RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger
liner
A low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) is a type of galactic nucleus that is defined by its spectral line emission. The spectra typically include line emission from weakly ionized or neutral atoms, such as O, O+, N+, and S+. ...
, operated by the
White Star Line
The White Star Line was a British shipping company. Founded out of the remains of a defunct packet company, it gradually rose up to become one of the most prominent shipping lines in the world, providing passenger and cargo services between t ...
, which
sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an
iceberg
An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...
during her maiden voyage from
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
, England, to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, United States. Of the
estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making it
the deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time. It remains the deadliest peacetime sinking of a
superliner or
cruise ship
Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as "s ...
. The disaster drew public attention, provided foundational material for the
disaster film
A disaster film or disaster movie is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject and primary plot device. Such disasters may include natural disasters, accidents, military/terrorist attacks or global catastrophes such as ...
genre, and has inspired many artistic works.
RMS ''Titanic'' was the
largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and the second of three s operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the
Harland and Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
shipyard in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
.
Thomas Andrews
Thomas Andrews Jr. (7 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was a British businessman and shipbuilder. He was managing director and head of the drafting department of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland.
He was the nava ...
, the chief naval architect of the shipyard, died in the disaster. ''Titanic'' was under the command of Captain
Edward Smith Ed, Eddie, Edgar, Edward, Edwin, and similar, surnamed Smith, may refer to:
Military
* Edward H. Smith (sailor) (1889–1961), United States Coast Guard admiral, oceanographer and Arctic explorer
* Edward Smith (VC) (1898–1940), English recipien ...
, who
went down with the ship. The ocean liner carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from
Great Britain and Ireland,
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
, and elsewhere throughout Europe, who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada.
The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants, and opulent cabins. A high-powered
radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger "marconigrams" and for the ship's operational use.
''Titanic'' had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, contributing to its reputation as "unsinkable".
''Titanic'' was equipped with 16 lifeboat
davit
Boat suspended from radial davits; the boat is mechanically lowered
Gravity multi-pivot on Scandinavia''
file:Bossoir a gravité.jpg, Gravity Roller Davit
file:Davits-starbrd.png, Gravity multi-pivot davit holding rescue vessel on North Sea ferr ...
s, each capable of lowering three lifeboats, for a total of 48 boats; she carried only
20 lifeboats, four of which were collapsible and proved hard to launch while she was sinking (Collapsible A nearly swamped and was filled with a foot of water until rescue, Collapsible B completely overturned while launching). Together, the 20 lifeboats could hold 1,178 people—about half the number of passengers on board, and one third of the number of passengers the ship could have carried at full capacity (consistent with the
maritime safety
Maritime safety as part of and overlapping with water safety is concerned with the protection of life (search and rescue) and property through regulation, management and technology development of all forms of waterborne transportation. The execut ...
regulations of the era). When the ship sank, many of the lifeboats that had been lowered were only about half full.
Background
The name ''Titanic'' derives from
the Titans of Greek mythology. Built in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
, Ireland, in the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...
,
RMS ''Titanic'' was the second of the three s—the first was and the third was . ''Britannic'' was originally to be called Gigantic and was to be over long. They were by far the largest vessels of the British shipping company
White Star Line
The White Star Line was a British shipping company. Founded out of the remains of a defunct packet company, it gradually rose up to become one of the most prominent shipping lines in the world, providing passenger and cargo services between t ...
's fleet, which comprised 29 steamers and tenders in 1912. The three ships had their genesis in a discussion in mid-1907 between the White Star Line's chairman,
J. Bruce Ismay
Joseph Bruce Ismay (; 12 December 1862 – 17 October 1937) was an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. In 1912, he came to international attention as the highest-ranking White Star official t ...
, and the American financier
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...
, who controlled the White Star Line's parent corporation, the
International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM).
The White Star Line faced an increasing challenge from its main rivals
Cunard
Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermu ...
, which had recently launched and —the fastest passenger ships then in service—and the German lines
Hamburg America and
Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of th ...
. Ismay preferred to compete on size rather than speed and proposed to commission a new class of liners that would be larger than anything that had gone before as well as being the last word in comfort and luxury. The company sought an upgrade in their fleet primarily in response to the Cunard giants but also to replace their oldest pair of passenger ships still in service, being of 1889 and of 1890. ''Teutonic'' was replaced by ''Olympic'' while ''Majestic'' was replaced by ''Titanic''. ''Majestic'' would be brought back into her old spot on White Star Line's New York service after ''Titanic''s loss.
The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders
Harland and Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
, who had a long-established relationship with the White Star Line dating back to 1867. Harland and Wolff were given a great deal of latitude in designing ships for the White Star Line; the usual approach was for the latter to sketch out a general concept which the former would take away and turn into a ship design. Cost considerations were relatively low on the agenda and Harland and Wolff was authorised to spend what it needed on the ships, plus a five percent profit margin. In the case of the ''Olympic''-class ships, a cost of £3 million (approximately £ million in ) for the first two ships was agreed plus "extras to contract" and the usual five percent fee.
Harland and Wolff put their leading designers to work designing the ''Olympic''-class vessels. The design was overseen by
Lord Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line;
naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners.
{{Commons category, Architecture occupations
Design occupations
Architecture, Occupations ...
Thomas Andrews
Thomas Andrews Jr. (7 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was a British businessman and shipbuilder. He was managing director and head of the drafting department of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland.
He was the nava ...
, the managing director of Harland and Wolff's design department; Edward Wilding, Andrews' deputy and responsible for calculating the ship's design, stability and trim; and
Alexander Carlisle
Alexander Montgomery Carlisle, PC (8 July 1854 – 6 March 1926) brother-in-law to Viscount Pirrie, was one of the men involved with designing the s in the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff. His main area of responsibility was the ships' s ...
, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager. Carlisle's responsibilities included the decorations, equipment and all general arrangements, including the implementation of an efficient
lifeboat
Lifeboat may refer to:
Rescue vessels
* Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape
* Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues
* Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen
...
davit
Boat suspended from radial davits; the boat is mechanically lowered
Gravity multi-pivot on Scandinavia''
file:Bossoir a gravité.jpg, Gravity Roller Davit
file:Davits-starbrd.png, Gravity multi-pivot davit holding rescue vessel on North Sea ferr ...
design.
On 29 July 1908, Harland and Wolff presented the drawings to J. Bruce Ismay and other White Star Line executives. Ismay approved the design and signed three "letters of agreement" two days later, authorising the start of construction. At this point the first ship—which was later to become ''Olympic''—had no name, but was referred to simply as "Number 400", as it was Harland and Wolff's four hundredth hull. ''Titanic'' was based on a revised version of the same design and was given the number 401.
Dimensions and layout
![Titanic Starboard View 1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Titanic_Starboard_View_1912.gif)
''Titanic'' was long with a maximum breadth of .
Her total height, measured from the base of the keel to the top of the bridge, was . She measured and and with a draught of , she displaced 52,310 tons.
All three of the ''Olympic''-class ships had ten decks (excluding the top of the officers' quarters), eight of which were for passenger use. From top to bottom, the decks were:
* The Boat Deck, on which the lifeboats were housed. It was from here during the early hours of 15 April 1912 that ''Titanic''s lifeboats were lowered into the North Atlantic. The bridge and wheelhouse were at the forward end, in front of the captain's and officers' quarters. The bridge stood above the deck, extending out to either side so that the ship could be controlled while docking. The wheelhouse stood within the bridge. The entrance to the First Class
Grand Staircase
The Grand Staircase is an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, through Zion National Park, and into Grand Canyon National Park.
Ch ...
and gymnasium were located midships along with the raised roof of the First Class lounge, while at the rear of the deck were the roof of the First Class smoke room and the relatively modest Second Class entrance. The wood-covered deck was divided into four segregated promenades: for officers, First Class passengers, engineers, and Second Class passengers respectively. Lifeboats lined the side of the deck except in the First Class area, where there was a gap so that the view would not be spoiled.
* A Deck, also called the Promenade Deck, extended along the entire length of the
superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships.
Aboard ships and large boats
On water craft, the superstruct ...
. It was reserved exclusively for First Class passengers and contained First Class cabins, the First Class lounge, smoke room, reading and writing rooms and Palm Court.
* B Deck, the Bridge Deck, was the top weight-bearing deck and the uppermost level of the hull. More First Class passenger accommodations were located here with six palatial staterooms (cabins) featuring their own private promenades. On ''Titanic'', the ''À La Carte'' Restaurant and the Café Parisien provided luxury dining facilities to First Class passengers. Both were run by subcontracted chefs and their staff; all were lost in the disaster. The Second Class smoking room and entrance hall were both located on this deck. The raised forecastle of the ship was forward of the Bridge Deck, accommodating Number 1 hatch (the main hatch through to the cargo holds), numerous pieces of machinery and the anchor housings. Aft of the Bridge Deck was the raised Poop Deck, long, used as a promenade by Third Class passengers. It was where many of ''Titanic''s passengers and crew made their last stand as the ship sank. The forecastle and Poop Deck were separated from the Bridge Deck by
well deck
In traditional nautical use, well decks were decks lower than decks fore and aft, usually at the main deck level, so that breaks appear in the main deck profile, as opposed to a flush deck profile. The term goes back to the days of sail. Late-20 ...
s.
* C Deck, the Shelter Deck, was the highest deck to run uninterrupted from stem to stern. It included both well decks; the aft one served as part of the Third Class promenade. Crew cabins were housed below the forecastle and Third Class public rooms were housed below the Poop Deck. In between were the majority of First Class cabins and the Second Class library.
* D Deck, the Saloon Deck, was dominated by three large public rooms—the First Class Reception Room, the First Class Dining Saloon and the Second Class Dining Saloon. An open space was provided for Third Class passengers. First, Second and Third Class passengers had cabins on this deck, with berths for firemen located in the bow. It was the highest level reached by the ship's watertight bulkheads (though only by eight of the fifteen bulkheads).
* E Deck, the Upper Deck, was predominantly used for passenger accommodation for all three classes plus berths for cooks, seamen, stewards and
trimmers. Along its length ran a long passageway nicknamed
Scotland Road
Scotland Road, known locally as Scottie Road, is the section of the A59 road situated near the docks in the Vauxhall district of north Liverpool, England.
History
Scotland Road was created in the 1770s as a turnpike road to Preston, Lancashir ...
