months. Titanic from Splishy Splosh to getting out there, eight months. Titanic from
Splishy Splosh to getting out there, 11. Yes. Three months difference. Three months difference.
Same ship. Why? Well, because of these additions that they were making, right? So they were covering
in the veranda on A deck and they were making the suites larger on b deck and that adds more time gotcha what we don't
know is how much time does that add right and that's what i want to get into tim okay so we
also know that titanic was delayed because so many of its parts were taken to help repair the olympic
yeah they're frankensteining the olympic back together after it had that ding with the naval
vessel exactly so let's just say that takes a month that adds a month to the titanic's build time that's nine months right
it's the eight months to build an identical ship plus this month of delays okay okay so titanic was
launched on the 31st of may 1911 so add if you will for me tim nine months to the 31st of may
oh my god got a lot of May. Oh, my God.
I've got a lot of stuff going on in my head, man.
Just a rough.
I think it's the end of February.
It is the end of February.
Yes, it's the end of February.
So that's where nine months goes.
And a very important thing happens at the end of February.
A baby comes out.
Nine months?
No, but a propeller blade comes out. What? The Olympic throws a propeller blade,
so one of the blades of one of its propellers falls off the ship. Front fell off. Yeah, and so
it has to go back to Belfast to be repaired. Does that mean both the Olympic and the Titanic
aren't sailing at this point? That's right. Again, they're both back in their dock. Right. And in March of 1912, just a week or so after this propeller blade comes off,
a photo is taken of both the ships side by side in the dock on March the 6th.
And do you know what's missing from both ships in that photo, Tim?
Propeller blade?
Oh, no, wait, the covered veranda.
The covered veranda
and the extended suites are both
missing in this photo. Oh my god so they're
identical at this point in time. Yes we know
They are still the same ship. Yes a month
before Titanic sets sail
they're still identical
Okay let me see if I can put the pieces back
together here
There's an insurance scam. Uh huh
For that to work we need to convince everyone
that the Olympic is actually the Titanic.
That only works if both the ships look identical.
The internet and I told you, Carlo,
that you're an idiot because the ships don't look identical.
One of them's got a covered veranda.
But now what you're telling me is that this moment,
just before Titanic's about to set out
they still are identical. They still are identical. Which means they could have put the covered veranda
on either of those ships. Yes. Oh my god. And what's more you really want these ships to not be identical
if you're going to switch them for an insurance scam because you need to prove this is a different
ship from the other ship. So they put the covered veranda and
the new suites on the damaged olympic okay i was kind of with you but you're saying that the way
they thought they would get away with an insurance scam that killed 1500 people at sea was just a
chuck of veranda on one of them? A covered veranda, Tim.
Does that not sound insane when you hear me say it out loud?
Well, it worked, didn't it, Tim?
The point is, a month before Titanic is launched,
it still looks identical to the Olympic.
So these changes can occur in that time frame.
That's the important thing.
It's not the big smoking gun
that has been used to disprove this theory that people think it is. I mean, if anything, it helps the theory.
Okay, I've got to concede, pretty convincing. So now, can we please get to the fire?
Yes, we absolutely can. Earlier, Tim, you asked how does a team of conspirators plan to hit an iceberg? And the answer to that is they
didn't, Tim. That was never part of the plan. No one in their right mind would ever have imagined
that there would be icebergs on the Titanic's path. That's one of the reasons they chose these
shipping lanes is because they're generally free from icebergs. But you remember something happened
that year. There was a once in a 1300 year moon cycle and there was a king tide
and there was a full moon. Exactly Tim. So that meant there are way more icebergs than there
should be. So the iceberg never factored into the plan. So we need to figure out how did they plan
to sink these ships? And my theory is they lit a fire. One thing we know about the so-called Titanic was that it was on fire for at least three weeks
before it launched from Southampton.
You're kidding.
And this is not a disputed fact.
We know Titanic was on fire.
It is disputed how long it was on fire
and when the fire was put out,
but one thing is for sure, it definitely was on fire.
So what bit of the ship is on fire?
Because it seems pretty hard to me
to set an ocean liner on fire so titanic is a steamship it's powered by coal it takes 800 tons
of coal a day to keep titanic running on average bit of a carbon footprint there huge huge in fact
there are 6600 tons of coal on board the Titanic. No one tell Greta.
Greta would have absolutely hated the golden age of steamships, man.
