Pang Xiaonan got into the cockpit and asked Buenovski, "Has our course changed?"

"No?" Buenozchi shook his head, pointing to the watch on the bridge and then to a star in the sky, "I've been keeping an eye on the direction, the same direction as when we came." ”

"Do you feel that something is wrong?" Pang Xiaonan still felt that something was wrong.

"I think the weather is a bit oppressive and the storm is coming. "Buenovski is a veteran captain who has sailed for many years, and the climate change at sea can't hide his feelings.

"Yes, that's what it means!" Pang Xiaonan finally noticed that something was wrong, this was a sign before the storm, "I'm afraid that this storm is very big, are you sure to avoid it?"

"I'll try my best. Buenolski also felt that the storm would be strong this time, and the indescribable intensity was exactly the same as the feeling in New Bloss, that is, he could not judge how big the storm was this time, and the unknown sense of danger was the most depressing.

"I guess the storm is coming, do you want to rest first?" Pang Xiaonan knew that Buenoski was also tired.

"You said the storm was coming, so how can I rest?" Buenolski stared in the direction ahead, "Don't worry, I can withstand it." ”

As the two spoke, the calm sea began to rise and fall, and the waves rippled towards the flower of Bloss like beating notes.

Pang Xiaonan and Buenoski, who were standing in the cockpit, felt a slight shock in the hull of the ship, Pang Xiaonan frowned and said, "The storm is coming." ”

"Well, it's a prelude to a storm. Buenolski agreed, holding the steering wheel with both hands.

As time passed, the vibration of the hull became heavier and heavier, and gradually, Pang Xiaonan had to hold on to a tube in the cockpit to ensure that he could stand firmly.

Pang Xiaonan just wanted to ask, "You won't capsize", but suddenly felt that it was inappropriate, and swallowed this sentence into his stomach. At this time, I saw a large wave four or five meters high in front of the flower of Bloss.

"It's not good, it's dangerous. Pang Xiaonan's heart sounded such a voice, and the big wave had reached his eyes.

I saw that the flower of Bloss was like a small boat climbing a hill, and it suddenly tilted at a 45-degree angle, lifting up all the people in the boat, Pang Xiaonan and Buenovsky tightly grasped the fixed objects in the cockpit and kept them from falling backwards.

The people who entered the cabin to sleep were all awakened by this big wave.

Someone rushed onto the deck, frightened by the scene in front of him, Pang Xiaonan saw Lewis rushing onto the deck, and shouted: "Come in, there is danger on the deck! Inform everyone, don't come out!"

Lewis nodded, turned and went into the cabin, and informed the others of the situation, and himself stood at the door, not letting the others out.

There was a ten-meter-high wave that hit, and Buenolski shouted: "Hold on!"

Pang Xiaonan grabbed a steel pipe next to him with all his strength in his hands, thinking to himself, such a big wave must be capsizing.

Before the waves arrived, the flower of Bloss had already swayed so high that it frightened everyone in the boat. As soon as the waves fell, the splash on the deck crackled like hail on the steel plates.

The flower of Bloss was like a fluttering leaf, swaying wet, and several times it was about to lose its balance, but fortunately, different forces were tearing, and when the hull was about to capsize, the flower of Bloss turned straight and straight.

There were a few people in the boat who had already been swayed, and their stomachs were very uncomfortable, and they vomited, and all the crab meat they ate at night was vomited on the floor, and a smell of erosion wafted in the cabin, making the seasick people even more uncomfortable and vomiting.

"It's exciting!" Although Pang Xiaonan's skills are strong, he was also made by the big wave to swing around in the cockpit, and Buenoski was almost thrown out of the cockpit, but fortunately, Pang Xiaonan closed the hatch in time, just letting Buenoski hit a big bag on his head.

"Captain, we're probably here this time. Buenolski looked at the huge waves and suddenly lost confidence, it was the first time he had encountered such bad weather at sea.

"What do you call it, it's impossible, we'll get through it safely. Although Pang Xiaonan also knew that this time it was nine deaths, but he resolutely couldn't say anything about his frustration, otherwise it would really come true.

The power of nature is far more terrifying than the attack of any beast.

Because when you play with beasts, at least you know who your opponent is, but when nature is angry, you don't even have the direction to exert your strength.

This is also the reason why Pang Xiaonan has always felt uneasy although he did not encounter any monsters in the sea along the way, and sure enough, a few waves tossed a boatload of people enough.

Suddenly, a burst of lightning and thunder appeared in front of the flower of Bloth, and the sea was even more unpredictable, making people suspect that they had come to the demon realm.

"This is the real storm. Pang Xiaonan exclaimed loudly, compared to the scene in front of him, the previous waves were pediatrics at best.

