The Worst Idea Of All Time - Did Titanic Sink? 01: Titanic - The Sinkable Ship

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

An 'unsinkable' ship is somehow felled by an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Is everything as it seems? Or is Carlo full of it?With the fellas hard at work on the next chapter of TWIOAT, we present the first season of Did Titanic Sink?, the award-winning pod series from the Worst Idea Extended Universe. Join Tim Batt and Carlo Ritchie on their maiden voyage into the unknown.Enjoying DTS? Season two is releasing now on RNZ! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, it's Guy Montgomery from this podcast, The Worst Idea of All Time. Tim and I are taking some time apart while we work through our marital challenges. As a podcasting couple, our personal lives are going great. And so, in our stead, we have one of the great podcasts of our era, Did Titanic Sink? Starring Tim Batt and Carlo Ricci, this documentary investigative comedy podcast explores the question at the centre of James Cameron's 1997 film, Did Titanic Sink? This is, and I say it sincerely, one of my favourite podcasts I've ever listened to. So, in the great words of the Beastie Boys, you've got to fight for your right to listen.

And if you enjoy it, season two is out now. But not on this stream. You've got to go find it. I would follow Tim and Carlo on social media because I promise they're posted. This is a webcast by Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa. This is a web series by Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa. Do you remember when spontaneous human combustion was a thing? I had these magazines that had photos of people who caught fire and the moon landing was faked. In all your reading of these magazines,

did the Titanic conspiracy ever come up or any of the Titanic conspiracies ever come up? I haven't even heard of the Titanic conspiracy. Right now it's 2019 and I'm in Sydney and I'm having a beer with my mate Carlo Ricci. Now Carlo's an interesting dude. He's a comedy improviser, he writes for children's TV and he's one of the last speakers of this dying Polish language.

That's sort of by the by for today because there's something else I want to focus on. Something that has consumed Carlo for his entire life. He casually mentioned something to me three years ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. Titanic didn't sink, Tim. I'm Tim Batt. Welcome to Did Titanic Sink? Hey Carlo. Tim.

You made it. Yeah, we're here. You're here in New Zealand. Welcome to Aotearoa. Yeah, thank you, Tim. It's a pleasure to be here. What do you think of the place? This is crazy, man.

This is what a state-of-the-art podcasting studio for maritime podcasts. Yes, absolutely. This is RNZ's premium maritime podcast suite that we're in currently. They launch submarines here or something? There's a lot of research going on, there's a lot of R&D, there's science. There's a lot more gold-plated stuff than I would expect for a state

broadcaster. Yeah, funny thing about RNZ is they've actually got too much money so they just sort of start gold-plating taps and things like that. But look, I didn't bring you here to gawk at the finery, my friend. I brought you here for a specific reason. Right.

To sit down in that chair, put you in front of that microphone, and crack open that big beautiful brain of yours to hear what you've got to say about the Titanic. Can you just remind me of some of the lengths you've gone to to investigate and research Titanic? You've been doing this since you were a kid, right? Yeah, I can't even really remember the first time I got into Titanic. You've been doing this since you were a kid, right? Yeah, I can't even really remember the first time I got into Titanic. I was so, so young when I started fixating on this ship.

Was she like 14, 9? No, I think I was maybe 6 or 7. It's sort of start of primary school stuff. I think there had been... I have this memory of going to my grandparents' place and there being an article in the National Geographic about the wreck. And it just really glued me to it. And I just started to want to know more and more about it.

And then, of course, the sort of pre-production of the film started. And so it was in the news a lot. And there was just this sort of titanic fever, if you will. And I just got hooked right in and mainlined it. and you you mentioned the other day there were some discoveries around this time right or in the 80s they found the record yeah they found in 1985 which is interestingly as part of a secret u.s government mission to find two missing nuclear submarines that had sunk they said that they were looking for the tit, but they were really looking for these subs. Hold on, who was tricking who in that situation? The US government was trying

to trick the Soviet Union. They didn't want anybody, really the world, to know that they were looking for some missing nuclear subs. So they said they were sending this guy, Dr. Robert Ballard, on a survey to find the Titanic. But what he was really looking for was for these submarines. Wait, but then he found the Titanic? Well, yeah, there's a But what he was really looking for was for these submarines.

