The Worst Idea Of All Time - Did Titanic Sink? 02: Meet The Sister

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

If the Titanic didn't sink, which ship did? Carlo and Tim uncover a tale of jealousy, greed, villainy - and, possibly, nonsense.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. Welcome back to Did Titanic Sink? This is an online content by Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa. it's sinking and I thought yeah I can make fun of that in a podcast. So let's explore Carlo's theory. Now I'm no lawyer but I have watched enough TV to know that if a criminal conspiracy has gone down there's got to be means, motive and opportunity. Killing 1500 people in the middle of the ocean is a pretty full-on thing to do so I want to understand the motive. Why would someone deliberately sink a

massive passenger ship? Here's what happened at the end of last episode. 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. Well, that episode is this episode. And this is, Did Titanic Sink? G'day, Carlo. Hello, Tim.

How you doing? I would like to say that I'm doing quite well. Are you just? Yes. Tell me about your day. Well, I've just had a delicious sandwich. Nice. And I was actually craving that because I've found so little nice bread here.

In New Zealand? Yes. But now I've found some great bread and it's really made me quite glad. Oh, I'm so happy to hear it. Do you feel you're all fuelled up and ready to go back to Titanic? Oh, Tim, I'm already there. Okay, so at the end of the last episode, you revealed to me that you think the Titanic got switched with this other ship called the Olympic, which is its sister ship.

That's right. And sister ship means they were built at the same time. They're pretty similar. They were part of a series, yes. I'll get into that shortly. Okay. And can I just note, you revealed that after you explained to me where the iceberg came from and what the moon was doing that year. Yeah, well, you can't put a saddle on until you've got the horse.

I mean, you've got me there. So as I mentioned before, I want to find out today what would possess someone to try and purposefully sink a fully laden passenger ship? Sure. Well, to answer that, Tim, I'd like to introduce you to Captain Edward John Smith. Oh, my God. Another name. Tim, I'd like to introduce you to Captain Edward John Smith.

Oh, my God, another name. Now, this is the captain of the Titanic when it sinks. OK. But importantly, he was White Star Line's celebrity. In fact, really, at this time in history, he's a rock star, Tim. People want to be on ships that Edward John Smith is in command of. He's like the Ashley Bloomfield of captaining ships. I don't understand the reference, but I'm glad you're back on board, Tim.

White Star Lines, they throw a lot behind Edward Smith. In fact, the Titanic wasn't even fully booked when it set sail. The sails were quite bad for the Titanic. And there's this rumour, and I'm not sure of how true it is, but all of the American museums about Titanic, they talk about the fact that Edward John Smith had retired and that White Star Lines brought him back out of retirement in order to sail this ship in the hopes that his reputation as the millionaire's captain,

that is the captain that millionaires wanted to sail with, would pick up sails. Whoa, so he's like the guy in all the heist movies who they get back to do one last big job. Yeah, unfortunately it really was one last big job. Now, Edward Smith, one year earlier, was in charge of another ship. You may have heard of it, the RMS Olympic. It's the one you keep bringing up. What's the deal with this ship?

So the RMS Olympic is Titanic's identical twin sister. It was the famous ship of the 1910s. Tugboats wanted to be near her. Lesser ships wanted to be her. Hard men wept at the sight of her lustrous steelirded body. Okay. Titanic's launch was a huge event for sure, but it wasn't anything particularly new because she was almost identical to the Olympic. How identical are we talking? Are we talking like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen identical

or like Ashley and Elizabeth Olsen identical? Again, I don't really get the reference. Now, those differences are really about A deck and B deck, and we'll get into them a bit later. The important thing is they're superficial aesthetic differences that are very easy to change. Noted. The Olympics set sail a year before the Titanic in 1911.

And one of the things you need to know about Captain Smith is he has an incredible record as a captain. He's been a captain for over 30 years and is considered a safe captain because his ships, they usually sail without incident. He's a really, really good captain. Yeah, right. So I assume that's why they put him in charge of the Olympic. That's like the biggest ship

that they've got, right? A lot of money tied up with it. They're only going to trust the top dog with that. Exactly, Tim. They want the best that they can get. And just like all of his other voyages, it goes without a hitch until it has to dock. And when it comes in to dock in New York Harbour, it's so

big that 12 tugboats have to help it get into port. As it's doing this, one of these tugboats gets sucked underneath the Olympic because the propeller suction is so intense that it just sucks a whole ship into it.