It's like riding a roller coaster, falling from a height, you think you're safe, but you end up in a cave, and all kinds of demons and monsters are waiting for you.

"What to do, Captain, we're too fast to dodge. "In fact, Buenovski has long turned off the power, because in the face of the waves, no power can escape the natural speed of the sea, and now, they are just following the speed of the current, and they are about to come into contact with lightning and thunder.

"If you can't hide from it, forget it, just think it's a catastrophe. "What Pang Xiaonan said is not bad at all, the scene in front of him is like a scene that a certain Taoist friend has to experience before the catastrophe, but it is even more powerful than the legendary catastrophe.

Soon, the Flower of Bloss was in the middle of the storm, although the waves were not so high, but the ups and downs in the sea were more frequent, and the Flower of Bloss was tossed around by the sea without the slightest strength to resist.

The dark clouds overhead obscured the night light and the stars, and the lightning and thunder were like a torn universe, changing unpredictably. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the Flower of Bloss, extending from the lightning rod to the hull of the ship, and from there to the sea.

"Ah......" The people on the boat all felt a tingling feeling, as if there was a smell of burnt paste in the air.

"Were we just struck by lightning?" Pang Xiaonan grabbed the steel pipe and asked Buenovski loudly.

Buenoski was also like Pang Xiaonan at the moment, clutching a steel pipe beside him, but his eyes were looking left and right, he was looking at the loss of the ship's equipment.

Before the storm came, as an experienced sailor, Buenovski had put away his sails, because he knew that in the face of a powerful storm, the sails were likely to be torn, so they had to keep the sails safe, otherwise it would be difficult for them to return to the island of Buloss.

After confirming that there was no loss of equipment on the ship, Buenoski looked at Pang Xiaonan and replied loudly: "Yes, captain, we were struck by lightning just now. ”

"But we all seem to be fine?" Pang Xiaonan felt strange, shouldn't he have a strong feeling when he was hit by electricity, at least he would be numb, not to mention the powerful lightning on the sea.

"We've got lightning protection, Captain, so it's going to be fine. "Buenovski is calm, because lightning cannot destroy a modern ship.

Modern ships are made of steel, which conducts electricity themselves, and seawater is a good conductor, so the people on board should be very safe. What needs to be guarded against is the protection of electronic devices against lightning strikes. As long as there is a lightning protection device at the height of the electronic equipment, it can be well protected from lightning.

The traditional habit of lightning protection and lightning rods on land is to protect buildings and prevent damage to buildings from lightning strikes. Therefore, the inertia of thinking also thinks that the metal platform is not afraid of lightning strikes.

In fact, lightning rods for ships at sea are mainly aimed at electronic devices, such as radios, satellite positioning antennas, radars, and so on

From the concept of multi-level lightning attenuation, lightning rods are not only lightning leaks, but more importantly, lightning protection Class A protection, to prevent lightning strikes from directly hitting satellites, radios, walkie-talkies, and data transmission antennas, after all, they are also good tip discharge mediums.

The Flower of Bloth's electronic devices were out of order when it entered the Bloom Disk, so even if lightning broke the ship's electronic devices, it would not have much effect on the Flower of Bloth.

But the blow of the waves had a great effect on the flower of Bloss.

The most important thing is whether the flower of Bloss can maintain balance on the sea surface and not capsize.

If the Flower of Bloss could not hold on to capsize in the storm, then even God would be powerless, and a boatload of people would be buried at the bottom of the sea and reduced to the rations of sea creatures.

Fortunately, for such a long time, the Flower of Bloss did not touch any reefs and floating glaciers on the sea, otherwise, the Flower of Bloss would have become a ruin, and people at sea would have fallen into the sea, and life and death would be in danger.

Pang Xiaonan remembered the famous shipwreck of the Titan Bismarck.

100 years ago, the world's largest mail ship, the Titan, the Bismarck, embarked on its first and final voyage.

The Titan Bismarck divides passengers into three classes. The third-class cabins are also the cheapest in the lower hull, and most of the passengers in this category are immigrants who plan to create a new life on the other side of the Great Eastern Ocean; the decoration of the second-class cabins and ordinary rooms is actually the same level as the first-class cabins of other ordinary ships at that time, and many second-class passengers originally positioned the first-class cabins on other ships, but because of the voyage of the Titan Bismarck, the coal energy was transferred to the Titanbis-Mais. First class was the most expensive and luxurious part of the ship, and some of the world's richest celebrities were on this journey.

At 7 p.m. that night, the Titan Bismarck arrived in the port of Cherbourg. Another group of passengers and cargo boarded the Titan Bismarck on two special ferries, the Nomad and the Transport, including the Chinese billionaire Astor and Mrs. Margaret Brown, who was later called "the unsinkable Venerable Lady Brown" by the newspapers. Another 20 passengers disembarked after a short journey and were lucky enough to brush shoulders with death.

At noon the next day, the Titan Bismarck arrived in Cob, and a group of Eland immigrants full of longing and hope for a new world boarded the ship. A passenger disembarked here, and the photograph he took became an out-of-print photograph of the Titan Bismarck, which today is worth a lot in the eyes of collectors.

Following Captain Smith's orders, the Titan Bismarck sped up to 23 knots the next day. Along the way, nothing major happened to the Titansmarck. Philip, the ship's telegraph operator, was busy sending expensive personal telegrams to the first-class passengers, mostly for safe and stock orders.

It was a calm Sunday night, not even a little wind. If anything, the crew will spot the little scales of the waves crashing against the iceberg. At a speed of 22.3 knots (about 45 kilometers per hour), the Titan Bismarck sailed at breakneck speed on this dark and icy ocean.

After receiving reports of the ice situation from many nearby ships, Captain Smith ordered the lookout to take a closer look. This year, because it was a warm winter, the icebergs drifted farther south than usual. However, the crew of the Titanbusk was unable to find the telescope, as the only pair of binoculars on board was locked in a cabinet by the second officer, and the second officer, who kept the key to the cabinet, did not make it to the ship, and the lookout had to observe it with the naked eye.

Lookout Fleet spotted a dark shadow "the size of two tables" in the distance, growing in size at a rapid pace. He rang the alarm bell on the bridge three times and grabbed the phone: "There is an iceberg right ahead!". The sixth Moody's who answered the phone informed the first officer, Murdoch, who was next to him. Murdoch immediately ordered the bell to be ringed: "All engines slow down! Full left rudder! No. 3 propeller reverses!" After the lookout spotted that the iceberg hit the iceberg from the starboard side of the ship in just 37 seconds, and the Titan Bismarck was less than 400 meters away from the iceberg.

The first mate then ordered the left rudder to be full and the propellers of the ship to urgently reverse two commands, which later proved to be a fatal mistake, and just 37 seconds after he gave the order, the Titan Bismarck could not stop moving and turning in time because the hull was too large and the rudder was too small and the forward speed was too fast, and the starboard side of the ship crashed into the side of the iceberg.

Due to the violent impact, the rivets at the bottom of the starboard side of the bow were knocked loose and broken, the waterproof bulkhead was partially cracked, and countless small but narrow cracks appeared in the front 5 bilges, and there were small cracks at the front end of the 6th watertight bulkhead, and the seawater continued to pour in. The floodgates were then closed in time, and all the bilges became 16 separate watertight compartments.

In the first 10 minutes after the hull hit the iceberg, the water level rose 14 feet from the keel, the first five cabins in the bow began to be flooded, and the No. 6 boiler room was covered by 8 feet of water. At this time, more than 4,000 tons of seawater had poured into the bow of the ship, but the seawater was blocked by the waterproofing plate, and the situation seemed to be fine, everything seemed to be under control. Captain Smith walked in from the crew's wheelhouse to ask the crew what had happened, and upon learning what had happened, the captain immediately ordered all the engines in the ship to stop working, and the Titan Bismarck slowly stopped in the middle of the North Atlantic, where the captain then called in engineers to repair the damaged parts.

The results of this collision became known later. But the passengers and crew in the cabin at the time had mixed reactions. Some of the first- and second-class passengers, who were not asleep, were awakened by a slight metal-like scraping sound, and the hull shook slightly. Some people thought it was a big wave, some thought it was a rock, and some thought it was a propeller failure.

But the tremors felt by the passengers in the cabins below were much more violent. Some passengers saw milky white icebergs passing by outside the starboard port. Some of the ice that had been struck by the ship and wiped off the side of the iceberg fell above the right deck of the bow. The immigrant passengers on the ground floor were even more shocked to find that the icy sea water was pouring through the crack in the door and into the dormitory from somewhere, and the ship quickly stopped.

Some of the passengers in the cabin put on their coats and took their belongings out of the cabin and onto the deck. Under the pitch-black sky, the windows of the Titanbersmarck glowed with a warm pale yellow light. All the boilers in the ship were shut down, and the ship's four tall yellow and black smoke pipes and chimneys were vented in large quantities and made a loud noise. Three of them suddenly emitted a deafening roar and hiss. Passengers who know how to steam engines know that it is the ship's boiler safety valve that is releasing excess superheated high-pressure steam. After a while, the passengers on board and inside the ship resumed their activities.

At this time, more than 7,000 tons of seawater had poured into the bow, and the water had flooded a bow front tip cabin, 3 bow cargo holds and the No. 6 boiler room, and the seawater overflowed from the top of the submerged water-tight room outlet and began to pour into the third-class cabin, further covering the upper H deck, and the bow began to sink slowly, and the fate of sinking was actually doomed, because at that time, the maximum limit of water that could enter the watertight tank of the Titan Bismarck was 4 rooms, and the part of the cabin that was flooded exceeded the limit of 5 rooms.

A large number of workers in the No. 6 boiler room are trying to remove the stagnant water. The crew reported to Captain Smith, who was in the control tower, that the water had submerged the forward cabin, cargo compartments 1, 2, 3 and boiler room 6, and he immediately approached designer Thomas Andrew to assess the damage.

After some evaluation and calculations, Andrew then concluded in the captain's office that "the ship is not saved", and said that the ship could only last 1-2 hours, and the captain asked all the crew to immediately release the lifeboat. At that time, the ship stopped at 41 degrees 46 minutes north latitude and 50 degrees 14 minutes west longitude.

The water had submerged the 10-metre-high bow section of the ship, and all the lifeboats on board could only be used by 1,178 people, out of a total of 2,224 people on board.

The crew of the Titan Bismarck began to use distress rockets to call for help. The crew of the Californian, who was about 10 to 19 miles away from the Titan Bismarck, could even see the lights on the chimney of her steam engine, and they tried to communicate with her in the language of Moss lights, but the Moss lights malfunctioned and were unable to make contact. And more than one Californian crew witnessed the white distress rocket fired from the Titan Bismarck, but Californian Captain Rhodes didn't think it was a distress signal.

The Titan Bismarck sent out a distress signal, and then switched to the latest "SOS" signal to continue calling for help. It was later confirmed that most of the ships that received the signal had only received SOS distress signals, but the nearest RSCalifornian was unable to receive the distress telegram in time because the telegraph operator turned off the telegraph.

Of all the ships that could receive the telegram, the closest to the Titan Bismarck was the Carpathia, which then headed towards the Titan Bismarck at maximum speed, but even then it would take at least 4 hours to reach the scene. The crew of the Titan Bismarck began preparations for the release of the lifeboat.

The band on deck A, which serves first-class passengers, continues to play for passengers near the stairs leading to the lifeboat entrance to avoid panic.

The seawater has submerged the 15-meter-high seafarer's room, the ship has sunk 6 meters, and the two rows of portholes on the left and right have been submerged, some of which are open, causing the water intakes to continue to increase, and the water depth in the No. 6 boiler room is more than 4 meters, and the engineers have to abandon it, while the pumping machine is still pumping water with all its might, but this can only slightly slow down the sinking of the bow.

The captain ordered that women and children and children be given priority to boarding the lifeboats. At this time, the Carpathia was located about 58 nautical miles southeast of the Titan Bismarck, and was approaching at a rapid pace.

Boiler Room No. 6 and the entire Watertight Chamber No. 5 were submerged. The water had spilled from the top of the No. 6 flare-up into the E deck, where there was no waterproofing and water poured in from the top. The 6th spacer tank began to be flooded, and the hull gradually tilted. From the No. 5 boiler room, a terrifying muffled sound can be heard from the front waterproofing plate.

The crew who was rescuing the mail in the mail room became the first victims of the Titan Bismarck. All lifeboat preparations are completed. The crew began to persuade the first-class passengers to board the lifeboats. Dinghy 7 was the first lifeboat to be lowered, but the lifeboat with a maximum capacity of 65 people only carried a dozen passengers.

The waterproofing plate between boiler compartments 6 and 5 was deformed by the heat of a small fire a few days ago, and now the water pressure causes the baffle to collapse suddenly, and the water rushes over like a wall, and the bottom of the No. 6 trap is instantly filled with seawater, becoming the first link in this devastating chain reaction. The first distress rocket was launched, and a shiny white spark slowly fell.

The lower half of the bow promenade deck of the Titan Bismarck has been submerged. The work at the lifeboat side gradually descended into chaos, and although the virtue of women and children boarding the lifeboat first was observed, many lifeboats were lowered in mid-air. The No. 6 lifeboat carried only 28 people, but the crew could not be blamed for this, as the nautical community at the time believed that if the lifeboat was too full and let it go, it would cause damage or even capsize.

The Titanbisz's lifeboat was actually designed to be sturdy enough to carry up to 70 people, but the crew didn't know that. In fact, the lifeboat that could have carried a total of 1,178 people ended up with only 651 people on board, and some people were rescued from the lifeboat after jumping into the sea.

On the port side of the boat, lifeboats carry women and children. On the starboard side, women are allowed to escape first and men are allowed to board the boat. So, more people were rescued on the starboard side than on the port side.