Wait, but then he found the Titanic? Well, yeah, the thing is because he was really obsessed with the Titanic. So he'd swept for these ships. They found the two submarines. And then he was like, hey, can I make one more sweep to where I think the Titanic actually could be? And then out of the gloom, Titanic appeared. And there's this footage of just this sudden realisation that there is the Titanic and he found it.

And then of course as you mentioned Jim Cameron starts making the movie I call him Jim, we're on pretty good terms. He starts making the movie in the mid-90s and they just poured money into that thing too, right? The film cost half as much as building the real Titanic. Seriously? Wow. What's the craziest thing you've done for Titanic research? Well, I went to Belfast to go to the Titanic Museum.

I just want to be perfectly clear, Belfast and Ireland, and you live in Australia. That's right. There must have been your version of going to Disneyland. It was, Tim. And I spent so long in that museum, Tim, that staff came and asked me if I was alright. Like, there's this hallway that

connects two big exhibits and as decoration in that hallway they've got some of the Titanic's blueprints. I spent an hour in that room just looking through the blueprints and so one of the staff came over because they thought maybe something had gone terribly wrong. Are you alright? No, I'm having the best time of my life.

The map that I was looking at when they came over to look, the blueprint I was looking at was ladder dispositions in funnel A. What are you talking about? So just showing you where all the ladders were in the funnel. And I was thinking, man, this is really interesting stuff. Oh, my God. I had the best time. I was in the museum until it closed.

I spent a further three hours Just walking around the museum Because it was built where Titanic was built On the original slipways So I went to the slipways I cried You cried? Yeah there's this lino This is the original lino tile

And I was looking at this and I was thinking This is the actual lino that people who were on the Titanic were walking on You cried looking at the lino. I have a photo of it that I sent to my partner, and she's like, what am I seeing here? I said, this is the real lino. On the spectrum of people who live in the world today, what percentage do you put yourself in in terms of your Titanic knowledge?

Would you be in the top five, top one? I reckon I'm definitely in the top 10% of people who know about Titanic. You are a novice at the end of the day. You've undertaken all of this at great personal expense to yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm very much an amateur historian. I certainly know a lot about it. I mean, I have this weird memory for Titanic facts.

So I'm clearly dealing with the perfect person to explore this conspiracy theory with. You believe that the Titanic didn't actually sink. How can you explain this to me? Well, Tim, I think to explain it, we really need to go back to where it all began, in Greenland. With winter closing... Hold on, hold on. Greenland. With winter closing... Hold on, hold on. Greenland?

Yes, Tim. Greenland. Kalalysut. Birthplace of the iceberg that took down Titanic and interestingly also the kayak. Chances are, if you see an iceberg or indeed a kayak in the North Atlantic, it comes from Greenland. The story of how the Titanic sinks really begins there.

In Greenland. That's right. Now, the Titanic disaster, one of the interesting things about it is it really starts much, much earlier than the 15th of April, specifically on the 4th of January, 1912, because two things happen on that date that will ultimately lead, in most ways, to the Titanic's disaster. The first is there's a full moon. And that means that the tide is at its highest point in the lunar cycle.

The second thing that happens is just six minutes after that high tide watermark, the moon passes closer to the Earth than it has in 1300 years. Damn, what a time to be the Titanic. Yes. Or a Scorpio, maybe. I don't know how that stuff works exactly, but it's probably bad for one of them. Well, look, just to put it in context, the last time the moon came that close to Earth was just 10 years after the horseshoe was invented.

Man. It's like this crazy freak event. And so the result is all these massive icebergs that normally kind of get a bit caught up in shallower waters, they all end up out in the North Atlantic. Right. And the other really crazy thing about 1912 is that it's one of the coldest years on record at the beginning of the 20th century. So these icebergs that have now floated out into the North Atlantic aren't going to melt for months. So we cut a few months forward to the 10th of April, 1912, and Titanic leaves Southampton

to all the fanfare that you would expect of what at that point is the largest ship in the world leaving harbour. And it sails out into the North Atlantic, unwittingly into one of the most dangerous environments that has ever existed for any ship in 1,300 years. Now, the Titanic sails almost without incident for four days until 14 April 1912. And at that point, most notably, it hits an iceberg. Right. So there's other stuff going on? There's heaps of stuff going on, Tim. They don't have binoculars in the crow's nest.