They are just pumping out carbon.
So much, so much of the stuff.
Up until this point of time, passenger ships had never had this much coal on board,
which also means that coal bunkers, where they store coal,
had never been this big on a passenger ship before
and coal is highly volatile to him and it can sometimes just spontaneously combust i remember
this from my childhood as a young pyro growing up in christchurch you could kind of like crack it
together and make cool sparks and stuff yeah exactly and this is what happens on the titanic
one of its coal bunkers just sets on fire that's's not good. It's not good at all. And in fact, there is evidence to suggest that some of Titanic's crew
who came over from Belfast to Southampton
refused to keep going on the Titanic because of the size of this fire.
Whoa.
And I'd have to think these are guys who are used to fire, right?
Like they're dealing with fire every day.
Yeah, man.
Coal fires happen all the time on ships.
That's really important as well.
It's just the fact that on Titanic,
it's way bigger than anyone's really ever had to see before.
Like, this is a massive fire.
Okay.
There's even a photo taken of Titanic a couple of weeks before it was launched
that shows these massive dark marks on the side of the hull.
And some people have suggested that these dark marks
are the result of this fire superheating the hull of the ship.
Does everyone say that about this photo?
Not everyone, but there are primary sources
who say that this fire was massive and real.
When you have a fire this big, Tim, it gets hot.
I'll bet.
In this case, there are some engineers
from the Imperial College in London
who, they ran some numbers,
and they think that this fire could have got as hot
as 980 degrees Celsius.
Was anyone trying to put it
out? Oh, desperately, Tim. Yeah, they were
working really hard to try and put this fire
out. But the only way that you can really
effectively put a coal fire out
is to take the fuel away from this
coal fire. And that means
shoveling that coal out and putting it
into the boilers. So
they have to use this coal. And some
people have argued that that's why Titanic was travelling
so fast on the night that it hit the iceberg.
It's because they're having to use up all of this coal
and keep their boilers running at full pelt
to try and put this fire out, right?
Right.
Now, the important thing, though, is where this fire was.
And that's right alongside bulkhead number five.
Bulkhead number five!
I'm going to remember that one. That's the alongside bulkhead number five. Bulkhead number five. I'm going to remember that one.
That's the groovy one.
So there's been a number of studies that suggested that given how long this fire burnt,
that it started to cause this bulkhead to warp, right?
One of the few stokers who survived the sinking also attested to this damage.
What was the condition of the bulkhead running through the bunker?
It was damaged from the bottom.
Badly damaged?
The bottom of the watertight compartment was dinged aft, and the other part was dinged forward.
To what do you attribute that?
The fire.
Do you mean to say that the firing of the coal would ding the bulkhead?
Yes.
Who was that?
That's leading stoker Frederick Barrett.
He's one of the crew that's responsible for handling Titanic's boilers.
He's the guy who's going to be trying to put this fire out.
He's the chief coal man?
Yeah, yeah, kind of, yeah.
So Barrett was in compartment number six,
and that's the next compartment along from the five that are flooding full of water.
Gotcha. Chief coal man is next door to all these flooding compartments.
Exactly.
I know that this is some sort of 1912 legal person,
but was he being interviewed by Kim Hill?
Because that sounded like Kim Hill.
Now, his compartment
shouldn't have any water
in it until all of those
five are full with water and it
starts to spill over the top.
Like the ice cube tray. Exactly.
But he
attests at the Titanic inquiry
that that bulkhead gave
way before that happened.
Gave way? What do you mean? Like it broke?
Yeah, it caved in and water flooded in.
Again, not a shipbuilding expert, but shouldn't they be built to not do that?
Yeah, here he is again.
Something that had been holding the water back gave way.
That is my idea, my lord.
And you were on the after side of this number five.
I was in number six when we shipped it.
I was on the after side of the bulkhead later.
You cannot tell what part of the watertight bulkhead it was which gave way.
No.
But it was your impression that something gave way
and the water came in with a rush.
Yes.
Now right after he gives this quite sensational bit of evidence this is
what the official transcript has the attorney general explains the plan to the commissioner
not recorded the witness is withdrawn no further questions wait what this guy brought up the fact
that there was a big hot fire that warped one of the main safety features in the ship that stops it from sinking.
They stop asking many questions and go off the record?
Yeah, they have a little chat amongst themselves and then they decide,
no, we're done with this witness and they never call him back again.