, in reference to a famous street in Liverpool. Scotland Road was used by Third Class passengers and crew members.
* F Deck, the Middle Deck, was the last complete deck and mainly accommodated Second and Third Class passengers and several departments of the crew. The Third Class dining saloon was located here, as were the swimming pool,
Turkish bath
A hammam ( ar, حمّام, translit=ḥammām, tr, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited ...
and kennels.
* G Deck, the Lower Deck, was the lowest complete deck that carried passengers, and had the lowest portholes, just above the waterline. The squash court was located here along with the travelling post office where letters and parcels were sorted ready for delivery when the ship docked. Food was also stored here. The deck was interrupted at several points by
orlop
The orlop is the lowest deck in a ship (except for very old ships). It is the deck or part of a deck where the cables are stowed, usually below the water line.
According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the word descends from Dutch
Dut ...
(partial) decks over the boiler, engine and turbine rooms.
* The Orlop Decks and the Tank Top below that were on the lowest level of the ship, below the waterline. The orlop decks were used as cargo spaces, while the Tank Top—the inner bottom of the ship's hull—provided the platform on which the ship's boilers, engines, turbines and electrical generators were housed. This area of the ship was occupied by the engine and boiler rooms, areas which passengers would have been prohibited from seeing. They were connected with higher levels of the ship by flights of stairs; twin spiral stairways near the bow provided access up to D Deck.
Features
Power
![Olympic stern and rudder](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Olympic_stern_and_rudder.jpg)
''Titanic'' was equipped with three main engines—two
reciprocating four-
cylinder
A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base.
A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...
,
triple-expansion steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
s and one centrally placed low-pressure
Parsons turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turb ...
—each driving a
propeller
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
. The two reciprocating engines had a combined output of . The output of the steam turbine was . The White Star Line had used the same combination of engines on an earlier liner, , where it had been a great success. It provided a good combination of performance and speed; reciprocating engines by themselves were not powerful enough to propel an ''Olympic''-class liner at the desired speeds, while turbines were sufficiently powerful but caused uncomfortable vibrations, a problem that affected the all-turbine Cunard liners and . By combining reciprocating engines with a turbine, fuel usage could be reduced and motive power increased, while using the same amount of steam.
The two reciprocating engines were each long and weighed 720 tons, with their bedplates contributing a further 195 tons. They were powered by steam produced in 29 boilers, 24 of which were double-ended and five single-ended, which contained a total of 159 furnaces. The boilers were in diameter and long, each weighing 91.5 tons and capable of holding 48.5 tons of water.
They were heated by burning coal, 6,611 tons of which could be carried in ''Titanic''s
bunkers
A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...
, with a further 1,092 tons in Hold 3. The furnaces required over 600 tons of coal a day to be shovelled into them by hand, requiring the services of 176
firemen
A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also a ...
working around the clock. 100 tons of ash a day had to be disposed of by ejecting it into the sea. The work was relentless, dirty and dangerous, and although firemen were paid relatively generously, there was a high suicide rate among those who worked in that capacity.
Exhaust steam leaving the reciprocating engines was fed into the turbine, which was situated aft. From there it passed into a
surface condenser
A surface condenser is a water-cooled shell and tube heat exchanger installed to condense exhaust steam from a steam turbine in thermal power stations. These condensers are heat exchangers which convert steam from its gaseous to its liquid state ...
, to increase the efficiency of the turbine and so that the steam could be condensed back into water and reused. The engines were attached directly to long shafts which drove the propellers. There were three, one for each engine; the outer (or wing) propellers were the largest, each carrying three blades of manganese-bronze alloy with a total diameter of . The middle propeller was slightly smaller at in diameter, and could be stopped but not reversed.
''Titanic''s electrical plant was capable of producing more power than an average city power station of the time. Immediately aft of the turbine engine were four 400 kW steam-driven electric generators, used to provide electrical power to the ship, plus two 30 kW auxiliary generators for emergency use. Their location in the stern of the ship meant they remained operational until the last few minutes before the ship sank.
''Titanic'' lacked a searchlight in accordance with the ban on the use of searchlights in the merchant navy.
Technology
Compartments and funnels
The interiors of the ''Olympic''-class ships were subdivided into 16 primary
compartments divided by 15 bulkheads that extended above the waterline. Eleven vertically closing watertight doors could seal off the compartments in the event of an emergency. The ship's exposed decking was made of pine and
teak
Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...
, while interior ceilings were covered in painted granulated
cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
to combat condensation. Standing above the decks were four funnels, each painted
buff
Buff or BUFF may refer to:
People
* Buff (surname), a list of people
* Buff (nickname), a list of people
* Johnny Buff, ring name of American world champion boxer John Lisky (1888–1955)
* Buff Bagwell, a ring name of American professional ...
with black tops; only three were functional—the aftmost one was a dummy, installed for aesthetic purposes and
kitchen ventilation
Kitchen ventilation is the branch of ventilation specialising in the treatment of air from kitchens.http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/cais10.pdf It addresses the problems of grease, smoke and odours not found in most other ventilation systems.
Kitchen ...
. Two masts, each high, supported derricks for working cargo.
Rudder and steering engines
''Titanic''s rudder was so large—at high and long, weighing over 100 tons—that it required
steering engine
A steering engine is a power steering device for ships.
History
The first steering engine with feedback was installed on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ''Great Eastern'' in 1866.
Designed by Scottish engineer John McFarlane Gray and built by George ...
s to move it. Two steam-powered steering engines were installed, though only one was used at any one time, with the other one kept in reserve. They were connected to the short
tiller
A tiller or till is a lever used to steer a vehicle. The mechanism is primarily used in watercraft, where it is attached to an outboard motor, rudder post or stock to provide leverage in the form of torque for the helmsman to turn the rudder. ...
through stiff springs, to isolate the steering engines from any shocks in heavy seas or during fast changes of direction. As a last resort, the tiller could be moved by ropes connected to two steam
capstans. The capstans were also used to raise and lower the ship's five anchors (one port, one starboard, one in the centreline and two
kedging anchors).
Water, ventilation and heating
The ship was equipped with her own waterworks, capable of heating and pumping water to all parts of the vessel via a complex network of pipes and valves. The main water supply was taken aboard while ''Titanic'' was in port, but in an emergency, the ship could also distil fresh water from seawater, though this was not a straightforward process as the distillation plant quickly became clogged by salt deposits. A network of insulated ducts conveyed warm air, driven by electric fans, around the ship, and First Class cabins were fitted with additional electric heaters.
Radio communications
''Titanic''s radiotelegraph equipment (then known as
wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies for ...
) was leased to the White Star Line by the
Marconi International Marine Communication Company, which also supplied two of its employees,
Jack Phillips and
Harold Bride
Harold Sydney Bride (11 January 1890 – 29 April 1956) was a British merchant seaman and the junior wireless officer on the ocean liner RMS ''Titanic'' during its ill-fated maiden voyage.
After the ''Titanic'' struck an iceberg at 11:40 pm 14 ...
, as operators. The service maintained a 24-hour schedule, primarily sending and receiving passenger telegrams, but also handling navigation messages including weather reports and ice warnings.
The radio room was located on the Boat Deck, in the officers' quarters. A soundproofed "Silent Room", next to the operating room, housed loud equipment, including the transmitter and a motor-generator used for producing alternating currents. The operators' living quarters were adjacent to the working office. The ship was equipped with a 'state of the art' 5 kilowatt rotary
spark-gap transmitter
A spark-gap transmitter is an obsolete type of radio transmitter which generates radio waves by means of an electric spark."Radio Transmitters, Early" in Spark-gap transmitters were the first type of radio transmitter, and were the main type use ...
, with the wireless telegraph
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...
MGY, and communication was in
Morse code
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
. This transmitter was one of the first Marconi installations to use a rotary spark-gap, which gave ''Titanic'' a distinctive musical tone that could be readily distinguished from other signals. The transmitter was one of the most powerful in the world and guaranteed to broadcast over a radius of . An elevated
T-antenna
A T-antenna, T-aerial, flat-top antenna, or (capacitively) top-loaded antenna is a monopole radio antenna with transverse capacitive loading wires attached to its top. T-antennas are typically used in the VLF, LF, MF, and shortwave bands,
and ...
that spanned the length of the ship was used for transmitting and receiving. The normal operating frequency was 500 kHz (600 m wavelength); however, the equipment could also operate on the "short" wavelength of 1,000 kHz (300 m wavelength) that was employed by smaller vessels with shorter antennas.
Passenger facilities
The passenger facilities aboard ''Titanic'' aimed to meet the highest standards of luxury. According to ''Titanic''s general arrangement plans, the ship could accommodate 833 First Class Passengers, 614 in Second Class and 1,006 in Third Class, for a total passenger capacity of 2,453. In addition, her capacity for crew members exceeded 900, as most documents of her original configuration have stated that her full carrying capacity for both passengers and crew was approximately 3,547. Her interior design was a departure from that of other passenger liners, which had typically been decorated in the rather heavy style of a
manor house
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...
or an
English country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
.
''Titanic'' was laid out in a much lighter style similar to that of contemporary high-class hotels—the
Ritz Hotel was a reference point—with First Class cabins finished in the
Empire style
The Empire style (, ''style Empire'') is an early-nineteenth-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts, representing the second phase of Neoclassicism. It flourished between 1800 and 1815 durin ...
. A variety of other decorative styles, ranging from the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
to
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
, were used to decorate cabins and public rooms in First and Second Class areas of the ship. The aim was to convey an impression that the passengers were in a floating hotel rather than a ship; as one passenger recalled, on entering the ship's interior a passenger would "at once lose the feeling that we are on board ship, and seem instead to be entering the hall of some great house on shore".
Among the more novel features available to first-class passengers was a deep saltwater swimming pool, a gymnasium, a
squash
Squash may refer to:
Sports
* Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets
* Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling
* Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...
court, and a
Turkish bath
A hammam ( ar, حمّام, translit=ḥammām, tr, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited ...
which comprised
electric bath, steam room, cool room, massage room, and hot room. First-class common rooms were impressive in scope and lavishly decorated. They included a Lounge in the style of the
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
, an enormous Reception Room, a men's Smoking Room, and a Reading and Writing Room. There was an À la Carte Restaurant in the style of the
Ritz Hotel which was run as a concession by the famous Italian restaurateur
Gaspare Gatti
Gaspare Antonio Pietro "Luigi" Gatti (3 January 1875 – 15 April 1912) was an Italian businessman and restaurateur, best known as the manager of the ''À la Carte'' restaurant on the RMS ''Titanic'', catering to passengers for whom first-class ...