This was in the movie, which I add as the one bit of research I've done for this podcast. I watched it last night. So that's historically accurate. The guy who had the one key to the binocular cabinet, he gets off in France and takes the binocular key with him. So they don't have binoculars. Oh, my God. And there's a lot of these things that go wrong. One of them is that they're travelling almost as close as they can to their maximum speed.

And this is despite multiple warnings of ice coming in. Why are they doing that? It's really unclear, Tim. We'll talk a little bit about it later. But for now, the thing that you need to know is it's travelling at quite a reckless speed considering how much ice they know is around that. Because that's the thing, Tim. They know there's a lot of ice.

Ships are sending them messages saying, there's shitloads of ice out here, guys. You've got to be careful. You've got to slow down. But Titanic takes almost no precautions against that ice. Just before midnight, 11.40 to be precise the titanic is steaming at full speed right into the path of an iceberg that's right our old friend from greenland the ice mountain frozen death the sea piercer the sea piercer yeah tim that's a very common metaphor you know you got to be sure of

that so in the movie huge huge dramatic moment, obviously. Leo and Kate are downstairs in a car trying to find a place to make out. They're being chased by the people in the top decks because Kate shouldn't be with them. And then water just starts, like, flooding into the ship. Yes, and this is kind of one of the big misconceptions. And I'm actually surprised that Jim included it in the film because he did so much research on the Titanic. Yeah, James Cameron's like right up there with you in terms of the Titanic obsessive.

Yeah, he really is obsessive. He actually made a documentary to celebrate 20 years of Titanic where he went back and responded to all the criticism that academics about the Titanic had given him. About the movie? For what he had gotten wrong. Like what? him for what he had gotten wrong. Like what? Yeah, well, to the extent that he went back,

when he re-released the Blu-ray version of Titanic, he went back and digitally altered the night sky so that it would be the correct night sky for the night that Titanic actually sank. That's the verisimilitude he wanted to convey in this film. What is wrong with you people? So to go back to what I was talking about with all this water gushing in. Yeah, sure.

So Titanic has struck the iceberg. Yes, it hits on its starboard side. The right? That's the right-hand side. And actually, if you want a little mnemonic to help you remember which side is right and left, just remember there's enough port left in the glass. Or I've got another idea. We could just call them left and right on the podcast.

So the starboard side of the Titanic hits the iceberg. What they know now from sonar imaging of the ship is it doesn't really rip a huge hole in the side of Titanic. It, in fact, just puts six small holes in between some of the steel plates. In fact, the total size of these six small holes adds up to about one square metre, essentially the size of a bath towel. Are you serious?

Yeah. The whole damage that took down Titanic was just six holes that put together less than a bath towel. Yes, and it's not so much the number of holes or the size of the holes as it is where the holes occur. So Titanic is designed that the first four of its what we call watertight compartments can be filled without the Titanic being in danger. Okay, this is going to be the first of, I assume, hundreds of questions from me about the ship. What is a watertight compartment?

Well, actually, I'm very glad to answer that, Tim. Thought you would be. I'm sure you've heard that word unsinkable when it comes to Titanic, right, Tim? Mate, they love calling it the unsinkable ship. Yeah, it comes up a lot. And the thing you need to know is there are these things called watertight bulkheads. Now, watertight bulkheads are these essentially solid walls of steel that run from the bottom of the ship to just above the waterline.

And when you say the waterline, so they go up and then where the surface of the ocean is? Yes. That's how tall they are. They go a couple of feet above that. Right. Now, Titanic has 15 of these watertight bulkheads, and they divide the ship into 16 watertight compartments. Now, the idea of these compartments is that they stop water from moving from one compartment to the other. Right.

So if any water enters the ship, it captures it into one of these compartments. Exactly. Now, Titanic, as I said, is designed that the first four of these watertight compartments can be full of water. And that doesn't put the ship in any great danger. The trouble is that five of these compartments are pierced. And that's a death blow for the Titanic. Wow, so four would have been fine, but the iceberg strikes five, which is the death knell.

Exactly, because with five, the front of the ship is so heavy that it will start to come down, and that means that water can then spill from these watertight compartments into the next compartment, and then into the compartment after that, and so on and so on down the ship until the ship eventually sinks. Because it wasn't, the original image I had in my head is that a watertight compartment would be like, you know, an air pocket that's fully sealed in the ship. But you're saying it's not like that.

