Saturday, April 21, 2012

A Question for Titanic Experts

I've been wondering this for a while, and I haven't been able to find an answer in my cursory research, so I thought I'd throw the question up here. On the bow of the great ship, there's a feature that I've always wondered about. Specifically, what is it? It's the round thingie indicated by the arrow in this photo.



What is that? Anybody know? My geek brain tells me that this is the Titanic's main deflector dish, but I know that ain't right. (Or, if that is right, man, did that thing ever fail spectacularly.)

6 comments:

??? said...

I'm only guessing here, but I think it might be a fairlead. There seems to be soething threaded through it in the photo, but I'm not sure what, especially since I find size dificult to guess in relation with that massive ship.

Jason said...

Looks like a hawsehole for a bowline to me. If you look very closely at the photo, there is a cable or something coming down from it.

New York Erratic said...

It's the hawser for anchors and towing. Totally thought it might be a hawsehole, but my Facebook friend from my criminal profiling group nailed it with this diagram:

http://www.titanic-theshipmagnificent.com/TitanicRiggingPlan/ab2.jpg

M. D. Jackson said...

It`s a vagina.

Well, ships are usually referred to as "her", right?

(I apologize for the crudeness of that joke, and I understand perfectly if you do not approve this comment, but I just couldn't resist)

New York Erratic said...

Well, re-reading the comments... that was hilarious.

"Hawsehole" is entering my euphemism list now. :-)

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Clearly it the launch tube for photon torpedoes. Why did they not use one to destroy the iceberg? Well that is part of the conspiracy.