. A ''Café Parisien'' decorated in the style of a French sidewalk café, complete with ivy-covered trellises and wicker furniture, was run as an annex to the restaurant. For an extra cost, first-class passengers could enjoy the finest French ''haute cuisine'' in the most luxurious of surroundings.
There was also a ''Verandah Café'' where tea and light refreshments were served, that offered grand views of the ocean. At long by wide, the Dining Saloon on D Deck, designed by
Charles Fitzroy Doll
Charles Fitzroy Doll JP, FRIBA (1850–1929), was an English architect of the Victorian and Edwardian eras who specialised in designing hotels. He also designed the dining room on the RMS ''Titanic'', which was based on his design for that in t ...
, was the largest room afloat and could seat almost 600 passengers at a time.
File:Olympic First Class Staircase.jpg, The Forward First Class Grand Staircase of ''Titanic''s sister ship RMS ''Olympic''. ''Titanic''s staircase would have looked nearly identical. No known photos of ''Titanic''s staircase exist.
File:Gym.jpg, The gymnasium on the Boat Deck, which was equipped with the latest exercise machines
File:1st Class Á la Carte Restaurant.jpg, The ''Á La Carte'' restaurant on B Deck, run as a concession by Italian-born chef Gaspare Gatti
Gaspare Antonio Pietro "Luigi" Gatti (3 January 1875 – 15 April 1912) was an Italian businessman and restaurateur, best known as the manager of the ''À la Carte'' restaurant on the RMS ''Titanic'', catering to passengers for whom first-class ...
File:1stClassLounge.jpg, The 1st-Class Lounge of RMS ''Olympic'', ''Titanic''s sister ship
File:Titanic's Turkish Baths.jpg, The 1st-Class Turkish Baths, located along the Starboard side of F-Deck
Third Class (commonly referred to as Steerage) accommodations aboard ''Titanic'' were not as luxurious as First or Second Class, but even so, were better than on many other ships of the time. They reflected the improved standards which the White Star Line had adopted for trans-Atlantic immigrant and lower-class travel. On most other North Atlantic passenger ships at the time, Third Class accommodations consisted of little more than open dormitories in the forward end of the vessels, in which hundreds of people were confined, often without adequate food or toilet facilities.
The White Star Line had long since broken that mould. As seen aboard ''Titanic'', all White Star Line passenger ships divided their Third Class accommodations into two sections, always at opposite ends of the vessel from one another. The established arrangement was that single men were quartered in the forward areas, while single women, married couples and families were quartered aft. In addition, while other ships provided only open berth sleeping arrangements, White Star Line vessels provided their Third Class passengers with private, small but comfortable cabins capable of accommodating two, four, six, eight and ten passengers.
Third Class accommodations also included their own dining rooms, as well as public gathering areas including adequate open deck space, which aboard ''Titanic'' comprised the Poop Deck at the stern, the forward and aft well decks, and a large open space on D Deck which could be used as a social hall. This was supplemented by the addition of a smoking room for men and a General Room on C Deck which women could use for reading and writing. Although they were not as glamorous in design as spaces seen in upper-class accommodations, they were still far above average for the period.
Leisure facilities were provided for all three classes to pass the time. As well as making use of the indoor amenities such as the library, smoking rooms, and gymnasium, it was also customary for passengers to socialise on the open deck, promenading or relaxing in hired deck chairs or wooden benches. A passenger list was published before the sailing to inform the public which members of the great and good were on board, and it was not uncommon for ambitious mothers to use the list to identify rich bachelors to whom they could introduce their marriageable daughters during the voyage.
One of ''Titanic''s most distinctive features was her First Class staircase, known as the
Grand Staircase
The Grand Staircase is an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, through Zion National Park, and into Grand Canyon National Park.
Ch ...
or Grand Stairway. Built of solid
English oak
''Quercus robur'', commonly known as common oak, pedunculate oak, European oak or English oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native plant, native to most of Europe west of the Caucasus ...
with a sweeping curve, the staircase descended through seven decks of the ship, between the Boat Deck to E deck, before terminating in a simplified single flight on F Deck. It was capped with a dome of wrought iron and glass that admitted natural light to the stairwell. Each landing off the staircase gave access to ornate entrance halls panelled in the
William & Mary style and lit by
ormolu
Ormolu (; from French ''or moulu'', "ground/pounded gold") is the gilding technique of applying finely ground, high-carat gold– mercury amalgam to an object of bronze, and for objects finished in this way. The mercury is driven off in a kiln le ...
and crystal light fixtures.
At the uppermost landing was a large carved wooden panel containing a clock, with figures of "Honour and Glory Crowning Time" flanking the clock face. The Grand Staircase was destroyed during the sinking and is now just a void in the ship which modern explorers have used to access the lower decks. During the filming of James Cameron's ''
Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...
'' in 1997, his replica of the Grand Staircase was ripped from its foundations by the force of the inrushing water on the set. It has been suggested that during the real event, the entire Grand Staircase was ejected upwards through the dome.
Mail and cargo
![La Circassienne au Bain, After Blondel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/La_Circassienne_au_Bain%2C_After_Blondel.JPG)
Although ''Titanic'' was primarily a passenger liner, she also carried a substantial amount of cargo. Her designation as a
Royal Mail Ship
Royal Mail Ship (sometimes Steam-ship or Steamer), usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract to the British Royal Mail. The designation dates back to 1840. Any vessel de ...
(RMS) indicated that she carried mail under contract with the
Royal Mail
, kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga
, logo = Royal Mail.svg
, logo_size = 250px
, type = Public limited company
, traded_as =
, foundation =
, founder = Henry VIII
, location = London, England, UK
, key_people = * Keith Williams ...
(and also for the
United States Post Office Department
The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, in the form of a Cabinet department, officially from 1872 to 1971. It was headed by the postmas ...
). For the storage of letters, parcels and specie (bullion, coins and other valuables), of space in her holds was allocated. The Sea Post Office on G Deck was manned by five postal clerks (three Americans and two Britons), who worked 13 hours a day, seven days a week, sorting up to 60,000 items daily.
The ship's passengers brought with them a huge amount of baggage; another was taken up by first- and second-class baggage. In addition, there was a considerable quantity of regular cargo, ranging from furniture to foodstuffs, and a 1912 Renault Type CE
Coupe de Ville
A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors.
The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...
motor car. Despite later myths, the cargo on ''Titanic''s maiden voyage was fairly mundane; there was no gold, exotic minerals or diamonds, and one of the more famous items lost in the shipwreck, a jewelled copy of the ''
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
''Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'' is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (') attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia".
Altho ...
'', was valued at only £405 (£ today). According to the claims for compensation filed with Commissioner Gilchrist, following the conclusion of the Senate Inquiry, the single most highly valued item of luggage or cargo was a large neoclassical oil painting entitled ''
La Circassienne au Bain'' by French artist
Merry-Joseph Blondel
Merry-Joseph Blondel (; 25 July 1781 – 12 June 1853) was a French History painting, history painter of the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical school. He was a winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1803. After the Salon (Paris), salon of 1824, he ...
. The painting's owner, first-class passenger
Mauritz Håkan Björnström-Steffansson
Mauritz Håkan Björnström-Steffansson () (also referred to as Hokan B. Steffanson), (9 November 1883 – 21 May 1962) was a Swedish businessman who survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic, RMS ''Titanic'' in 1912. In early 1913, Steffansson f ...
, filed a claim for $100,000 ($2.4 million equivalent in 2014) in compensation for the loss of the artwork.
''Titanic'' was equipped with eight electric cranes, four electric winches and three steam winches to lift cargo and baggage in and out of the holds. It is estimated that the ship used some 415 tons of coal whilst in Southampton, simply generating steam to operate the cargo winches and provide heat and light.
Lifeboats
![Titanic lifeboat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Titanic_lifeboat.jpg)
Like ''Olympic'', ''Titanic'' carried a total of 20 lifeboats: 14 standard wooden Harland and Wolff lifeboats with a capacity of 65 people each and four Engelhardt "collapsible" (wooden bottom, collapsible canvas sides) lifeboats (identified as A to D) with a capacity of 47 people each. In addition, she had two emergency
cutters with a capacity of 40 people each. ''Olympic'' carried at least two collapsible boats on either side of her number one funnel. All of the lifeboats were stowed securely on the boat deck and, except for collapsible lifeboats A and B, connected to
davit
Boat suspended from radial davits; the boat is mechanically lowered
Gravity multi-pivot on Scandinavia''
file:Bossoir a gravité.jpg, Gravity Roller Davit
file:Davits-starbrd.png, Gravity multi-pivot davit holding rescue vessel on North Sea ferr ...
s by ropes. Those on the starboard side were odd-numbered 1–15 from bow to stern, while those on the port side were even-numbered 2–16 from bow to stern.
Both cutters were kept swung out, hanging from the davits, ready for immediate use, while collapsible lifeboats C and D were stowed on the boat deck (connected to davits) immediately inboard of boats 1 and 2 respectively. A and B were stored on the roof of the officers' quarters, on either side of number 1 funnel. There were no davits to lower them and their weight would make them difficult to launch by hand. Each boat carried (among other things) food, water, blankets, and a spare life belt. Lifeline ropes on the boats' sides enabled them to save additional people from the water if necessary.
''Titanic'' had 16 sets of davits, each able to handle four lifeboats as Carlisle had planned. This gave ''Titanic'' the ability to carry up to 64 wooden lifeboats which would have been enough for 4,000 people—considerably more than her actual capacity. However, the White Star Line decided that only 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsibles would be carried, which could accommodate 1,178 people, only one-third of ''Titanic'' total capacity. At the time, the
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
's regulations required British vessels over 10,000 tons to only carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 990 occupants.
Therefore, 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 responded to ''Titanic''
distress calls, the lifeboats might have been able to ferry all passengers to safety as planned.
Building and preparing the ship
Construction, launch and fitting-out
The sheer size of ''Titanic'' and her sister ships posed a major engineering challenge for Harland and Wolff; no shipbuilder had ever before attempted to construct vessels this size. The ships were constructed on Queen's Island, now known as the
Titanic Quarter
Titanic Quarter in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a large-scale waterfront regeneration, comprising historic maritime landmarks, film studios, education facilities, apartments, a riverside entertainment district, and the world's largest Titanic ...