It's more like an ice tray. Exactly. Actually, an ice cube tray is exactly what we want to think of. As you fill one part of the ice cube tray, that water then spills over into the next. You don't have to fill every hole individually. Got it. Right, so with five of these compartments full,

Titanic has no chance of living through the night. And in fact, this is one of the reasons why they thought Titanic was unsinkable, was because of these watertight compartments. So they thought, well, this is so unlikely that five compartments will ever be open to the sea. Surely that could never happen in a million years. And yet this is the first time they're taking the thing out on the water. Yeah, exactly. It's its maiden voyage, you know.

They themselves didn't believe this ship could sink. So people were quite sceptical of this even being a disaster. Some people were even refusing to get into lifeboats because they thought it would be safer to be on the ship. It takes an hour before they launch the first lifeboats off Titanic. Wow. And even then, there aren't enough lifeboats for everybody on board. There's not even enough for half of the people. In just under three hours, Titanic sinks, and with it a loss of 1,500 drowned or frozen in the minus two degree water.

So, 11.40pm strikes the iceberg. It takes a whole hour for the first lifeboats to be launched. Yep, and about an hour and 40 minutes after that, it's gone. And of the 2,204 people on board, only 706 are saved. And as she disappears underneath the wave, the band plays on. And all of that, Tim, is based on a lie. All right. You think a ship sunk. Yes.

You don't think it was Titanic. Correct. What ship sunk. Yes. You don't think it was Titanic. Correct. What ship sunk? Great question, Tim. But to answer that, first let me take you back to March 1908. I thought you said that this happened in 1912. Yes, I did, Tim. Yes, I did.

The year was 1908. The summer of love. The Model T Ford was about to. The Summer of Love. The Model T Ford was about to roll off the production line. That was not the Summer of Love. The first Scout Troop is formed in the UK, and in Belfast, Harland & Wolfe Shipping and shipbuilder Thomas Andrews are about to present chairman of the White Star Line's Bruce Ismay with the designs that would one day soon become the Titanic.

As they met in Ismay's fire-warmed office, these men knew that the scent of brandy and the soft thumb of the phonograph did little to disguise that this office was a battlefield. For a war was being waged, Tim. A war that would determine the future of the Northern Hemisphere, indeed the world as they knew it. World War I. I know about this bit. Oh dear, sweet, naive, stupid Tim.

World War I was a distraction, a mere interlude in a much grander conflict. The war to determine which country would possess the largest steamship. You cannot be serious. And in 1908, Tim, the United Kingdom was losing. Under the watchful, demanding gaze of a portrait of King Edward VII, these few men gathered in the offices of Harlan and Wolfe knew that they were about to reveal the weapon that would win this war. The Olympic class liners.

Three ships that would claim the seas and leave their mark eternal upon the world. Named for the Greek titans of myth, they were to be the Olympic, the Britannic, you that we are the same age. Of course you are, my child. All of us are the same age when compared with the immortals. No, I mean you and I are both 34. For these liners would be, like their ancient Greek namesakes, immortal. Ships that even the gods would envy in their spectacle.

Their grandeur, their might. Who could possibly kill the unkillable? What weapon could bring low a titan? What could sink the unsinkable? The answer, Tim, is hubris And ice, right? And ice, yes Mainly ice, though, in the case of Titanic, right? That's another great question, Tim

And to answer that, we must talk about Thomas Andrews Must we? The shipbuilder who designed the Titanic So, if you'll allow me to sidetrack for a minute Thomas Andrews is, to my mind, the most interesting passenger on the Titanic. So if you'll allow me to sidetrack for a minute, Thomas Andrews is, to my mind, the most interesting passenger on the Titanic. Andrews is the guy who designed Titanic, from top to bottom.

You know the door that Rose and Jack get off on the Titanic? I do know that door, Carlo, because as I mentioned, that is the research I've done for this podcast. I watched the movie last night. So if that was real, the person who probably threw that door in the water would have been Thomas Andrews.

Right. So the designer of the Titanic saved Rose. Well, in the fiction of the film, yes. Oh, Rose isn't real? No, no. Okay. She's kind of like a catch-all for first-class people who can stand on their tippy toes. Not a real woman, though, that Kate Winslet was portraying.