Okay, so a tugboat's being dragged under this huge Aramis Olympic. That's right. And it doesn't cause any significant damage. No one died? No one died. No, it's all fine, mostly because of Captain Smith. You know, he works out how to solve the situation. He's that good. He's that good.

He's that good, Tim. Yeah, he is that good. And this same thing plays out a year later when the Titanic launches. Okay. Titanic is also helped by tugboats to get out of Southampton. And as they get out from the harbour, the Titanic starts up its propeller. And normally, for any ship that's not an Olympic-class liner, this would be fine. But again, this massive suction generated by the Titanic

rips another whole ship this time off its mooring. Holy crap. It just snaps it off the dock and pulls it towards Titanic. Oh, my God. And they come within a few metres of crashing into each other. Again, thanks to some quick thinking by Captain Smith, disaster's avoided. But it plays into this bigger picture, which is these ships are just so big

that even people who have spent their entire lives at sea piloting these ships aren't really prepared for the wholly different physics that comes with these massive vessels. Okay. This is like getting a rally driver to try and drive a tank for the first time in their lives. Yeah, or even better, it's like getting a rally driver to fly a plane. They're that different. It's really different. Titanic is something like 10,000 tonnes bigger

than its nearest white starship at this time. Gotcha. It's a big step up. Now, these two incidents, they're relatively minor in the scheme of either the Olympic or the Titanic. No one died. No one died. The ships aren't badly damaged. Everybody's fine. They're just kind of little upsets in the career. There is, however,

one very significant incident that happens to the Olympic, and that is a year earlier in June 1911. The Olympic is sailing down this very narrow channel of water off the coast of Great Britain. I imagine a pretty difficult task with these new huge ships. It's not that narrow, Tim. It's about eight kilometres across. It's not narrow at all. Well, in nautical terms, it's a pretty narrow channel. OK.

I mean, you could defend that with just a couple of warships. Anyway, the point is, it's sailing along this channel and alongside it, travelling in the same direction is a naval ship called the hms hawk this is a warship tim and as they sail along olympic slowly starts to turn over to starboard the right side that's right it starts turning over to starboard and it does this so slowly that the hawk initially doesn't notice that the Olympic is turning. But then, all of a sudden, they're on a collision course. And the hawk doesn't have the time or the space to be able to correct,

and so desperately tries to steer away from crashing into the Olympic. The thing is, Olympic suction is so big that it pulls the hawk back against its own turning power and smashes the hawk into the rear of the olympic oh no yeah it's a huge disaster the hms hawk is designed to sink ships by ramming them so its whole front is designed to pierce ships and it it does. It just rips a massive hole in the side of the Olympic, flooding two watertight compartments and damaging one of Olympic's propeller lines. Damn. Yeah, it's a bad thing.

What's even crazier, though, is that the Hawk, a ship that's designed to hit other ships, is almost destroyed. Like, its whole front is caved in and it nearly capsizes and sinks. That is insane so the olympic which is a passenger ship just designed to take people to and fro accidentally takes out a military vessel yeah well very nearly yeah but it really messes it up and this will play out later into people's conception that these ships really are kind of unsinkable right because even a navy ship designed to take down other ships can't take out the Olympic.

The problem is the Hawk is a British Navy ship. And when you hit a British Navy ship, essentially you hit Britain. And Britain are mad, Tim. They are so mad. You never want to get the British pissed off because they're always near hot boiling tea. Yeah, and they throw the tea all over White Star Lions. They take White Star Lions to court in a very costly legal debate,

which White Star Lions decides to defend. They're a big corporation. They're like, we've got the best lawyers, I assume. Yeah, and they lose badly. Really? Yeah, they lose so badly. Not only do they now have to pay their legal costs and the legal costs for the hawk, they also have to pay for legal costs and the legal costs for the hawk,

they also have to pay for the damage to the Olympic and to the hawk. Plus, in order to fix the Olympic, they have to take it out of action for months to do all these critical repairs, which means that it's not earning any money for the White Star Line. So they're up for huge losses and they're losing money. Not only that, they have to take parts from the Titanic to be able to speed up the process of fixing the Olympic, which means that Titanic is now delayed. Oh my God. They've essentially driven the world's nicest bus into the world's nicest tank. And then they have to pay for both of those things while they're in the shop. You really want to talk about tanks in your analogies, man.