, in
Belfast Harbour
Belfast Harbour is a major maritime hub in Belfast, Northern Ireland, handling 67% of Northern Ireland's seaborne trade and about 25% of the maritime trade of the entire island of Ireland. It is a vital gateway for raw materials, exports and c ...
. Harland and Wolff had to demolish three existing
slipway
A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving small ...
s and build two new ones, the largest ever constructed up to that time, to accommodate both ships. Their construction was facilitated by an enormous gantry built by
Sir William Arrol & Co., a Scottish firm responsible for the building of the
Forth Bridge
The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...
and London's
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is a Listed building#Grade I, Grade I listed combined Bascule bridge, bascule and Suspended-deck suspension bridge, suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones (architect), Horace Jones and e ...
. The
Arrol Gantry
The Arrol Gantry was a large steel structure built by Sir William Arrol & Co. at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland. It was built to act as overhead cranes for the building of the three ''Olympic''-class liners.
Beardmore's gan ...
stood high, was wide and long, and weighed more than 6,000 tons. It accommodated a number of mobile cranes. A separate floating crane, capable of lifting 200 tons, was brought in from Germany.
The construction of ''Olympic'' and ''Titanic'' took place virtually in parallel, with ''Olympic''s keel laid down first on 16 December 1908 and ''Titanic''s on 31 March 1909. Both ships took about 26 months to build and followed much the same construction process. They were designed essentially as an enormous floating
box girder, with the
keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...
acting as a backbone and the frames of the hull forming the ribs. At the base of the ships, a double bottom deep supported 300 frames, each between and apart and measuring up to about long. They terminated at the bridge deck (B Deck) and were covered with steel plates which formed the outer skin of the ships.
The 2,000 hull plates were single pieces of
rolled
Rolling is a Motion (physics)#Types of motion, type of motion that combines rotation (commonly, of an Axial symmetry, axially symmetric object) and Translation (geometry), translation of that object with respect to a surface (either one or the ot ...
steel
plate
Plate may refer to:
Cooking
* Plate (dishware), a broad, mainly flat vessel commonly used to serve food
* Plates, tableware, dishes or dishware used for setting a table, serving food and dining
* Plate, the content of such a plate (for example: ...
, mostly up to wide and long and weighing between 2.5 and 3 tons. Their thickness varied from to . The plates were laid in a
clinkered (overlapping) fashion from the keel to the bilge. Above that point they were laid in the "in and out" fashion, where
strake
On a vessel's hull, a strake is a longitudinal course of planking or plating which runs from the boat's stempost (at the bows) to the sternpost or transom (at the rear). The garboard strakes are the two immediately adjacent to the keel on ...
plating was applied in bands (the "in strakes") with the gaps covered by the "out strakes", overlapping on the edges. Commercial oxy-fuel and electric arc
welding
Welding is a fabrication (metal), fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing Fusion welding, fusion. Welding is distinct from lower ...
methods, ubiquitous in
fabrication today, were still in their infancy; like most other iron and steel structures of the era, the hull was held together with over three million iron and steel
rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite to the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the rivet is placed in a punched ...
s, which by themselves weighed over 1,200 tons. They were fitted using hydraulic machines or were hammered in by hand. In the 1990s some material scientists concluded that the steel plate used for the ship was subject to being especially brittle when cold, and that this
brittleness
A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it fractures with little elastic deformation and without significant plastic deformation. Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength. Bre ...
exacerbated the impact damage and hastened the sinking. It is believed that, by the standards of the time, the steel plate's
quality
Quality may refer to:
Concepts
*Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something
*Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property
*Quality (physics), in response theory
*Energy quality, used in various science discipli ...
was good, not faulty, but that it was inferior to what would be used for shipbuilding purposes in later decades, owing to advances in the
metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...
of
steelmaking
Steelmaking is the process of producing steel from iron ore and carbon/or scrap. In steelmaking, impurities such as nitrogen, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur and excess carbon (the most important impurity) are removed from the sourced iron, and all ...
. As for the rivets, considerable emphasis has also been placed on their quality and strength.
Among the last items to be fitted on ''Titanic'' before the ship's launch were her two side anchors and one centre anchor. The anchors themselves were a challenge to make, with the centre anchor being the largest ever
forged
Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer (often a power hammer) or a die. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it ...
by hand and weighing nearly 16 tons. Twenty
Clydesdale Clydesdale is an archaic name for Lanarkshire, a traditional county in Scotland. The name may also refer to:
Sports
* Clydesdale F.C., a former football club in Glasgow
* Clydesdale RFC, Glasgow, a former rugby union club
* Clydesdale RFC, South ...
draught horses were needed to haul the centre anchor by wagon from the
Noah Hingley & Sons Ltd forge shop in Netherton, near Dudley, United Kingdom to the Dudley railway station two miles away. From there it was shipped by rail to Fleetwood in Lancashire before being loaded aboard a ship and sent to Belfast.
The work of constructing the ships was difficult and dangerous. For the 15,000 men who worked at Harland and Wolff at the time, safety precautions were rudimentary at best; a lot of the work was carried out without equipment like hard hats or hand guards on machinery. As a result, during ''Titanic''s construction, 246 injuries were recorded, 28 of them "severe", such as arms severed by machines or legs crushed under falling pieces of steel. Six people died on the ship herself while she was being constructed and fitted out, and another two died in the shipyard workshops and sheds. Just before the launch a worker was killed when a piece of wood fell on him.
''Titanic'' was launched at 12:15 pm on 31 May 1911 in the presence of Lord Pirrie, J. Pierpont Morgan, J. Bruce Ismay and 100,000 onlookers. Twenty-two tons of soap and tallow were spread on the slipway to lubricate the ship's passage into the
River Lagan
The River Lagan (; Ulster Scots: ''Lagan Wattèr'') is a major river in Northern Ireland which runs 53.5 miles (86 km) from the Slieve Croob mountain in County Down to Belfast where it enters Belfast Lough, an inlet of the Irish Sea. The ...
. In keeping with the White Star Line's traditional policy, the ship was not formally named or christened with champagne. The ship was towed to a fitting-out berth where, over the course of the next year, her engines, funnels and superstructure were installed and her interior was fitted out.
Although ''Titanic'' was virtually identical to the class's lead ship ''Olympic'', a few changes were made to distinguish both ships. The most noticeable exterior difference was that ''Titanic'' (and the third vessel in class, ) had a steel screen with sliding windows installed along the forward half of the A Deck promenade. This was installed as a last minute change at the personal request of Bruce Ismay, and was intended to provide additional shelter to First Class passengers.
Extensive changes were made to B Deck on ''Titanic'' as the promenade space in this deck, which had proven unpopular on ''Olympic'', was converted into additional First Class cabins, including two opulent parlour suites with their own private promenade spaces. The ''À la Carte'' restaurant was also enlarged and the ''Café Parisien'', an entirely new feature which did not exist on ''Olympic'', was added. These changes made ''Titanic'' slightly heavier than her sister, and thus she could claim to be the largest ship afloat. The work took longer than expected due to design changes requested by Ismay and a temporary pause in work occasioned by the need to repair ''Olympic'', which had been in a collision in September 1911. Had ''Titanic'' been finished earlier, she might well have missed her collision with an iceberg.
Sea trials
![RMS Titanic 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/RMS_Titanic_2.jpg)
''Titanic''s sea trials began at 6 am on Tuesday, 2 April 1912, just two days after her fitting out was finished and eight days before she was due to leave Southampton on her maiden voyage. The trials were delayed for a day due to bad weather, but by Monday morning it was clear and fair. Aboard were 78 stokers, greasers and firemen, and 41 members of crew. No domestic staff appear to have been aboard. Representatives of various companies travelled on ''Titanic'' sea trials, Thomas Andrews and Edward Wilding of Harland and Wolff and Harold A. Sanderson of IMM. Bruce Ismay and Lord Pirrie were too ill to attend.
Jack Phillips and
Harold Bride
Harold Sydney Bride (11 January 1890 – 29 April 1956) was a British merchant seaman and the junior wireless officer on the ocean liner RMS ''Titanic'' during its ill-fated maiden voyage.
After the ''Titanic'' struck an iceberg at 11:40 pm 14 ...
served as radio operators and performed fine-tuning of the Marconi equipment. Francis Carruthers, a surveyor from the Board of Trade, was also present to see that everything worked and that the ship was fit to carry passengers.
The sea trials consisted of a number of tests of her handling characteristics, carried out first in
Belfast Lough
Belfast Lough is a large, intertidal sea inlet on the east coast of Northern Ireland. At its head is the city and port of Belfast, which sits at the mouth of the River Lagan. The lough opens into the North Channel and connects Belfast to th ...
and then in the open waters of the
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Ce ...
. Over the course of about 12 hours, ''Titanic'' was driven at different speeds, her turning ability was tested and a "crash stop" was performed in which the engines were reversed full ahead to full astern, bringing her to a stop in or 3 minutes and 15 seconds. The ship covered a distance of about , averaging and reaching a maximum speed of just under .
On returning to Belfast at about 7 pm, the surveyor signed an "Agreement and Account of Voyages and Crew", valid for 12 months, which declared the ship seaworthy. An hour later, ''Titanic'' departed Belfast to head to Southampton, a voyage of about . After a journey lasting about 28 hours, she arrived about midnight on 4 April and was towed to the port's Berth 44, ready for the arrival of her passengers and the remainder of her crew.
Maiden voyage
Both ''Olympic'' and ''Titanic'' registered
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
as their home port. The offices of the White Star Line, as well as Cunard, were in Liverpool, and up until the introduction of the ''Olympic'', most British ocean liners for both Cunard and White Star, such as ''Lusitania'' and ''Mauretania'', sailed from Liverpool followed by a port of call in
Queenstown, Ireland
Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. With a population of around 13,000 inhabitants, Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour and home to Ireland's ...
. Since the company's founding in 1845, a vast majority of their operations had taken place from Liverpool. However, in 1907 White Star Line established another service from Southampton on England's south coast, which became known as White Star's "Express Service". Southampton had many advantages over Liverpool, the first being its proximity to London.
In addition, Southampton, being on the south coast, allowed ships to easily cross the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
and make a port of call on the northern coast of France, usually at
Cherbourg
Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...
. This allowed British ships to pick up clientele from continental Europe before recrossing the channel and picking up passengers at Queenstown. The ''Southampton-Cherbourg-New York run'' would become so popular that most British ocean liners began using the port after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Out of respect for Liverpool, ships continued to be registered there until the early 1960s. ''
Queen Elizabeth 2
''Queen Elizabeth 2'' (''QE2'') is a retired British ocean liner converted into a floating hotel. Originally built for the Cunard Line, the ship, named as the second ship named ''Queen Elizabeth'', was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic ...
'' was one of the first ships registered in Southampton when introduced into service by Cunard in 1969.
''Titanic''s maiden voyage was intended to be the first of many trans-Atlantic crossings between Southampton and New York via Cherbourg and Queenstown on westbound runs, returning via
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
in England while eastbound. Indeed, her entire schedule of voyages through to December 1912 still exists. When the route was established, four ships were assigned to the service. In addition to ''Teutonic'' and ''Majestic'', and the brand new sailed the route. When the ''Olympic'' entered service in June 1911, she replaced ''Teutonic'', which after completing her last run on the service in late April was transferred to the Dominion Line's Canadian service. The following August, ''Adriatic'' was transferred to White Star Line's main Liverpool-New York service, and in November, ''Majestic'' was withdrawn from service impending the arrival of ''Titanic'' in the coming months, and was mothballed as a reserve ship.
White Star Line's initial plans for ''Olympic'' and ''Titanic'' on the Southampton run followed the same routine as their predecessors had done before them. Each would sail 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.
The deep-water dock at Southampton, then known as the "''White Star Dock'', had been specially constructed to accommodate the new ''Olympic''-class liners, and had opened in 1911.
Crew
![EJ Smith](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/EJ_Smith.jpg)
''Titanic'' had around 885 crew members on board for her maiden voyage. Like other vessels of her time, she did not have a permanent crew, and the vast majority of crew members were casual workers who only came aboard the ship a few hours before she sailed from Southampton. The process of signing up recruits had begun on 23 March and some had been sent to Belfast, where they served as a skeleton crew during ''Titanic''s sea trials and passage to England at the start of April.
Captain
Edward John Smith, the most senior of the White Star Line's captains, was transferred from ''Olympic'' to take command of ''Titanic''.
Henry Tingle Wilde
Henry Tingle Wilde, RNR (21 September 1872 – 15 April 1912) was a British naval officer who was the chief officer of the . He died in the sinking.
Early life
Henry Tingle Wilde was born on 21 September 1872 in Walton, north of Liverpool, En ...
also came across from ''Olympic'' to take the post of
chief mate
A chief mate (C/M) or chief officer, usually also synonymous with the first mate or first officer, is a licensed mariner and head of the deck department of a merchant ship. The chief mate is customarily a watchstander and is in charge of the shi ...
. ''Titanic''s previously designated chief mate and first officer,
William McMaster Murdoch
William McMaster Murdoch, RNR (28 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was a British sailor, who was the First Officer on the . He was the officer in charge on the bridge when the ship collided with an iceberg, and was one of the more than 1,50 ...
and
Charles Lightoller
Charles Herbert Lightoller, (30 March 1874 – 8 December 1952) was a British mariner and naval officer. He was the second officer on board the and the most senior member of the crew to survive the ''Titanic'' disaster. As the officer in ch ...
, were bumped down to the ranks of first and second officer respectively. The original second officer,
David Blair, was dropped altogether. The
third officer was
Herbert Pitman
Herbert John "Bert" Pitman MBE (20 November 1877 – 7 December 1961) was an English Merchant Navy seaman, who was the Third Officer of RMS ''Titanic'' when it sank in the North Atlantic Ocean with heavy loss of life after striking an iceb ...
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
, the only deck officer who was not a member of the
Royal Naval Reserve
The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...
. Pitman was the second to last surviving officer.
''Titanic''s crew were divided into three principal departments: Deck, with 66 crew; Engine, with 325; and Victualling, with 494. The vast majority of the crew were thus not seamen but were either engineers, firemen, or stokers, responsible for looking after the engines, or stewards and galley staff, responsible for the passengers. Of these, over 97% were male; just 23 of the crew were female, mainly stewardesses. The rest represented a great variety of professions—bakers, chefs, butchers, fishmongers, dishwashers, stewards, gymnasium instructors, laundrymen, waiters, bed-makers, cleaners, and even a printer, who produced a daily newspaper for passengers called the ''Atlantic Daily Bulletin'' with the latest news received by the ship's wireless operators.
Most of the crew signed on in Southampton on 6 April; in all, 699 of the crew came from there, and 40% were natives of the town. A few specialist staff were self-employed or were subcontractors. These included the five postal clerks, who worked for the Royal Mail and the United States Post Office Department, the staff of the First Class ''A La Carte'' Restaurant and the Café Parisien, the radio operators (who were employed by Marconi) and the eight musicians, who were employed by an agency and travelled as second-class passengers. Crew pay varied greatly, from Captain Smith's £105 a month (equivalent to £ today) to the £3 10''
s'' (£ today) that stewardesses earned. The lower-paid victualling staff could, however, supplement their wages substantially through tips from passengers.
Passengers
![John Jacob Astor 1909](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/John_Jacob_Astor_1909.jpg)
''Titanic''s passengers numbered approximately 1,317 people: 324 in First Class, 284 in Second Class, and 709 in Third Class. Of these, 869 (66%) were male and 447 (34%) female. There were 107 children aboard, the largest number of whom were in Third Class. The ship was considerably under capacity on her maiden voyage, as she could accommodate 2,453 passengers—833 First Class, 614 Second Class, and 1,006 Third Class.
Usually, a high prestige vessel like ''Titanic'' could expect to be fully booked on its maiden voyage. However, a
national coal strike in the UK had caused considerable disruption to shipping schedules in the spring of 1912, causing many crossings to be cancelled. Many would-be passengers chose to postpone their travel plans until the strike was over. The strike had finished a few days before ''Titanic'' sailed; however, that was too late to have much of an effect. ''Titanic'' was able to sail on the scheduled date only because coal was transferred from other vessels which were tied up at Southampton, such as and , as well as coal ''Olympic'' had brought back from a previous voyage to New York, which had been stored at the White Star Dock.
Some of the most prominent people of the day booked a passage aboard ''Titanic'', travelling in First Class. Among them (with those who perished marked with a dagger†) were the American millionaire
John Jacob Astor IV
John Jacob Astor IV (July 13, 1864 – April 15, 1912) was an American business magnate, real estate developer, investor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish–American War, and a prominent member of the Astor family. He died in the sinki ...
† and his wife
Madeleine Force Astor
Madeleine Talmage Astor (''née'' Force; later Dick and Fiermonte; June 19, 1893 – March 27, 1940) was an American socialite and a survivor of the . She was the second wife and widow of businessman John Jacob Astor IV.
Early life
Madeleine ...
(with
John Jacob Astor VI
John Jacob Astor VI (August 14, 1912 – June 26, 1992) was an American socialite, shipping businessman, and member of the Astor family. He was dubbed the "''Titanic'' Baby" for his affiliation with the RMS ''Titanic''; Astor was born four month ...
in utero), industrialist
Benjamin Guggenheim
Benjamin Guggenheim (October 26, 1865 – April 15, 1912) was an American businessman. He died aboard when the ship sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. His body was never recovered.
Early life
Guggenheim was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, t ...
†, painter and sculptor
Francis Davis Millet
Francis Davis Millet (November 3, 1848. – April 15, 1912) was an American academic classical painter, sculptor, and writer who died in the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' on April 15, 1912.
Early life
Francis Davis Millet was born in Mattapoi ...
†,
Macy's
Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
owner
Isidor Straus
Isidor Straus (February 6, 1845 – April 15, 1912) was a Bavarian-born American Jewish businessman, politician and co-owner of Macy's department store with his brother Nathan. He also served for just over a year as a member of the United State ...
† and his wife
Ida
Ida or IDA may refer to:
Astronomy
* Ida Facula, a mountain on Amalthea, a moon of Jupiter
*243 Ida, an asteroid
*International Docking Adapter, a docking adapter for the International Space Station
Computing
*Intel Dynamic Acceleration, a techn ...
†,
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
millionairess
Margaret "Molly" Brown, Sir
Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife,
couturière Lucy (Lady Duff-Gordon), Lieut. Col.
Arthur Peuchen, writer and historian
Archibald Gracie
Archibald Gracie (June 25, 1755 – April 11, 1829) was a Scottish-born shipping magnate and early American businessman and merchant in New York City and Virginia whose spacious home, Gracie Mansion, now serves as the residence of the Mayor of ...
, cricketer and businessman
John B. Thayer
John Borland Thayer II (April 21, 1862April 15, 1912) was an American businessman who had a thirty-year career as an executive with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He was a director and second vice-president of the company when he died less t ...
† with his wife
Marian
Marian may refer to:
People
* Mari people, a Finno-Ugric ethnic group in Russia
* Marian (given name), a list of people with the given name
* Marian (surname), a list of people so named
Places
* Marian, Iran (disambiguation)
* Marian, Queenslan ...
and son
Jack
Jack may refer to:
Places
* Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA
People and fictional characters
* Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
,
George Dunton Widener
George Dunton Widener (June 16, 1861 – April 15, 1912) was an American businessman who died in the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic''.
Early life
Widener was born in Philadelphia on June 16, 1861. He was the eldest son of Hannah Josephine Du ...
† with his wife
Eleanor
Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It is the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages.
The name was introd ...
and son
Harry
Harry may refer to:
TV shows
* ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin
* ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons
* ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show ...
†,
Noël Leslie, Countess of Rothes, Mr.† and Mrs.
Charles M. Hays, Mr. and Mrs.
Henry S. Harper
Henry Sleeper Harper (11 March 1864 – 1 March 1944) was an American businessman. He was an incorporator of Harper & Brothers when the firm became a corporation in 1896. Harper is remembered as a passenger on the when it sank on April 15, 191 ...
, Mr.† and Mrs.
Walter D. Douglas, Mr.† and Mrs.
George D. Wick, Mr.† and
Mrs.
Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard English pronunciation: ) is a commonly used English honorific for women, usually for those who are married and who do not instead use another title (or rank), such as ''Doctor'', ''Profe ...
Henry B. Harris, Mr.† and Mrs.
Arthur L. Ryerson, Mr.† and Mrs.†
Hudson J. C. Allison, Mr. and Mrs.