Not that we know. Okay, because that was another big question. Okay, we can move on their tippy toes. Not a real woman, though, that Kate Winslet was portraying. Not that we know. Okay, because that was another big question. So, okay, we can move on from that. Okay, so when we talk about the unsinkability of the Titanic, he's the guy who's most aware this ship is definitely sinkable. And the reason he knows is because there are some things in his designs that would have had a huge impact on this disaster that never get added to the Titanic.

Like safety features? Yeah, so the first is he wants the hull to be a double hull. He thinks this is the safest thing for the Titanic, is to have a double hull. And what does that mean exactly? So the outside of the ship, like the skin of the ship, double hull basically means inside that is a second hull. So if the outside is pierced,

there's this second layer of protection inside. So it's like a big steel condom. If you like, yeah, sure. Right. Now, that design is too expensive. They estimate it's going to cost double as much. That tracks, double hull. So the next thing he suggests is that they take the watertight bulkheads.

Those are the big steel walls? Exactly, up to B deck. Now, the ones that are on the Titanic, they only go to D or E deck. Now, this is with decks being labelled from A going down to G, with A being the highest and G being the lowest. So, in other words, he goes, OK, if the double-held thing's too expensive, you've got to make the steel walls way higher to keep the water in.

Exactly, and that would mean that even with five compartments, health thing's too expensive, you've got to make the steel walls way higher to keep the water in. Exactly. And that would mean that even with five compartments, maybe the Titanic would stay afloat. Right. Maybe with six, because it's just that extra bit of water that the Titanic can take on before it spills into the next compartment. Got it. And they go, no. Why?

It's, again, too expensive. They've already built the biggest ship in the world. What's another few, I don't know, hundred pounds? I don't know how money works back then. Well, the other thing is they wanted these ships to be these big, grand, beautiful liners. And taking those watertight bulkheads up so high would have also affected things like the ballrooms and these dining rooms. They would have suddenly had walls coming up through the middle of them. Oh, wow.

So they had to prioritize the fanciness over the seaworthiness on board. Exactly. And with both of those design features off the cards, Thomas Andrews has one more solution to make this all much safer, and that is he designs the Titanic to be able to take 64 lifeboats. Man, I love this guy. They keep telling him no. He keeps coming up with new solutions.

And this is the thing. 64 lifeboats is more than they would ever need. They only really need about 32. Right, how many people fit in one of these lifeboats, do you know? I think 75 at a max, between 65 and 75. If we want to really get into it, there's three different kinds of lifeboats on the Titanic. But let's leave that for now. Yeah, we probably don't need to drill into that.

It's pretty interesting though, Tim. I'm sure it is, but we've got somewhat limited time. So we've got capacity for 64 lifeboats. What happens next? They take 16. What do you mean? So they only take 16 lifeboats. Why?

Well, because the law at the time hadn't been updated for 20 years. And when that law was made, 16 lifeboats was more than any ship would ever need because they couldn't even imagine these gigantic ships. Oh, my God. So White Star Line did nothing wrong. They just took the number that they felt they legally were obliged to take. Well, they did nothing illegal. Yeah, that's true.

How many lifeboats would they have needed to fit all the passengers in? 32. Right, but they only took half that. Exactly, yes. 32. Right, but they only took half there. Exactly, yes. So with those three features now taken away,

that makes this disaster much worse. Yeah. That said, though, and let's go back to our friend Jim Cameron, when he did that documentary trying to piece together some of the criticisms he had got, he decided to do a test to see how long it would take to launch one of Titanic's lifeboats and basically worked out that even if Titanic had had twice as many lifeboats, even if it had had 10 more lifeboats,

they probably wouldn't have saved more people because they would have run out of time to launch those lifeboats. Right. Two of them never get launched. One gets capsized and the other one just sort of floats off and people crawl into it. And this is the really sad thing. Some of the lifeboats that are launched are only half full.

Some of them have, like, less than 10 people. And this is why one of the last recorded sightings of Thomas Andrews ever seen is him desperately trying to make makeshift rafts and throw them off the Titanic using deck chairs. That is terrifying. Because he just wanted to try and save as many people as he could because he knew there was no chance.

If I was on board a ship and I saw the guy who designed it biffing furniture into the water, I would freak out. I've actually been in a similar situation. I once worked at a radio station where a guy who was a co-owner on the last day we were on air started unscrewing the equipment to try and put it in his car to take home, and that's when we all knew we were screwed. Same freaking thing.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I want to point out this time, Tim, this ship really was designed to be as unsinkable as they could afford. Sure. And it really is a freak accident that they hit an iceberg. It's really unprecedented. It's actually insane that they hit an iceberg. You know, it's really unprecedented. It's actually insane that they hit an iceberg. Really?