Has someone tried to sell you a tank, Chris? I don't know, man. Someone says the military, I think tank. Yeah, well, it is a very nice analogy. Yes, that's basically it. Why sunlions are now just hemorrhaging cash? Because they have a damaged ship. They have a ship that has to be delayed

and they've got these huge costs that they're having to meet. And you're also saying that they started grabbing bits out of the Titanic to throw into the Olympic? Exactly, because these ships are identical, right? So if you're missing a component, it makes sense that you just take that exact same component from the ship that's exactly identical to it. This is like if you've got two bashed up MacBooks that are the same model. You can Frankenstein them together usually because they don't have the same bits broken and make one new one. Sure, but it still means that one of them is going to be out of commission.

Totally. And that's what happens with Titanic. So it's now delayed. Oh. And it's a huge disaster for the Olympic. And it's important because the White Star Lines is owned by a company called the IMMC. That's the International Mercantile Marine Company,

which is owned by a guy named J.P. Morgan. You may have heard of him. Hold the frickin' phone, Carlo, because now you're speaking my language. I do know about J.P. Morgan. The very historical figure, I believe, that Monopoly based the Monopoly man on. That's right, yeah.

That's how rich he was. Yeah. He owned all the railways in the States. I think about half of the railways. He owned pretty much all of the steel in the States. I think it was like definitely more than half. Oh yeah, yeah. And if I remember correctly, his son was the sole arms purchaser

for the British and the French during World War I and was clipping the ticket for 1% of all the weapons sold to those governments. Yeah, they're a big wealthy family. A big wealthy ruthless family. Yeah, yeah. Look, allegedly. I don't want to get sued, Tim.

Okay, fair enough. Yeah, so J.P. Morgan owns this company, IMMC. And he's done that because he wants to get into the shipping industry. Now, IMMC, at the turn of the 20th century, they're hugely financially over-leveraged. By the time that Titanic and Olympic are in commission, they've borrowed so much against the projected income of these ships that when these ships start losing the money,

it's putting them from red into deepest maroon. Right. They are going so far back on the books. In fact, in 1915, the IMMC will file for bankruptcy. Wow. But from memory, that is a few years after Titanic sunk, right? It has nothing to do with it, Tim. It has nothing to do with it.

The seeds for this bankruptcy are laying way before the Titanic sinks. If you say so. Here's a little interesting tidbit about J.P. Morgan. And that is J.P. Morgan, he buys a ticket for the Titanic. He's meant to be on the Titanic. And he very publicly publicizes that he's going to be on Titanic and convinces a bunch of his millionaire friends to come on board the Titanic with him. This makes sense you said ticket sales weren't

super great so what better way to juice them up than get the one of the richest guys in the world who helped finance the ship itself to be on the maiden voyage. Totally and then at the last minute he pulls out. Huh. He says he's going to stay in France and continue his holiday there and also all of his close friends also pull out. One of them so late that his luggage is on the Titanic. And one of his servants, who's in charge of that luggage, and he's like, oh, it'll be fine. I'll just get it later in New York.

And both the servant and the luggager, of course, never get off. That's pretty sus, dude. Yeah, so to put into perspective just how much the IMMC and Titanic's owners are on the line for, these ships cost $368 million New Zealand dollars in today's value to build each. What? Yeah.

But interestingly, they're insured for just under this at $244 million New Zealand dollars. So to pay that money back that these things cost, they need to be running, and they need to be running a lot. Because each return trip that these ships make is over 10 days. These are 12, 14-day return trips. They've got to be working around the calendar. Exactly.

But now you have one ship completely messed up being repaired and the other ship being delayed. So that profit isn't going to come in for longer and longer and longer. Sure. But I did hear you mention something about insurance. Yes. Yes, I did, Tim. And that's where this all starts to come into play. Because these ships are insured for almost as much value as they were built for. And White Star Lines has other ships being built, like the Titanic's other sister, the Britannic.

