Sarmishtha's Blog: TITANIC - THE ILL FATED SHIP

TITANIC
Titanic departed Southampton on 10 April 1912, and was heading west to New York. Four days into the crossing and about 600 km south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. ship's time. The collision caused the ship's hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea; the ship gradually filled with water. Meanwhile, the evacuation processes were started and partly filled lifeboats were launched into the ocean. The "women and children first" protocol was followed by some of the officers loading the lifeboats which led to a large number of men being left behind. After approximately four hours, around 2:20 a.m., she broke apart and foundered. Just less than two hours after Titanic sank the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene of the sinking, where she rescued an estimated 705 survivors.

The Titanic wreck remains on the seabed, split in two and at a depth of 3,784 m. Since her discovery in 1985, thousands of artifacts have been recovered and put on display at museums around the world. Titanic has become one of the most famous ships in history.

People

RMS Titanic carried 2224 people who belonged to different age groups with great wealth and of bitter poverty with different dialects of spoken language.That is why RMS Titanic is often described as a microcosm of society.

History

As the legend goes, the idea of RMS Titanic was born at a dinner between Lord Pirrie of the Harland & Wolff shipyard and Joseph Bruce Ismay, Chairman of the White Star Line, at Downshire House, Lord Pirrie's London home. With the introduction of the Lusitania and Mauretania Curnard had stolen a march on the White Star Line; they saw a golden opportunity with Olympic, Titanic and Britannic to regain the lost pride and image of White Star Line.

Design

The design and construction of Titanic was done at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland under marine architect Alexander Carlisle and chief designer Thomas Andrews. She was 882 feet 9 inches in length and 92 feet in breadth. Her gross tonnage was 46,328 tons. Three propellers were driven by two four-cylinder, triple-expansion, inverted reciprocating steam engines and one low-pressure Parsons turbine. Steam was provided by 25 double-ended and 4 single-ended Scotch-type boilers fired by 159 coal burning furnaces that gave her a theoretical top speed of 23 knots.

Passenger facilities

The facilities on the Titanic for the passengers meeted the highest standards of luxury. According to statistics it could accommodate a total of 2,453 passengers (833 First Class Passengers, 614 in Second Class and 1,006 in Third Class) and her capacity for crew members exceeded 900. Her interior design was unique and different from that of other passenger liners; it resembled the heavy style of a manor house or an English country house.

The First Class staircase or the Grand Staircase (Grand Stairway) was one of Titanic's most distinctive features This descended through seven decks of the ship, from the Boat Deck to E deck in an elegant style and then as a more functional staircase from there down to F deck. Its dome was made up of wrought iron and glass. Each landing off the staircase gave access to ornate entrance halls lit by gold-plated light fixtures. At the uppermost landing was a large carved wooden panel containing a clock, with figures of "Honour and Glory Crowning Time".

grand staircase

The Grand Staircase was destroyed in Titanic's sinking and is now just a void in the ship which modern explorers have used to access the lower decks. During the shooting of James Cameron's Titanic in 1997, his replica of the Grand Staircase was ripped from its foundations by the force of the in rushing water on the set. It has been suggested that during the real event, the entire Grand Staircase was ejected upwards through the dome.

Lifeboats

There were a total of 20 lifeboats on the Titanic, 14 standard wooden Harland and Wolff lifeboats (capacity of 65 people each) and four Englehardt "collapsible" lifeboats (capacity of 47 people each). In addition, she had two emergency cutters (capacity of 40 people each). All of the lifeboats were stowed securely on the boat deck and, except for collapsible lifeboats A and B, connected to davits by ropes.

Titanic had 16 sets of davits, each able to handle 4 lifeboats which gave it the ability to carry up to 64 wooden lifeboats, enough for 4,000 people—quite more than her actual capacity. However, the White Star Line decided that only 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsible would be carried, which could accommodate 1,178 people, only one-third of Titanic’s total capacity. At the time, the Board of Trade's regulations required British vessels over 10,000 tons to only carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 990 occupants.

In other words, the White Star Line actually provided more lifeboat accommodation than was legally required. At the time, lifeboats were intended to ferry survivors from a sinking ship to a rescuing ship—not keep afloat the whole population or power them to shore. Had the SS Californian responded to Titanic's distress calls, the lifeboats may have been adequate to ferry the passengers to safety as planned.

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivors-list/

Sea Trials

The sea trials consisted of a number of tests which were carried out first in Belfast Lough and then in the open waters of the Irish Sea. During these trials Titanic was driven at different speeds, her turning ability was tested and a "crash stop" was performed in which the engines were reversed, bringing her to a stop in 3 minutes and 15 seconds. The ship covered a distance of about 80 nautical miles (92 mi; 150 km), averaging 18 knots and reaching a maximum speed of just under 21 knots. It took a total of three years of construction and fitting out before RMS Titanic was ready for sea, commanded by veteran Captain Edward John Smith.

Captain Edward John Smith

Maiden voyage

The Titanic’s entire schedule of voyages till December 1912 still exists.

Its maiden voyage was actually intended to be the first of its kind i.e. cross-Atlantic journeys between Southampton in England, Cherbourg in France, Queenstown in Ireland and New York in the United States, returning via Plymouth in England on the eastbound leg. It was scheduled to sail in this way once every three weeks from Southampton and New York, usually leaving at noon each Wednesday from Southampton and each Saturday from New York, thus enabling the White Star Line to offer weekly sailings in each direction. Special trains were scheduled from London and Paris to convey passengers to Southampton and Cherbourg respectively. In 1911, a deep-water dock at Southampton (then known as the "White Star Dock”), was specially constructed to accommodate this new Olympic-class liner.

Sinking

Lookout Fredrick Fleet spotted an iceberg in front of The Titanic at 11:40 p.m. on 14 April (ship's time), and immediately alerted the bridge. Then First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship to be steered around the obstacle and the engines to be put in reverse, but it was unfortunately too late; the starboard side of Titanic struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline. Consequently five of the ship's watertight compartments were flooded soon. It became clear that the ship was doomed, as she could not survive more than four compartments being flooded.

The ship began sinking bow-first, with water spilling from compartment to compartment as her angle in the water became steeper. Those aboard her were not properly prepared for such an emergency. At that time ships were seen as largely unsinkable and lifeboats were intended to transfer passengers to nearby rescue vessels only (as previously mentioned before). However Titanic only had enough lifeboats to carry about half of those on board; if the ship had carried her full complement of about 3,339 passengers and crew, only about a third could have been accommodated in the lifeboats. Furthermore, the crew had not been adequately trained in carrying out such a large scale evacuation. The officers did not know how many they could safely put aboard the lifeboats and launched many of them barely half-full. Unfortunately, it was the Third-class passengers who were largely left to fend for themselves, thereby causing many of them to become trapped below decks as the ship continued to fill with water. The "women and children first" protocol was generally followed for the loading of the lifeboatsand most of the male passengers and crew were left aboard. At 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after Titanic struck the iceberg, her rate of sinking suddenly increased as her forward deck dipped underwater and the sea poured in through open hatches and grates. As her unsupported stern rose out of the water, exposing the propellers, the ship began to break in two between the third and fourth funnels. With the bow underwater, and air trapped in the stern, the stern remained afloat and buoyant for a few minutes longer, rising to a nearly vertical angle with hundreds of people still clinging to it, before sinking. All remaining passengers and crew were plunged into lethally cold water with a temperature of 28 °F (−2 °C). Almost all of those in the water died of cardiac arrest or other causes within 15–30 minutes. Only 13 of them were helped into the lifeboats though these had room for almost 500 more people.

Aftermath of sinking

Carpathia was the only ship which took Titanic’s distress signals seriously and arrived for its rescue even though SS Californian was far more closer to the Titanic at that time.

Arrival of Carpathia in New York

It took Carpathia three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster as her journey was slowed by packs of ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas and so on. However, she was able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened. Later on that day, confirmation came through that Titanic had been lost and that most of her passengers and crew had died. This news attracted crowds of people to the White Star Line's offices in London, New York, Montreal, Southampton, Liverpool and Belfast. Among all these, Southampton was hit hardest; whose people suffered the greatest losses from the sinking as 4 out of 5 crew members came from this town.

