The History of the
RMS Titanic
This information was obtained from the OFFICIAL
Titanic web site.
The Royal Mail Ship TITANIC
was the last grand dream of the Gilded Age. It was designed to be the greatest
achievement of an era of prosperity, confidence and propriety. Although
no one knew it, the world
was about to change drastically. Radio had been invented in 1901. The Wright
Brothers' first successful flight was in 1903.
The old presumptions about class, morals, and gender-roles were about to
be shattered. If the concept of Titanic was
the climax of the age, then perhaps its sinking was the curtain
that marked the end of the old drama, and
the start of a new one.
The intensely competitive transatlantic
steamship business had seen recent major advances in ship design,
size and speed. White Star Line, one of the
leaders, determined to focus on size and elegance rather than pure
speed. In 1907, White Star Line's managing director J. Bruce Ismay and
Lord James Pirrie, a partner in Harland &
Wolff (White Star Line's ship-builder since its founding in 1869) conceived
of three magnificent steam ships which would
set a new standard for comfort, elegance, and safety. The first two were
to be named Olympic and Titanic, the latter name chosen by Ismay to convey
a sense of overwhelming size and strength.
It took a year to design the two ships. Construction of Olympic started
in December, 1908, followed by Titanic in
March 1909. The Belfast shipyards of Harland & Wolff had to be
re-designed to accommodate the immense projects while White Star's pier
in New York had to be lengthened to enable
the ships to dock. During the two years it took to complete Titanic's hull,
the press was primed with publicity about
the ship's magnificence, making Titanic virtually a legend before her launch.
The "launch" of the completed steel in May, 1911, was a heavily publicized
spectacle. Tickets were sold to benefit a
local children's hospital.
She was then taken for "fitting
out" which involved the construction of the ship's many facilities and
systems, her elaborate woodwork and fine decor.
As the date of her maiden voyage approached, the completed
Olympic suffered a collision and required extensive repairs, increasing
the workload at Harland & Wolff, which
was already struggling to complete Titanic on schedule. Titanic's maiden
voyage was delayed from March 20 to April
10.
Titanic was 883 feet long (1/6
of a mile), 92 feet wide and weighed 46,328 tons. She was 104 feet tall
from keel to bridge, almost 35 feet of which
were below the waterline... even so, she stood taller above the
water than most urban buildings of the time. There were three real smoke-stacks;
a fourth, dummy stack was added largely to
increase the impression of her gargantuan size and power and to vent smoke
from her numerous kitchens and galleys. She
was the largest movable object ever made by man. The ship's
immense size and complexity is illustrated by an incident recalled by Second
Officer Lightoller. There was a gangway door
on the starboard side aft "large enough to drive a horse and cart through."
Yet three officers who joined the ship during
her preparations spent a whole day simply trying to find their way
to it.
Moreover, she was designed
to be a marvel of modern safety technology. She had a double-hull of 1-inch
thick steel plates and a (heavily publicized)
system of 16 water-tight compartments, sealed by massive doors
which could be instantly triggered by a single electric switch on the bridge,
or even automatically by electric water-sensors.
The press began to call her "unsinkable."
Her accommodations were the
most modern and luxurious on any ocean, and included electric light and
heat in every room, electric elevators, a
swimming pool, a squash court (considered terribly modern), a Turkish
Bath, a gymnasium with a mechanical horse and mechanical camel to keep
riders fit, and staterooms and first class
facilities to rival the best hotels on the Continent. First class passengers
would glide down a six-story, glass-domed
grand staircase to enjoy haute cuisine in the sumptuous first class dining
saloon that filled the width of the ship on D Deck. For those who desired
a more intimate atmosphere, Titanic also offered
a stately ŕ la carte restaurant, the chic Palm Court and Verandah
restaurant, and the festive Cafe Parisien.
She offered two musical ensembles (rather than the standard one)
of the best musicians on the Atlantic, many of them lured from rival liners.
There were two libraries, first- and second-class.
Even the third class (steerage) cabins were more luxurious than the first
class cabins on some lesser steamships, and
boasted amenities (like indoor toilet facilities) that some of Titanic's
emigrant passengers had not enjoyed in their
own homes.
The original design called
for 32 lifeboats. However, White Star management felt that the boat-deck
would look cluttered, and reduced the number
to 20, for a total life-boat capacity of 1178. This actually exceeded
the regulations of the time, even though Titanic was capable of carrying
over 3500 people (passengers and crew).
The maiden voyage lured the
"very best people:" British nobility, American industrialists, the very
cream of New York and Philadelphia society.
It also attracted many poor emigrants, hoping to start a new life in America
or Canada.
The journey began at Southampton
on Wednesday April 10, 1912 at Noon. By sundown, Titanic had stopped
in Cherbourg, France to pick up additional passengers. That evening she
sailed for Queenstown, Ireland, and at 1:30
PM on Thursday, April 11, she headed out into the Atlantic.
The seasoned transatlantic
passengers were deeply impressed by the new ship. She was so massive that
they barely felt the movement of the sea at
all. Her huge, powerful engines produced almost none of the annoying
vibration common on other steamers, and their noise was barely perceptible.
And she achieved this extraordinary level
of comfort while traveling at 22 knots, not the fastest boat on the route,
but certainly one of the top five.
Weather was pleasant and clear,
and the water temperature was about 55 degrees. The winter of 1912 had
been unusually mild, and unprecedented amounts of ice had broken loose
from the arctic regions. Titanic was equipped
with Marconi's new wireless telegraph system and her two Marconi operators
kept the wireless room running 24 hours a
day. On Sunday, April 14, the fifth day at sea, Titanic received five different
ice-warnings, but the captain was not overly concerned. The ship steamed
ahead at 22 knots, and the line's Managing
Director J. Bruce Ismay relished the idea of arriving in New York a day
ahead of schedule.
On the night of April 14, wireless
operator Phillips was very busy sending chatty passenger's messages to
Cape Race, Newfoundland, whence they could
be relayed inland to friends and relatives. He received a sixth
ice-warning that night, but didn't realize how close Titanic was to the
position of the warning, and put that message
under a paperweight at his elbow. It never reached Captain Smith or the
officer on the bridge.
By all accounts, the night
was uncommonly clear and dark, moonless but faintly glowing with an incredible
sky full of stars. The stars were so bright that one officer mistook the
planet Jupiter (then rising just above the
horizon) for a steamship light.
The sea was, likewise, unusually
calm and flat, "like glass" said many survivors. The lack of waves made
it even more difficult to spot icebergs, since
there was no telltale white water breaking at the edges of the bergs.
At 11:40, a lookout in the
crow's nest spotted an iceberg dead ahead. He notified the bridge and First
Officer Murdoch ordered the ship turned hard
to port. He signaled the engine room to reverse direction, full
astern. The ship turned slightly, but it was much too large, moving much
too fast, and the iceberg was much too close.
37 seconds later, the greatest maritime disaster in history began. During
that night of heroism, terror and tragedy,
705 lives were saved, 1502 lives were lost, and many legends were born.
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