It's almost about to come out. And a few years after that, there'll be more big ships coming out. So they're not really short on ships, but what they are short on is cash. Right. And they're up for a lot of cash at the moment. Like, they're hugely over leveraged. And this is where it's important to mention this, Tim,

and that is because the Olympic was in a collision with the Hawk and it was ruled at fault, they can't claim any insurance money for that damage. So this is where the plan comes in, which is if you can switch the Olympic with the Titanic, you get a new good ship and you get a shitty ruined ship which you can sink in the middle of the ocean and claim a full insurance payout for

because everyone thinks it's the Titanic. Oh my God, that's what you think happened here. Yeah. You think that JP Morgan, who's a guy who owns the company that owns the company that owns these two ships, who was on the hook for fabulous amounts of money due to a crash and legal action and a lack of ability to sell passenger tickets was planning to scrap the Olympic because it was damaged by dressing it up to be the Titanic and set it off and just sink it into the ocean for an insurance job.

That is exactly what I'm saying. But Carlo, if that's the plan, how do you get the world's safest, most famous, greatest captain to deliberately drive into an iceberg. Well, Tim, what if the iceberg had nothing to do with it? What? What if I told you the Titanic was on fire when it left Southampton? 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. Ursula Carlson, thank you very much for joining us on Did Titanic Sink? Thank you for having me. What did you make of this second

episode that you heard? I just want to say right off the bat, I don't like to do other people's podcasts. I just don't like it. It's not for me. But I decided I'm going to do this one because my son is absolutely obsessed with Titanic and facts about Titanic. He's five years old. And when he was four, we were walking on the beach out of Murawai, which is a beautiful West Coast beach with black sand. And he just looked at me and out of nowhere he said, Mama, did you know the fourth stack on the Titanic is a dummy stack?

And I went, what? I had to go Google both of those things. I have to look up all things Titanic for him. He knows about the museum and Belfast. He wants to go. I used to think it's fine, he'll grow out of this weird phase, you know, because it is a weird phase to be this obsessed about something when you're this little. But then

when I listened to the podcast, Carlo, and you said that you started maybe as a six-year-old boy, because in my mind, I thought he'd stop as soon as he discovered girls, but turns out you don't. Does he look anything like Carlo? He does actually, especially at the start.

I hate to reveal that there's this whole time loop happening, Ursula, but yes. I'm raising you. Yeah, you're raising me. And in the future I'll travel back in time to make a podcast with you just to hear about my own knowledge of the Titanic stacks. Yeah. I don't agree with you.

Thank God. It makes no sense. Financially it makes no sense for them to sink it. It makes no sense because JP Morgan is a businessman. He knows what he's doing. And financially, it makes no sense to sink a ship. Like he removed some stuff off the ship before it took off, right? Like some artworks and stuff.

And people go, oh, no, that's why he didn't get on the ship. Bullshit. This is like your classic entry-level influencer back in the day without Instagram. Influencers pull out of shit all the time. They talk about it, they show it, but then don't follow through. And this is what him and all his rich mates did. They're like, we're going to go on this ship.

You should go on this ship because they wanted their money. But then they pulled out at the last minute already having other people's money. That's how it works. But Iz, didn't you hear what Carlo said about the fact that the Olympic got in a collision with the Hawk? I did, yeah. So it was irrevocably

damaged. It was irreparably damaged. And so this thing was a write-off anyway. So they had to figure some way out to get out of this financial jam. don't think it's possible they're an insurance scam yeah but then you use the olympic for space not the titanic like you just you just make it just a ship for spares is that what you're saying like it's yeah yeah it's like we'll just keep it we'll keep it in the dry docks and if we need some spares for our other ships we'll just rip them off that exactly because then you can get one out immediately.

You don't have two that you're working on, one to fix and one to build. I like that idea, but it's like the equivalent of having someone's, like a wrecked car in someone's front yard, you know, like Harlan and Wolf, like just having this broken down ship that they're taking parts of. Mate, you're talking like you've never been to Geelong. Yeah.

