Stephen,

Deck chairs weren't stored in the base of Titanic's fourth funnel. You might be thinking of Normandie (and I think Queen Mary, too, though my memory falters on that one)



Sam,

I remember seeing a cross section of the fourth funnel somewhere. Dan Cherry might know where it could be at.

Titanic's fourth funnel was capped off because there wasn't any need for it to be open. The first three were open to allow exhaust smoke from the boilers to be released. The fourth only needed enough open to allow for galley uptakes and ventilation (refer to Dan's post above).

The cap over the fourth funnel was probably just to keep the rest of the funnel from filling up with rainwater. As for the bars crossing the foreward three funnels, I'm not totally sure. Lusitania and Mauretania didn't have them. I'd imagine that they provided extra support for weather covers while the ship was in port (See the famous photo of Normandie and the Queens tied up in New York in the '40's. Normandie's foreward two and all three of Queen Mary's funnels have a weather cover in place) The cover was to prevent rain water from getting into the ship while sitting idle in port.