In the hundred years before this, only two steel-hulled ships had ever been sunk by icebergs, and they're really small ships that don't have watertight compartments. Man, this is starting to sound a lot like Final Destination. It was just everything in the universe was trying to get the Titanic to sink. Well, it's not just the universe, Tim, and that's what I really want to get to, is that there's also some people who are very interested in making sure this ship sinks. So it's not just these freak natural occurrences.

There's also some man-made ones. And just to go back for a second, I mean, conventional thinking at the time was that these ships really were too big to fail. The ships are built nowadays to be practically unsinkable, and each ship is supposed to be a lifeboat in itself. The boats are merely supposed to be put on as a standby. The ships are supposed to be built, and the naval architects say they are unsinkable under certain conditions. Who the f*** was that? That was Captain Rostron, the master of the Carpathian,

the ship that pulled Titanic survivors from the sea. It sounded a lot like Jeremy Wells. Oh yeah, it would, Tim. Yeah, it would. Now, this part of the testimony is given at the United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and that was held just four days after the event. I'll draw your attention to what he said when asked why the Titanic had so few lifeboats. The ships are built nowadays to be practically unsinkable. The boats are merely supposed to be

put on as a standby. The ships are supposed to be built, and the naval architects say they are, unsinkable, unsinkable, architects say they are unsinkable. Unsinkable. Unsinkable. Unsinkable. Okay, firstly, that's definitely Jeremy Wells' voice. Sure, man, if you want to say that's the case, I know you love your conspiracy theories.

The second thing is, if I understand right, he's saying that Titanic couldn't have been sunk by an iceberg. I mean, this feels a little bit loaded but is he suggesting ice can't melt steel beams no no no tim no no look the evidence is absolutely there that an iceberg sank the titanic what i'm asking is what if the titanic had been ready to sink and the iceberg just helped it along. Okay Carlo, we're running out of time for this episode, so I just want to take a beat to review. This all kicked off because three years ago you mentioned to me in a bar that you do not believe that the Titanic sunk. Now to your credit, you've taught me a lot of stuff today. I'd learned what a watertight bulkhead was, and how lifeboats work work and some freaky one in a 1300 year moon phase. But I still don't quite understand what you actually think

happened to this ship. Well, Tim, I believe the RMS Titanic was switched with her sister ship and that they plan to deliberately sink her as part of an insurance scheme. Why wouldn't you just tell me that at the start? Because you weren't ready, Tim. I mean, the Titanic isn't a ship. It's an idea. It's a ship. It's very much a ship. It's the RMS Titanic. In fact, the way you're talking now, it might even be two ships. Don't worry, Tim. It'll all make sense. I promise. You'll get it. Okay. So we're dealing with a pretty big conspiracy here. This was an insurance job done for money. Like 1,500 people died. That's pretty full on.

And the central part of this is you reckon they switched two ships around. Yes, they switched the RMS Titanic with the RMS Olympic, her sister ship. And I can prove it. But that's a story for the next episode. Hey, everyone. Tim here again. When I went back and listened to the conversation you just heard between Carlo and myself, I got a little bit worried that Carlo's

essentially been brainwashing me because he can just overload me with facts and stats because he knows so much about Titanic and the only defence I've got is having watched the movie one time recently. So I've invited an outsider, a friend, to listen to our chat and help me check on my sanity. So, Carlo, I am now at the secret abode of Rhys and Theo Darby.

Good to meet you, Rhys and Theo. Thanks so much for coming on. No worries. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me into your home, both of you. No worries. It's not really our home. We've hired a place because I'm not having my actual house.

Oh, that's fair. I rotate my houses. I see. Yeah, because people like you track me down for podcasts and things. Fair enough. Looks like I'll have to put this one on the market now. Gutted. Now, for the listeners at home, we're

doing this via the internet. So Carlo is in Canberra. Myself and Theo and Rhys are together and there is a horrific delay on the end. So I'm going to end everything I say with over because I think it will be fun. That's good. Yep. Over.