Dude, that is wild.
You could say, Tim, it's a conspiracy.
You know what? I think I will.
That does sound's a conspiracy. You know what? I think I will. It does sound like a conspiracy.
So in a nutshell, what he's saying here
is that the damage caused by the
fire has led the Titanic to
sinking faster than it should have
because one of her watertight bulkheads
has given way. There's
another reason why this failing bulkhead
is significant, Tim, and that is
that they did have pumps on
the Titanic. And these pumps were designed
to if they started taking on water they could pump some of that water out that makes sense you're on
the sea a little bit of water is going to come in all the time so you're going to be able to pump
it back out exactly now the thing is the water that they were taking on the Titanic was coming
in 14 times faster than they could pump it out even though it was through those tiny little six
holes that you said if you add them all
together, it's less than a bath towel?
Yeah, it's still flooding on way faster than they can get rid of.
And so as this water starts coming in, they move a whole bunch of these pumps to compartment
six, because that's the one right next to the flooding.
So they work out, okay, we know we can't save the Titanic,
but we can at least buy ourselves a couple of minutes by pumping some of this water out.
A little bit more time, maybe get some more people on lifeboats.
Exactly.
Even if they got 10 extra minutes from these pumps,
that's a whole other lifeboat that they can launch.
But when this watertight bulkhead gives way,
it floods compartment six,
which not only speeds up the Titanic sinking,
it also means they lose all of those pumps
underneath the water.
This is a bad day to be in charge of those pumps.
Yeah, and the people who are in charge of them
are the engineers, Tim
and not a single engineer survives
the sinking of the Titanic.
God.
Now just to go back to the fire for a second, Tim
there's also the possibility
that the process of trying to put this fire out also contributed to that bulkhead failing. What do you mean? I'm going to
play you another excerpt from the Titanic inquiry, this time between the man in charge, Commissioner
Lord Mersey, and Mr Clement Edwards, who is counsel for Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Workers
Union of Great Britain and Ireland. Spontaneous combustion in a coal bunker is by no means an unusual thing.
I mean, are you suggesting that we are concerned in inquiring as to whether it was entered in the log or not?
That's the Commissioner, Lord Mersey.
No, my lord. With respect, that is not the point.
And that's Mr Edwards.
What is the point?
The point, with very great respect, is this.
What is the point? to be taken out down to a certain level and black paint put on so as to hide whatever marks there
might be or the damage caused by the fire it would be a matter of course for your lordship's
consideration as to whether do let us confine ourselves to the real serious issues of this
inquiry that fire in the bunker has nothing to do with it with very great respect my lord i should
have thought it was i differ from you there entirely.
Whoa, that guy really doesn't want to talk about the fire, huh?
With very great respect, I would suggest that it was a little premature for your lordship to say this until after you heard the expert builders,
and perhaps other experts, as to what is calculated to be the damage done by a continuous fire.
Will you tell me what the evidence had to do with respect to this bunker is?
Yes, my lord.
What is it? That there was a fire in this bunker between Belfast and Southampton?
That the coal was worked out? That some dental dinge was observed?
So, a witness says, in the wall of the spoiler, is there anything else?
Yes, my lord.
What is it?
That in order to get the hose
through to work upon the fire a hole or holes had to be bored through the bulkhead holy shit did he
just say that they drilled holes in the bulkhead that's what he's alleging to him that the big
steel wall designed to keep water tightly inside of it they just drilled holes through it that's
right that's what he's saying
let me make sure i understand what's happening here first off the ship's designer told them to
put a double hull in they said too expensive then he said fine make the watertight bulkheads taller
they said too expensive then he said fine i've designed the ship to take 64 lifeboats. They said, no.
Then the ship's on fire for three weeks in the coal bunker,
which gets up to almost a thousand degrees.
And then they start drilling holes in the watertight walls designed to keep the water out.
Yes.
And what's worse, Tim, is that this, in my opinion, deliberate sabotage
makes the accidental collision with an iceberg much, much worse.
Because all of the safety features that are designed to keep this ship afloat
have been damaged.
They've been completely undermined.
And this is the difference between why I don't think the iceberg was part of the plan
and why, in my opinion, this fire was deliberately lit.
And that is that if you have
a fire that's slowly burning, this ship is going to take eight to 12 hours to sink. I don't think
they intended to kill all these people, Tim. They wanted this ship to sink slowly with plenty of
time for nearby ships to come to the rescue. And the important thing here, Tim, is that where this
fire was, I think think deliberately lit was the
perfect place to slowly sink the Titanic it's like the Achilles heel if these two compartments
five and six are weakened and exposed to the sea they'll fill up and those two compartments are
enough in that spot to sink the whole ship in about 12 hours right so there's what you think
happened they they weren't
out there to kill 1500 people they were out there to slowly sink a ship and have the passengers
safely disembark into nearby ships. That's right yeah. But was that a very good plan to be able to
pull off like are there just nearby ships all the time ready to rescue people? Tim it was almost
guaranteed there were so many ships near the Titanic when it sank.
In fact, I believe there were some ships that were actually waiting for this event to happen
in order to rescue the passengers.
And I can prove it.
But that's a story for the next episode.
Hey everyone.
So I don't want to sound crazy, but some of this is starting to make sense to me.
So I've gone ahead and asked a friend to jump on the podcast and check if I'm being taken for a ride.
So we are now joined by Mal Bracewell, one of New Zealand's greatest exports to Carlos country of
Australia, currently based in, you're in Sydney right now? Yes, I'm in Sydney. I came on a big boat.
I did it.
I was just trying to keep it on theme.
I appreciate that.
Do you consider yourself a conspiracy-minded person?
Absolutely not.
I take everything as it's presented to me in the mainstream, 100%.
I think if I'm given a very convincing argument, I can be swayed. I just want to appear intelligent, I think. And so I take the position of whatever makes me sound
the most intelligent. I've argued something at a party and someone's given a very strong
counter-argument. I've gone on to argue that counter-argument later in the party.
argument I've gone on to argue that counter argument later in the party like I I will I will take that on if I think you are smart essentially what I what I found fascinating
about it is that this is the only conspiracy that you are interested in is that right Carlo
yeah that's right yeah I think I think that's a smart way to do it because what I don't understand
about conspiracy theorists they believe all of them And how could you possibly hold on to all of the information on every single conspiracy theory?
You're able to deep dive solely on the Titanic.
And it's insane, but respectable in a way.
Yeah.
So as someone who's a, I'm paraphrasing slightly, but self-confessed sponge for an intelligent sounding argument.
How swayed were you by Carlo's information in this episode?
I remember in school we studied the Titanic and we had to write a diary of someone who was on the Titanic, but also insert all the things that were wrong with the Titanic in it.
insert all the things that were wrong with a Titanic in it.
So you'd go, oh, we played the violins today and I saw a diagram of all of the lifeboats.
There don't appear to be enough.
Oh, my God.
It was so morbid.
You'd have to say, oh, wow, I met a girl whose dad was the captain
and let me look at the blueprints and the squash
courts were marvelous but I had the distinct feeling that bulkhead number five had been
breached by coal fire exactly and I was the only one who did the assignment right because everyone
else was like so confused by it so you didn't you didn't come into this podcast totally cold
you're a short story novelist on historical fiction surrounding the Titanic.
Yes, I was 12.
We did learn about the Titanic.
We didn't learn this.
That was my follow-up question, actually, Mel.
Do you think that this version of history should be taught in school?
No.
Why? Because it's not proven right so if you
don't think the iceberg was supposed to they were supposed to hit the iceberg then how are they
supposed to make it look like an accident well because of it's a coal bunker fire they happen
all the time on these steamships you know and usually with steamships their coal bunkers are
much smaller at this time but because you have the biggest ship in the world you have bigger coal
bunker fires so it's easy to explain away which they did in the inquiry like we we have all the
documentary evidence of how they did explain this away by saying it's a coal fire these things
happen and this is the important thing of where that fire is it's in the achilles heel of the
titanic like if that fire burns through
that bulkhead and out into the sea and floods those two compartments that's enough to sink it
over a period of time so they can just say that is an accident it's a complete freak accident
okay do you feel yourself shifting more towards the believability hearing these um these answers from carlo i guess but that's the danger of any conspiracy theory is that if you say oh well it's
hard to prove because all the people investigating it were had ulterior motives and you go well is
there any way to prove it now i can't go down to the wreckage and see a serial number on it or
this is the interesting thing though it's they have gone down down to the wreckage and see a serial number on it or, you know.
This is the interesting thing, Mel.
They have gone down and looked at serial numbers and there are serial numbers on one of the propeller blades.