Role of SS Californian

One of the most controversial issues examined by the inquiries was the role played by SS Californian, which had been only a few miles from Titanic but had not picked up her distress calls or responded to her signal rockets.

Californian had warned the titanic about the icebergs and that was the reason Californian had stopped for the night, but was rebuked by Titanic's senior wireless operator, Jack Philips. During the inquiry it was revealed that at 10:10 p.m., Californian observed the lights of a ship to the south; it was later agreed between Captain Stanley Lord and Third Officer C.V. Groves (who had relieved Lord of duty at 11:10 p.m.) that this was a passenger liner. At 11:50 p.m., the officer had watched that ship's lights flash out, as if she had shut down or turned sharply, and that the port light was now visible. Morse light signals to the ship, upon Lord's order, were made between 11:30 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., but were not acknowledged. If Titanic were as far from the Californian as Lord claimed, then he knew, or should have known, that Morse signals would not be visible. A reasonable and prudent course of action would have been to awaken the wireless operator and to instruct him to attempt to contact Titanic by that method. Had Lord done so, it is possible that he could have reached Titanic in time to save additional lives. Captain Lord had gone to the chart room at 11:00 p.m. to spend the night.

However, Second Officer Herbert Stone, now on duty, notified Lord at 1:10 a.m. that the ship had fired five rockets. Lord wanted to know if they were company signals, that is, colored flares used for identification. Stone said that he did not know and that the rockets were all white. Captain Lord instructed the crew to continue to signal the other vessel with the Morse lamp, and went back to sleep. Three more rockets were observed at 1:50 a.m. and Stone noted that the ship looked strange in the water, as if she were listing. At 2:15 a.m., Lord was notified that the ship could no longer be seen. Lord asked again if the lights had had any colors in them, and he was informed that they were all white. Californian eventually responded. At around 5:30 a.m., Chief Officer George Stewart awakened wireless operator, informed him that rockets had been seen during the night, and asked that he try to communicate with any ship. He got news of Titanic's loss, Captain Lord was notified, and the ship set out to render assistance. She arrived well after Carpathia had already picked up all the survivors.

SS Californian on the morning after titanic sank

Link about the list of passengers: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-passenger-list/

Age/gender	Class/crew	Number aboard	Number saved	Number lost	Percentage saved	Percentage lost
Children	First Class	6	5	1	83%	17%
	Second Class	24	24	0	100%	0%
	Third Class	79	27	52	34%	66%
Women	First Class	144	140	4	97%	3%
	Second Class	93	80	13	86%	14%
	Third Class	165	76	89	46%	54%
	Crew	23	20	3	87%	13%
Men	First Class	175	57	118	33%	67%
	Second Class	168	14	154	8%	92%
	Third Class	462	75	387	16%	84%
	Crew	885	192	693	22%	78%
Total		2224	710	1514	32%	68%

Letter of titanic survivor which was held up for auction

Wreck

For many years it was generally believed the ship sank in one piece; however, when the wreck was located many years later, it was discovered that the ship had fully broken in two.Over the years, many schemes were put forward for raising the wreck. None of them were fruitful till a Franco-American expedition succeeded in discovering the wreck on 1 September 1985. The fundamental problem was the difficulty of finding and reaching a wreck that lies over 3,700 m below the surface, in a location where the water pressure is over 6,500 pounds per square inch.The team discovered that Titanic had in fact split apart, probably near or at the surface, before sinking to the seabed. The separated bow and stern sections lie about a third of a mile (0.6 km) apart in a canyon on the continental shelf off the coast of Newfoundland. They are located 21.2 km from the inaccurate coordinates given by Titanic's radio operators on the night of her sinking. On 12 April 2012 Titanic had its 100 anniversary.

Titanic-Movie

The movie "Titanic" directed by James Cameron is an epic, action-packed romance set against the ill-fated maiden voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic; ironically called the unsinkable ship which was the pride and joy of the White Star Line and, at the time, the largest and the most luxurious liner of her era -- the "ship of dreams" -- which ultimately carried over 1,500 people to their death in the ice cold waters of the North Atlantic in the early hours of April 15, 1912.

Titanic was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It won 11 Oscars tying itself to Ben Hur (1959) – the only movie to have won 11 Oscars until then.