I don't go anywhere that's landlocked. Well, there you'll see how people work with spears and how you can keep your spears on the front lawn. So, so far, you're not convinced by this kind of financial situation we've got going on. I'm not. You're thinking this doesn't make any sense. No, the theory behind that,

the main theory makes no sense to me. JP Morgan basically owned the world. It's the same with the moon landing. Like I think there would have been a lot more people speaking out. I know they were threatened, but people don't give a shit. Do you believe in any conspiracy theories?

No. Have you ever worked in an office environment? Have you ever? Like you can't keep anything a secret even the biggest thing like everyone like guys i'm not allowed to say anything but cheryl is definitely pregnant and it is guaranteed you know like it is out before lunchtime like i don't think human beings aren't made to keep a secret so if there's this big secret that everyone like the moon landing oh we would have we would have known because people would have been talking

about it that afternoon. I guess this goes to my point. Because the original plan wasn't to hit an iceberg, there's nothing for people to talk about, you know. Like it's this terrible disaster, the ship sinks. It's not the grand conspiracy that they'd originally intended. It's a freak accident. So there's no reason for people to come forward.

How would you slowly sink it? Or where would they have slowly done it? Great question. It's a very good question, but in a nutshell, the Titanic was on fire when it left Southampton. So there's like this little bit of intrigue around this fire and whether it was deliberately lit. I think it was.

By who? The designer guy. He was like, they didn't listen to me. Now they'll learn. You know, like when you get sick of shit at work and you stir some drama, this is what this guy did. It's a hell of a way to do it. You should have listened.

You should have listened to my double hell idea. You should have listened to my lifeboat recommendation. You didn't. I'm going to take this thing down down i will teach you a lesson look what happens this is what happens yeah 100 yeah and and that's sort of how he would have made him name for because he he would have known he knew people were going to die because there wouldn't have been enough and then he's like you know what if i'm going to go out i'm going to go out with a massive name damn that's so vindictive

i quite like that you literally sink with the ship you're like i've got a plan i'm going to see it through everyone should have listened to me no one did i'm lighting this huge coal bunker on fire and i'm going to sink with it and see everyone down there yeah no that's not the way i'd go out i'd take one of those lifeboats and go, I f***ing told you to get more. I would do a running bomb in one of those, you know, those first class people who had like 10, 15 people on a boat that can take 60 odd people. I'd be running, diving onto that and taking everything with me.

I would throw all this s*** out of that boat. I'd be biffing rich b****es overboard like you cannot believe. So to get even on people from not having enough people in a lifeboat, you would deliberately throw people out of a lifeboat? Yeah. No, but I would work it like I'm the bouncer at this thing. Like if they go, women and children only, and then you see rich guys get in, I'm like, get out.

Because, you know, if they take some of their possessions, like a trunk or I'm like, get out, that hole, that lady, if they take some of their possessions, like a trunk or like get out, that whole, that lady and the trunks going overboard. And then you can put another 50 people in that lifeboat. I love that. I can so see you doing that as well on the night. Everyone's freaking out. You're like, everybody shut the f*** up.

And cut the f***ing music. Who's the playing that s***? I just want to play you the voice message from my son

about the Titanic because he's given this a lot of thought. Maybe he believes in the

unsinkable Titanic because one of the factors is you went straight on into the

iceberg, you would sink slowly. He didn't go for the three-hour scenario. He's like, this was their 12-hour plan. Far out. Maybe it is me that you're raising, Ursula. Ursula Carlson, thank you so much for joining us on Did Titanic Sink?

Thank you for your scepticism and your level head that you've brought to this. And I would invite you to listen to the other episodes and see if Carlo can win you over. I will. But it's the same with every conspiracy theory. You listen to enough stuff and you're like, it's true. I have never seen the edge of the earth. And I think it is flat.

That's why the Titanic couldn't sink because the earth is flat. Where's it going to go? Through? Yeah, it landed on the back of the turtle. Did Titanic Sink is written and produced by myself, Tim Baird, and Carlo Ritchie. The executive producers are Tim Watkin and Justin Gregory. Directed by Chelsea Preston-Crayford. With audio engineering by Blair Stagpole, and original music by Eilish Wilson,

Hekurangi Scarverian-Karr, and Phoebe Johnson. With special guest, Ursula Carlson. 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. Marconiogram transcripts courtesy of Sean Collin. This project would not be possible without the work of the Titanic Inquiry Project. Follow Did Titanic Sink

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