Dickinson Bishop
Dickinson H. Bishop (March 24, 1887 – February 16, 1961) was an American businessman who traveled on board the ill-fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, RMS ''Titanic'' while on his honeymoon with bride Helen, ''née'' Walton. They both ...
, noted architect
Edward Austin Kent
Edward Austin Kent (February 19, 1854 – April 15, 1912) was a prominent architect in Buffalo, New York. He died in the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' and was seen helping women and children into the lifeboats.
Biography
Edward Austin Kent wa ...
†, brewery heir
Harry Molson†, tennis players
Karl Behr
Karl Howell Behr (May 30, 1885 – October 15, 1949) was an American tennis player and banker. He was also a survivor of the sinking of .
Personal life
Karl Howell Behr was born the son of Herman and Grace (née Howell) Behr of New York City. ...
and
Dick Williams
Richard Hirschfeld Williams (May 7, 1929 – July 7, 2011) was an American left fielder, third baseman, manager, coach and front-office consultant in Major League Baseball. Known especially as a hard-driving, sharp-tongued manager from 1967 to 1 ...
, author and socialite
Helen Churchill Candee
Helen Churchill Candee (October 5, 1858 – August 23, 1949) was an American author, journalist, interior decorator, feminist, and geographer. Today, she is best known as a survivor of the sinking of RMS ''Titanic'' in 1912, and for her late ...
, future lawyer and suffragette
Elsie Bowerman
Elsie Edith Bowerman (18 December 1889 – 18 October 1973) was a British lawyer, suffragette, political activist, and RMS ''Titanic'' survivor.
Early life
Elsie Edith Bowerman was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the only daughter of Willia ...
and her mother Edith, journalist and social reformer
William Thomas Stead
William Thomas Stead (5 July 184915 April 1912) was a British newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst ed ...
†, journalist and fashion buyer
Edith Rosenbaum
Edith Louise Rosenbaum Russell (June 12, 1879 – April 4, 1975) was an American fashion buyer, stylist and correspondent for ''Women's Wear Daily'', best remembered for surviving the 1912 sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' with a music box in the s ...
, Philadelphia and New York socialite Edith Corse Evans†, wealthy divorcée
Charlotte Drake Cardeza
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
, French sculptor , author
Jacques Futrelle
Jacques Heath Futrelle (April 9, 1875 – April 15, 1912) was an American journalist and mystery writer. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, also known as "The Thinking Mac ...
† with his wife May, silent film actress
Dorothy Gibson
Dorothy Gibson (born Dorothy Winifred Brown; May 17, 1889 – February 17, 1946) was a pioneering American silent film actress, artist's model, and singer active in the early 20th century. She is best remembered as a survivor of the sinking o ...
with her mother Pauline, President of the
Swiss Bankverein Col. Alfons Simonius-Blumer,
James A. Hughes
James Anthony Hughes (February 27, 1861March 2, 1930) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of West Virginia.
Hughes was born near Corunna in the Province of Canada (in what is now Ontario). He immigrat ...
's daughter
Eloise, banker
Robert Williams Daniel
Robert Williams Daniel (September 11, 1884 – December 20, 1940) was an American banker who survived the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' in 1912, and later became a gentleman farmer and served in the Virginia Senate.
Early and family life ...
, the chairman of the
Holland America Line
Holland America Line is an American-owned cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States.
Holland America Line was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and from 1873 to 1989, it operated ...
,
Arthur Wellington Ross
Arthur Wellington Ross (25 March 1846 – 25 March 1901) was a Canadian politician, educator and lawyer.
Biography
Born in Nairn, Upper Canada, the son of Donald Ross, he studied at the Toronto Normal School and taught school in Cornwall, ...
's son John H. Ross,
Washington Roebling
Washington Augustus Roebling (May 26, 1837 – July 21, 1926) was an American civil engineer who supervised the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, designed by his father John A. Roebling. He served in the Union Army during the American Civ ...
's nephew Washington A. Roebling II,
Andrew Saks
Andrew Saks (June 5, 1847 – April 8, 1912) was an American businessman known as the founder of department store Saks Fifth Avenue.
Biography
Saks was born to a German Jewish family, in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Helena and William Sak ...
's daughter Leila Saks Meyer with her husband Edgar Joseph Meyer† (son of
Marc Eugene Meyer
Marc Eugene Meyer (1842–1925) was an American businessman and was president of Lazard Frères in the United States.
Biography
Meyer was born to a Jewish family, the son of Sephora (née Loeb) and Isaac Meyer, in Strasbourg, France. His father w ...
),
William A. Clark
William Andrews Clark Sr. (January 8, 1839March 2, 1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads.
Biography
Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1 ...
's nephew Walter M. Clark with his wife Virginia, great-great-grandson of soap manufacturer
Andrew Pears
Andrew Pears was an English man, born around 1770, who invented transparent soap. He moved to London in 1789 from his home in Mevagissey, Cornwall, where he had trained as a barber.
He opened a barber's shop in the then-fashionable residential a ...
Thomas C. Pears with wife,
John S. Pillsbury
John Sargent Pillsbury (July 29, 1827 – October 18, 1901) was an American politician, businessman, and philanthropist. A Republican, he served as the eighth Governor of Minnesota from 1876 to 1882. He was a co-founder of the Pillsbury Co ...
's honeymooning grandson John P. Snyder and wife Nelle,
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles.
From a conflicted and unhap ...
's New York manufacturer uncle Martin Rothschild with his wife, Elizabeth, among others.
''Titanic''s owner
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...
was scheduled to travel on the maiden voyage but cancelled at the last minute. Also aboard the ship were the White Star Line's managing director
J. Bruce Ismay
Joseph Bruce Ismay (; 12 December 1862 – 17 October 1937) was an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. In 1912, he came to international attention as the highest-ranking White Star official t ...
and ''Titanic''s designer
Thomas Andrews
Thomas Andrews Jr. (7 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was a British businessman and shipbuilder. He was managing director and head of the drafting department of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland.
He was the nava ...
†, who was on board to observe any problems and assess the general performance of the new ship.
The exact number of people aboard is not known, as not all of those who had booked tickets made it to the ship; about 50 people cancelled for various reasons, and not all of those who boarded stayed aboard for the entire journey. Fares varied depending on class and season. Third Class fares from London, Southampton, or Queenstown cost £7 5''s'' (equivalent to £ today) while the cheapest First Class fares cost £23 (£ today).
The most expensive First Class suites were to have cost up to £870 in high season (£ today).
Collecting passengers
''Titanic''s maiden voyage began on Wednesday, 10 April 1912. Following the embarkation of the crew, the passengers began arriving at 9:30 am, when the
London and South Western Railway
The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...
's boat train from
London Waterloo station
Waterloo station (), also known as London Waterloo, is a London station group, central London terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo, London, Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connecte ...
reached
Southampton Terminus railway station
Southampton Terminus railway station served the Port of Southampton and Southampton City Centre, England from 1839 until 1966. The station was authorised on 25 July 1834 and built as the terminus of the London and Southampton Railway, which l ...
on the quayside, alongside ''Titanic''s berth. The large number of Third Class passengers meant they were the first to board, with First and Second Class passengers following up to an hour before departure. Stewards showed them to their cabins, and First Class passengers were personally greeted by Captain Smith. Third Class passengers were inspected for ailments and physical impairments that might lead to their being refused entry to the United States – a prospect the White Star Line wished to avoid, as it would have to carry anyone who failed the examination back across the Atlantic. In all, 920 passengers boarded ''Titanic'' at Southampton – 179 First Class, 247 Second Class, and 494 Third Class. Additional passengers were to be picked up at
Cherbourg
Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...
and
Queenstown.
The maiden voyage began at noon, as scheduled. An accident was narrowly averted only a few minutes later, as ''Titanic'' passed the moored liners of the
American Line
The American Line was a shipping company founded in 1871 and based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It began as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, although the railroad got out of the shipping business soon after founding the company. In 1902, it ...
and ''Oceanic'' of the White Star Line, the latter of which would have been her running mate on the service from Southampton. Her huge
displacement
Displacement may refer to:
Physical sciences
Mathematics and Physics
*Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...
caused both of the smaller ships to be lifted by a bulge of water and then dropped into a trough. ''New York''s mooring cables could not take the sudden strain and snapped, swinging her around stern-first towards ''Titanic''. A nearby tugboat, ''Vulcan'', came to the rescue by taking ''New York'' under tow, and Captain Smith ordered ''Titanic''s engines to be put "full astern". The two ships avoided a collision by a distance of about . The incident delayed ''Titanic''s departure for about an hour, while the drifting ''New York'' was brought under control.
After making it safely through the complex tides and channels of
Southampton Water
Southampton Water is a tidal estuary north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight in England. The city of Southampton lies at its most northerly point, where the estuaries of the River Test and River Itchen meet. Along its salt marsh-fringed wes ...
and the
Solent
The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay to ...
, ''Titanic'' disembarked the Southampton
pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
at the
Nab Lightship and headed out into the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
. She headed for the French port of Cherbourg, a journey of . The weather was windy, very fine but cold and overcast. Because Cherbourg lacked docking facilities for a ship the size of ''Titanic'',
tenders had to be used to transfer passengers from shore to ship. The White Star Line operated two at Cherbourg, and . Both had been designed specifically as tenders for the ''Olympic''-class liners and were launched shortly after ''Titanic''. (''Nomadic'' is today the only White Star Line ship still afloat.) Four hours after ''Titanic'' left Southampton, she arrived at Cherbourg and was met by the tenders. There, 274 additional passengers were taken aboard – 142 First Class, 30 Second Class, and 102 Third Class. Twenty-four passengers left aboard the tenders to be conveyed to shore, having booked only a cross-Channel passage. The process was completed within only 90 minutes and at 8 pm ''Titanic''
weighed anchor and left for Queenstown with the weather continuing cold and windy.
At 11:30 am on Thursday 11 April, ''Titanic'' arrived at
Cork Harbour
Cork Harbour () is a natural harbour and river estuary at the mouth of the River Lee in County Cork, Ireland. It is one of several which lay claim to the title of "second largest natural harbour in the world by navigational area" (after Port Ja ...
on the south coast of Ireland. It was a partly cloudy but relatively warm day, with a brisk wind. Again, the dock facilities were not suitable for a ship of ''Titanic'' size, and tenders were used to bring passengers aboard. In all, 123 passengers boarded ''Titanic'' at Queenstown – three First Class, seven Second Class and 113 Third Class. In addition to the 24 cross-Channel passengers who had disembarked at Cherbourg, another seven passengers had booked an overnight passage from Southampton to Queenstown. Among the seven was Father
Francis Browne
Francis Patrick Mary Browne, (3 January 1880 – 7 July 1960) was a distinguished Irish Jesuit and a prolific photographer. His best known photographs are those of the RMS ''Titanic'' and its passengers and crew taken shortly before its sin ...
, a
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
trainee who was a keen photographer and took many photographs aboard ''Titanic'', including the last known photograph of the ship. A decidedly unofficial departure was that of a crew member, stoker John Coffey, a Queenstown native who sneaked off the ship by hiding under mail bags being transported to shore. ''Titanic'' weighed anchor for the last time at 1:30 pm and departed on her westward journey across the Atlantic.
Atlantic crossing
![Titanic voyage map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Titanic_voyage_map.png)
''Titanic'' was planned to arrive at New York
Pier 59 on the morning of 17 April. After leaving Queenstown, ''Titanic'' followed the Irish coast as far as
Fastnet Rock
Fastnet Lighthouse is a 54m high lighthouse situated on the remote Fastnet Rock in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the most southerly point of Ireland and lies southwest of Cape Clear Island and from County Cork on the Irish mainland. The current l ...
, a distance of some . From there she travelled along a
Great Circle
In mathematics, a great circle or orthodrome is the circular intersection of a sphere and a plane passing through the sphere's center point.
Any arc of a great circle is a geodesic of the sphere, so that great circles in spherical geomet ...
route across the North Atlantic to reach a spot in the ocean known as "the corner" south-east of Newfoundland, where westbound steamers carried out a change of course. ''Titanic'' sailed only a few hours past the corner on a
rhumb line
In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.
Introduction
The effect of following a rhumb li ...
leg of to
Nantucket Shoals
Nantucket Shoals is an area of dangerously shallow water in the Atlantic Ocean that extends from Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, eastward for and southeastward for ; in places water depth can be as shallow as . Depth soundings are unpredictable d ...
Light when she made her fatal contact with an iceberg. The final leg of the journey would have been to
Ambrose Light
Ambrose Light, often called Ambrose Tower, was the light station at the convergence of several major shipping lanes in Lower New York Bay, including Ambrose Channel, the primary passage for ships entering and departing the Port of New York and ...
and finally to
New York Harbor
New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in t ...
.
From 11 April to
local apparent noon the next day, ''Titanic'' covered ; the following day, ; and by noon on the final day of her voyage, . From then until the time of her sinking, she travelled another , averaging about .
The weather cleared as she left Ireland under cloudy skies with a headwind. Temperatures remained fairly mild on Saturday 13 April, but the following day ''Titanic'' crossed a cold
weather front
A weather front is a boundary separating air masses for which several characteristics differ, such as air density, wind, temperature, and humidity. Disturbed and unstable weather due to these differences often arises along the boundary. For in ...
with strong winds and waves of up to . These died down as the day progressed until, by the evening of Sunday 14 April, it became clear, calm and very cold.
The first three days of the voyage from Queenstown had passed without apparent incident. A fire had begun in one of ''Titanic''s
coal bunker
A coal bin, coal store or coal bunker is a storage container for coal awaiting use or transportation. This can be either in domestic, commercial or industrial premises, or on a ship or locomotive tender, or at a coal mine or processing plant.
D ...
s approximately 10 days prior to the ship's departure, and continued to burn for several days into its voyage, but passengers were unaware of this situation. Fires occurred frequently on board steamships at the time, due to
spontaneous combustion
Spontaneous combustion or spontaneous ignition is a type of combustion which occurs by self-heating (increase in temperature due to exothermic internal reactions), followed by thermal runaway (self heating which rapidly accelerates to high tem ...
of the coal. The fires had to be extinguished with fire hoses by moving the coal on top to another bunker and by removing the burning coal and feeding it into the furnace. The fire was finally extinguished on 14 April.
[Titanic: Fire & Ice (Or What You Will)]
Various Authors. Retrieved 23 January 2017. There has been some speculation and discussion as to whether this fire and attempts to extinguish it may have made the ship more vulnerable to its fate.
''Titanic'' received a series of warnings from other ships of drifting ice in the area of the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland
The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting Atlantic cod, swordf ...
, but Captain Edward Smith ignored them. One of the ships to warn ''Titanic'' was the Atlantic Line's .
Nevertheless, the ship continued to steam at full speed, which was standard practice at the time. Although the ship was not trying to set a speed record, timekeeping was a priority, and under prevailing maritime practices, ships were often operated at close to full speed, with ice warnings seen as advisories and reliance placed upon lookouts and the watch on the bridge. It was generally believed that ice posed little danger to large vessels. Close calls with ice were not uncommon, and even head-on collisions had not been disastrous. In 1907, , a German liner, had rammed an iceberg but still had been able to complete her voyage, and Captain Smith himself had declared in 1907 that he "could not imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that."
Sinking
At 11:40 pm (
ship's time
A ship's bell is a bell on a ship that is used for the indication of time as well as other traditional functions. The bell itself is usually made of brass or bronze, and normally has the ship's name engraved or cast on it.
Strikes Timing of s ...
) on 14 April, lookout
Frederick Fleet
Frederick Fleet (15 October 1887 – 10 January 1965) was a British sailor, crewman and a survivor of the sinking of the . Fleet, along with fellow lookout Reginald Lee, was on duty when the ship struck the iceberg; it was Fleet who first ...
spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of ''Titanic'' and alerted the bridge.
First Officer William Murdoch
William Murdoch (sometimes spelled Murdock) (21 August 1754 – 15 November 1839) was a Scottish engineer and inventor.
Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton & Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten yea ...
ordered the ship to be steered around the obstacle and the engines to be reversed, but it was too late; the starboard side of ''Titanic'' struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline. The hull was not punctured by the iceberg, but rather dented such that the hull's seams buckled and separated, allowing water to rush in. Five of the ship's watertight compartments were breached. It soon became clear that the ship was doomed, as she could not survive more than four compartments being flooded. ''Titanic'' began sinking bow-first, with water spilling from compartment to compartment as her angle in the water became steeper.
Those aboard ''Titanic'' were ill-prepared for such an emergency. In accordance with accepted practices of the time, as ships were seen as largely unsinkable and lifeboats were intended to transfer passengers to nearby rescue vessels, ''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. The crew had not been trained adequately in carrying out an evacuation. The officers did not know how many they could safely put aboard the lifeboats and launched many of them barely half-full. Third-class passengers were largely left to fend for themselves, causing many of them to become trapped below decks as the ship filled with water. The "
women and children first
''Women and Children First'' is the third studio album by American Rock music, rock band Van Halen, released on March 26, 1980, on Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Ted Templeman and engineered by Donn Landee, it was the first Van Halen album no ...
" protocol was generally followed when loading the lifeboats, and most of the male passengers and crew were left aboard. In 2022, Claes-Gõran Wetterholm, an author and expert on ''Titanic'', argued it was "not true" that women and children survived thanks to the gallantry of men; of the last survivors escaping on the final lifeboats leaving the starboard side of the ship, he said, the majority were men. However, women and children survived at rates of about 75 percent and 50 percent, respectively, while only 20 percent of men survived.
Between 2:10 and 2:15 am, a little over two and a half hours after ''Titanic'' struck the iceberg, her rate of sinking suddenly increased as the boat 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 broke in two main pieces between the second and third funnels, due to the immense forces on the keel. 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 foundering at 2:20 am. It was long generally believed the ship sank in one piece; but the discovery of
the wreck many years later revealed that the ship had broken fully in two. All remaining passengers and crew were immersed in lethally cold water with a temperature of . Sudden immersion into freezing water typically causes death within minutes, either from
cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. It is a medical emergency that, without immediate medical intervention, will result in sudden cardiac death within minutes. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and possib ...
, uncontrollable breathing of water, or
cold incapacitation
Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe ...
(not, as commonly believed, from
hypothermia
Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe h ...
), and almost all of those in the water died of cardiac arrest or other bodily reactions to freezing water, within 15–30 minutes. Only five of them were helped into the lifeboats, though the lifeboats had room for almost 500 more people.
Distress signals were sent by wireless, rockets, and lamp, but none of the ships that responded were near enough to reach ''Titanic'' before she sank. A radio operator on board , for instance, estimated that it would be 6 am before the liner could arrive at the scene. Meanwhile, , which was the last to have been in contact before the collision, saw ''Titanic''s flares but failed to assist. Around 4 am, arrived on the scene in response to ''Titanic''s earlier distress calls.
706 people survived the disaster and were conveyed by ''Carpathia'' to New York, ''Titanic'' original destination, and 1,517 people died. ''Carpathia'' captain described the place as an ice field that had included 20 large bergs measuring up to high and numerous smaller bergs, as well as ice floes and debris from ''Titanic''; passengers described being in the middle of a vast white plain of ice, studded with icebergs. This area is now known as
Iceberg Alley
The Atlantic Marine Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian marine ecozone that stretches from the Davis Strait to encompass the Grand Banks, to the Avalon Peninsula on the shores of Newfoundlan ...
.
Aftermath of sinking
Immediate aftermath
took three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster. Her journey was slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas. She was, however, able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened. The initial reports were confusing, leading the American press to report erroneously on 15 April that ''Titanic'' was being towed to port by .
Later that day, confirmation came through that ''Titanic'' had been lost and that most of her passengers and crew had died. The news attracted crowds of people to the White Star Line's offices in London, New York, Montreal, Southampton, Liverpool and Belfast. It hit hardest in Southampton, whose people suffered the greatest losses from the sinking;
four out of every five crew members came from this town.
''Carpathia'' docked at 9:30 pm on 18 April at New York's
Pier 54
Chelsea Piers is a series of piers in Chelsea, on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located to the west of the West Side Highway ( Eleventh Avenue) and Hudson River Park and to the east of the Hudson River, they were originally a p ...
and was greeted by some 40,000 people waiting at the quayside in heavy rain. Immediate relief in the form of clothing and transportation to shelters was provided by the Women's Relief Committee, the
Travelers Aid Society of New York The Travelers Aid Society of New York (TAS-NY) was founded by Grace Hoadley Dodge in New York City in 1907. Thirteen other prominent Christian and Jewish women, including the social worker Belle Moskowitz, made up the Society's first Board of Dire ...
