The Titanic (marine engineer's version)

Oh, they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue,
And they thought they built a ship that the water would not come through,
It was on her maiden trip that an iceberg hit the ship,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus (repeat after each stanza):

It was sad, oh, it was sad,
It was sad when the great ship went down (to the bottom of the...),
So let's all shed a tear for the White Star engineer,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Oh, the impact caused stress fractures in Compartments 1 through 3,
And they all started flooding almost instantly,
The pressure differential was really quite substantial,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Now as weight was slowly added to this remote location,
It resulted in a moment 'round the center of flotation,
That set the bow in motion slightly lower in the ocean,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Thus the damaged piece of plating moved down a foot or two,
And the static head of pressure caused more water to come through,
Further weight out on that limb caused an increase in the trim,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

But the trimming calculations of this semi-flooded state,
Took an hour to do by hand, and by then it was too late,
It was like the sound of thunder when Bulkhead 3 went under,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

For above the Bulkhead Level, it was like an open door,
Which brought about the flooding of Compartment Number 4,
She was rising on her port as her time was growing short,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Towards Compartment Number 5 came the madly rushing sea,
And the laws of Archimedes with respect to buoyancy,
Would not be violated, the whole damn ship was inundated,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Now the force of gravitation had been balanced up to now,
By the transverse inclination of the slowly sinking bow,
But its good was now expended, equilibrium thus ended,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Thus the liner finally vanished from the surface of the sea,
To a place where forces balance and where moments cannot be,
As the owners did repent, did the engineers lament,
It was sad when the great ship went down.


[Author unknown. Originated among college students in the USA, possibly in the 1950s or earlier. A few revisions made by Stephen L. Suffet with the assistance of Norma McCarthy for sake of historical and technological accuracy.]


--- Steve