Yeah, that feels suitably nautical, I think. Over. Rhys and Theo, I'm talking to you first because I heard, Theo, that at one time you became incredibly fascinated with the Titanic, kind of like Carlo did, and you know quite a lot of facts about the ship. Is that right? Yeah, me and my best friend, when we were like eight, we got a ton of books.

I've actually never watched the movie, but we got a bunch of books and we went to a bunch of cruise ships from the time. Theo, would you be kind enough to share one of your conspiracy theories? Well, I have a lot, but the most interesting one that I've come up with recently a lot but the most interesting one that i've come up with recently is that there's a time traveler that took all the items that were needed to help the ship survive such as like the red flares and the binoculars the key to binoculars and stuff and that time traveller is no other than James Cameron himself. Whoa. Holy smoke. Well you caught me Theo. You caught me. I thought

I would have got away with it. Carlo you wish you were James Cameron and this conspiracy theory's got legs because I keep saying to Carlo there's so many little things that had to go wrong and you're suggesting that wasn't random. Yeah. Someone went back and did that so they could make a blockbuster movie,

the linchpin of their career in the 90s, and make a truckload of money out of it. I mean, we all know James Cameron is pretty smart. He's pretty much a genius for all the things that he's done, the top best-selling movies of all time. They're all his. And so I think he's a time traveler because he's definitely smart enough. And I could jump in here.

I mean, he did also do the submarine voyage to the lowest part on Earth. So he already is familiar with machinery and how to operate them on his own. And what's more treacherous than a submarine that goes down to the very bottom of the planet than a time machine that can go back in time? I'm guessing he's in control of that as well. Yeah. So I was coming to the Derby's to check my own sanity as I was getting pulled into Carlo's sort of whirlpool of facts and theories,

but I feel like I'm even further adrift now talking to the two of you. I've come to the wrong people to get a sense check on my sanity. You have indeed. But what is your take on Carlo based on what you've heard in this first episode, Carlo the man? Yeah, I think he's legit. Absolutely. Because he's been obsessed with this since he was a kid. And he's a man of numbers, a man of words, and a man who categorizes things in his head. I know where this kind of comes from. I know what part of the spectrum he's on.

It's something that takes facts and doesn't throw them about like petals after a wedding. He selects them and finds the ones that are real and the ones that aren't. And so I think categorically, it's a fascinating journey and he's probably the right captain for it. Wow. What do you think, Theo?

Do you think that this guy Carlo is the right sort of person that we should be trusting to hear about the Titanic? I think he's full of himself. I think he's read too much about the Titanic and he's created more than facts and I think he should just give it a break and learn about something else. I think a lot of people would agree with you. Do you want to respond to that at all, Carlo? Over. Well,

two sides of the coin there, certainly. I mean, I definitely am not one to be throwing petals at weddings. I like to just throw facts. That's been one of my key arguments against marriage for such a long time. I'd rather just have people throwing encyclopedias, which gets quite dangerous. Theo, I wonder those same questions myself, though. Have I read so much that I have inflated my own sense of knowledge? This is the real danger when you get obsessed with something.

Rhys, do you think, did Titanic sink? Yes, 100%. Yeah, I mean, we've seen the wreckage. You don't think there's any possibility that it's a repainted Olympic? Could be, absolutely. But the actual ship, the one that got launched, the one that everyone's raving about, have done for 100 plus years.

Yeah, I think that definitely sunk. I can't wait to listen to the rest of the podcast to figure out whether it's the ship A or ship B. Well, Rhys and Theo, I came to you to see if I was going crazy to believe Carlo, and I think I came to the wrong place. I think I've asked the wrong two people, but it's been nice to hang out. Thank you for the questions for Carlo and I. We're so sorry that we've hindered your investigation, but hey, that's what the world is all about. I'll see you guys both at the

Conspiracy Club on Saturday. you guys are still going to the meetings Yeah, absolutely Well I hope the truth is never revealed and thanks for having us Thanks Tim Watkin and Justin Gregory, directed by Chelsea Preston-Crayford, with audio engineering by Blair Stagpole and original music by Eilish Wilson, He Kurangi Scarverian Carr and Phoebe Johnson. Additional voicing from Jeremy Wells,

with special guests Rhys Darby and Theo Darby. Inquiry transcripts courtesy of the Titanic Inquiry Project. Marconiogram transcripts courtesy of Sean Collin. This project would not be possible without the work of the Titanic Inquiry Project Follow Did Titanic Sink on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts