Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/193

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC enormous amount of damage below the water-line without foundering. It is our belief that she would have survived the disaster which sank the Titanic. The first three compartments would have been flooded, it is true, but the water would have been restrained from her large forward boiler-compartment by the "inner skin" of the starboard bunkers. Furthermore, the watertight hatches of her lower, or protective, deck would have prevented that upward flow of water on to the decks above, which proved so fatal to the Titanic.

In dealing with the question of safety, the German shipbuilders have shown that thorough study of the problem which characterises the German people in all their industrial work. Although German ships of the first class, such as the Kronprinzessin Cecilie and the Imperator are not built to naval requirements, they embody many of the same protective features as are to be found in the Mauretania and Lusitania, and, indeed, in some safety features, and particularly in those built in the ship as a protection against fire, they excel them.

The existence of side bunkers, small compartments, and bulkheads carried well up above the [ 173 ]