The problem is that both the Olympic and the Titanic have the same serial numbers
because when the Olympic was damaged, they took parts off the Titanic,
including one of Titanic's prope propellers to be able to fix
the olympic so unfortunately the serial numbers don't actually give us any evidence because we
know that the olympic had the same serial numbers on a lot of its components because they were taken
from the titanic the serial numbers unfortunately aren't as good evidence as they should be
are you hoping that by releasing this podcast,
that one day someone's going to be like,
okay, I'm the great-granddaughter of this person.
JP Morgan, and I found his diary.
Yeah, or he just, you know,
he just sort of whispered to me when I was a child,
I think I remember it, I did it, I did it, it was all me.
Like, what?
I like to imagine this podcast is giving people the confidence
to come forward with the truth.
Okay.
This is my problem with the podcast in general.
So you've got Carlo on who's very well researched in this.
He's spent a lot of time getting all of the stuff.
And you went, okay, for balance, let's get some dumb ass comedians to listen to 20 minutes of audio look carlo isn't going against
you our fantastic guest comedians it's him versus the rest of established history and what every
other history book has recorded up until this point it's carlo versus the world i just think that
this is why conspiracies always sound insane it's like look they everyone signed in ndas on the
master guy and yet everyone knows who all of them are i get that this is more consequential but
people people talk this is the same point that i contended to ursula is that people did talk
it's just that they weren't given any voice. In the evidence you heard today, you know, the people who are saying, we want to talk about this fire, and we have all of these officers who want to testify about this ways, control the investigative apparatus and have links to the media.
They have links to the politics of the time.
These things go all the way to the top.
So it's not necessarily that people didn't want to talk.
It's that it was going to be a very difficult thing to talk.
I mean, you look at the economic situation of the early 1900s and we're in the lead up to
world war one like it's a very frictious time and if you're working in a shipyard in belfast that's
a very good steady job and if you lose that by the virtue of speaking out against something that
in the scheme of things doesn't really have much bearing on you like if this fire had sunk the
titanic i think people absolutely would have
been more forthcoming but it's the fact that this iceberg sent the titanic so this is a freak
accident so even in the minds of the people who are there painting the walls differently or putting
in new things on the olympic and titanic and helping the switch they've got no skin in the
game because it's a freak accident and the benefactors aren't them they're these top tier
people in their company there's no reason for them to whistle blow that these are switch ships
because this kind of thing happened ships were refurbished ships were changed around it's not an
inordinary thing if the fire had been the sole culprit i think absolutely people would have
spoken out because it would have seemed much more shifty. But this is just a freak accident, made worse, admittedly, by the hand of man,
but not because of.
You say that you'll feel so validated if it comes out,
but I almost think that it would almost be the opposite
because what else are you going to do?
You're the Joker if Batman finally dies. you've got nothing else to do yeah what's your next move
i've never thought of it like that now it's so annoying though carl you're so you're very
charismatic and you talk like a teacher you and that's why i find this so dangerous
well mal the last question i want to get everyone on the record
for is in your opinion did Titanic sink? Yes I think I would be stupid if I spent 20 minutes
in conversation with one man and changed my whole philosophy I know I said that I do that but I'm
now becoming self-aware and I don't know if I can say that on the record. If someone from the Daily Mail listened to it, they'll go,
Melody Bracewell thinks the Titanic didn't sink.
I'll say it's removal context.
I think you raise some interesting points,
and there's certainly a level of doubt in my mind that I didn't have coming into this,
but I'm not fully convinced.
Fair enough. I think that's a pretty sensible place to be thank you thank you thank you for joining us on the podcast mal
we'll um catch you next time when we discuss whether or not paul mccartney
was switched midway through the beaters discography with the olympic Olympic. Yeah. Did Titanic Sink is written and produced by myself, Tim Batt, and Carlo Ritchie.
The executive producers are Tim Watkin and Justin Gregory.
Directed by Chelsea Preston-Crayford.
With audio engineering by Blair Stagpole and original music by Eilish Wilson, Hikurangi Scarverian-Karr, and Phoebe Johnson.
Additional voicing from
Kim Hill, Lee Hart, Wallace Chapman
and Ben McGugan
with special guest Mel Bracewell
Inquiry transcripts courtesy of
the Titanic Inquiry Project
Marconiogram transcripts courtesy of
Sean Collin
This project would not be possible without the work of
the Titanic Inquiry Project
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