— Okay, here we go. She hits the berg on the starboard side, right? She kind of bumps along... punching holes like morse code, ditdit-dit along the side... below the water line. Then the forward compartments start to flood. Now, as the water level rises... it spills over the watertight bulkheads... which, unfortunately, don't go any higher than E deck. So now as the bow goes down... the stern rises up, slow at first... then faster and faster... until finally, she's got her whole ass sticking up in the air. And that's a big ass. We're talking 20, 30,000 tons. Okay? And the hull's not designed to deal with that pressure. So, what happens? She splits, right down to the keel. And the stern falls back level. Then... as the bow sinks it pulls the stern vertical... and then finally detaches. Now the stern section just kind of bobs there like a cork for a couple of minutes... floods, and finally goes under about 2:20 AM... 2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision. The bow section planes away...landing about a half a mile away... going 20, 30 knots when it hits the ocean floor. Pretty cool?
— Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine. Of course, the experience of it was... somewhat different.