, and the
Council of Jewish Women, among other organisations. Many of ''Titanic''s surviving passengers did not linger in New York but headed onwards immediately to relatives' homes. Some of the wealthier survivors chartered private trains to take them home, and the
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...
laid on a special train free of charge to take survivors to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. ''Titanic''s 214 surviving crew members were taken to the Red Star Line's steamer , where they were accommodated in passenger cabins.
''Carpathia'' was hurriedly restocked with food and provisions before resuming her journey to Rijeka, Fiume, Austria-Hungary. Her crew were given a bonus of a month's wages by Cunard as a reward for their actions, and some of ''Titanic'' passengers joined to give them an additional bonus of nearly £900 (£ today), divided among the crew members.
The ship's arrival in New York led to a frenzy of press interest, with newspapers competing to be the first to report the survivors' stories. Some reporters bribed their way aboard the pilot boat ''New York'', which guided ''Carpathia'' into harbour, and one even managed to get onto ''Carpathia'' before she docked. Crowds gathered outside newspaper offices to see the latest reports being posted in the windows or on billboards. It took another four days for a complete list of casualties to be compiled and released, adding to the agony of relatives waiting for news of those who had been aboard ''Titanic''.
Insurance, aid for survivors and lawsuits
In January 1912, the hulls and equipment of ''Titanic'' and ''Olympic'' had been insured through Lloyd's of London and London Marine Insurance. The total coverage was £1,000,000 (£ today) per ship. The policy was to be "free from all average" under £150,000, meaning that the insurers would only pay for damage in excess of that sum. The premium, negotiated by brokers Willis Faber & Company (now Willis Group), was 15 ''s'' (75 ''p'') per £100, or £7,500 (£ today) for the term of one year. Lloyd's paid the White Star Line the full sum owed to them within 30 days.
Many charities were set up to help the survivors and their families, many of whom lost their sole wage earner, or, in the case of many Third Class survivors, everything they owned. In New York City, for example, a joint committee of the American Red Cross and Charity Organization Society formed to disburse financial aid to survivors and dependents of those who died. On 29 April, opera stars Enrico Caruso and Mary Garden and members of the Metropolitan Opera raised $12,000 ($300,000 in 2014) in benefits for victims of the disaster by giving special concerts in which versions of "Autumn" and "Nearer My God To Thee" were part of the programme.
In Britain, relief funds were organised for the families of ''Titanic''s lost crew members, raising nearly £450,000 (£ today). One such fund was still in operation as late as the 1960s.
In the United States and Britain, more than 60 survivors combined to sue the White Star Line for damages connected to loss of life and baggage.
The claims totalled $16,804,112 (appr. $419 million in 2018 USD), which was far in excess of what White Star argued it was responsible for as a limited liability company under American law.
Because the bulk of the litigants were in the United States, White Star petitioned the United States Supreme Court in 1914, which ruled in its favour that it qualified as an LLC and found that the causes of the ship's sinking were largely unforeseeable, rather than due to negligence. This sharply limited the scope of damages survivors and family members were entitled to, prompting them to reduce their claims to some $2.5 million. White Star only settled for $664,000 (appr. $16.56 million in 2018), about 27% of the original total sought by survivors. The settlement was agreed to by 44 of the claimants in December 1915, with $500,000 set aside for the American claimants, $50,000 for the British, and $114,000 to go towards interest and legal expenses.
Investigations into the disaster
![19120420 J](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/19120420_J._Bruce_Ismay_Testifying_at_the_Senate_Inquiry_-_The_New_York_Times.png)
Even before the survivors arrived in New York, investigations were being planned to discover what had happened, and what could be done to prevent a recurrence. Inquiries were held in both the United States and the United Kingdom, the former more robustly critical of traditions and practices, and scathing of the failures involved, and the latter broadly more technical and expert-orientated.
The United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, US Senate's inquiry into the disaster was initiated on 19 April, a day after ''Carpathia'' arrived in New York. The chairman, Senator William Alden Smith, wanted to gather accounts from passengers and crew while the events were still fresh in their minds. Smith also needed to subpoena all surviving British passengers and crew while they were still on American soil, which prevented them from returning to the UK before the American inquiry was completed on 25 May.
The British press condemned Smith as an opportunist, insensitively forcing an inquiry as a means of gaining political prestige and seizing "his moment to stand on the world stage". Smith, however, already had a reputation as a campaigner for safety on US railroads, and wanted to investigate any possible malpractices by railroad tycoon J. P. Morgan, ''Titanic''s ultimate owner.
The British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, British Board of Trade's inquiry into the disaster was headed by John Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, Lord Mersey, and took place between 2 May and 3 July. Being run by the Board of Trade, who had previously approved the ship, it was seen by some as having little interest in its own or White Star's conduct being found negligent.
Each inquiry took testimony from both passengers and crew of ''Titanic'', crew members of Leyland Line's ''Californian'', Captain Arthur Rostron of ''Carpathia'' and other experts. The British inquiry also took far greater expert testimony, making it the longest and most detailed court of inquiry in British history up to that time. The two inquiries reached broadly similar conclusions: the regulations on the number of lifeboats that ships had to carry were out of date and inadequate, Captain Smith had failed to take proper heed of ice warnings, the lifeboats had not been properly filled or crewed, and the collision was the direct result of steaming into a dangerous area at too high a speed.
Neither inquiry's findings listed negligence by IMM or the White Star Line as a factor. The American inquiry concluded that since those involved had followed standard practice, the disaster was an act of God. The British inquiry concluded that Smith had followed long-standing practice that had not previously been shown to be unsafe, noting that British ships alone had carried 3.5 million passengers over the previous decade with the loss of just 10 lives, and concluded that Smith had done "only that which other skilled men would have done in the same position". Lord Mersey did, however, find fault with the "extremely high speed (twenty-two knots) which was maintained" following numerous ice warnings, noting that "what was a mistake in the case of the ''Titanic'' would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future".
The recommendations included strong suggestions for major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that wireless equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock. An International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic, and maritime safety regulations were harmonised internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea; both measures are still in force today.
On 18 June 1912, Guglielmo Marconi gave evidence to the Court of Inquiry regarding the telegraphy. Its final report recommended that all liners carry the system and that sufficient operators maintain a constant service.
Role of the SS ''Californian''
![Californian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Californian.jpg)
One of the most controversial issues examined by the inquiries was the role played by , 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 ''Titanic'' by radio of the pack ice (that was the reason ''Californian'' had stopped for the night) but was rebuked by ''Titanic''s senior wireless operator,
Jack Phillips.
Testimony before the British inquiry revealed that at 10:10 pm, ''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 pm) that this was a passenger liner. At 11:50 pm, 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 pm and 1:00 am, but were not acknowledged. If ''Titanic'' was 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 he could have reached ''Titanic'' in time to save additional lives.
[
Captain Lord had gone to the chartroom at 11:00 pm to spend the night; however, Second Officer Herbert Stone, now on duty, notified Lord at 1:10 am that the ship had fired five rockets. Lord wanted to know if they were company signals, that is, coloured 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 am and Stone noted that the ship looked strange in the water, as if she were Angle of list, listing. At 2:15 am, Lord was notified that the ship could no longer be seen. Lord asked again if the lights had had any colours in them, and he was informed that they were all white.
''Californian'' eventually responded. At around 5:30 am, Chief Officer George Stewart awakened wireless operator Cyril Furmstone Evans, 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.
The inquiries found that the ship seen by ''Californian'' was in fact ''Titanic'' and that it would have been possible for ''Californian'' to come to her rescue; therefore, Captain Lord had acted improperly in failing to do so.
]
Survivors and victims
The number of casualties of the sinking is unclear, due to a number of factors. These include confusion over the passenger list, which included some names of people who cancelled their trip at the last minute, and the fact that several passengers travelled under aliases for various reasons and were therefore double-counted on the casualty lists. The death toll has been put at between 1,490 and 1,635 people. The tables below use figures from the British Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
report on the disaster. While the use of the Marconi wireless system did not achieve the result of bringing a rescue ship to ''Titanic'' before it sank, the use of wireless did bring ''Carpathia'' in time to rescue some of the survivors who otherwise would have perished due to exposure.
The water temperature was well below normal in the area where ''Titanic'' sank. It also contributed to the rapid death of many passengers during the sinking. Water temperature readings taken around the time of the accident were reported to be . Typical water temperatures were normally around during mid-April. The coldness of the water was a critical factor, often causing death within minutes for many of those in the water.
Fewer than a third of those aboard ''Titanic'' survived the disaster. Some survivors died shortly afterwards; injuries and the effects of exposure caused the deaths of several of those brought aboard ''Carpathia''. The figures show stark differences in the survival rates of the different classes aboard ''Titanic''. Although only 3% of first-class women were lost, 54% of those in third-class died. Similarly, five of six first-class and all second-class children survived, but 52 of the 79 in third-class perished. The differences by gender were even bigger: nearly all female crew members, first- and second-class passengers were saved. Men from the First Class died at a higher rate than women from the Third Class. In total, 50% of the children survived, 20% of the men and 75% of the women.
The last living survivor, Millvina Dean from England, who, at only nine weeks old, was the youngest passenger on board, died aged 97 on 31 May 2009. Two special survivors were the stewardess Violet Jessop and the stoker Arthur John Priest, who survived the sinkings of both ''Titanic'' and and were aboard when she was rammed in 1911.
Retrieval and burial of the dead
Once the massive loss of life became known, White Star Line chartered the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett, CS ''Mackay-Bennett'' from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to retrieve bodies. Three other Canadian ships followed in the search: the cable ship ''Minia'', lighthouse supply ship ''Montmagny'' and seal hunting, sealing vessel ''Algerine''. Each ship left with embalming supplies, undertakers, and clergy. Of the 333 victims that were eventually recovered, 328 were retrieved by the Canadian ships and five more by passing North Atlantic steamships.
The first ship to reach the site of the sinking, the CS ''Mackay-Bennett'', found so many bodies that the embalming supplies aboard were quickly exhausted. Health regulations required that only embalmed bodies could be returned to port. Captain Larnder of the ''Mackay-Bennett'' and undertakers aboard decided to preserve only the bodies of first-class passengers, justifying their decision by the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates. As a result, many third-class passengers and crew were buried at sea. Larnder identified many of those buried at sea as crew members by their clothing, and stated that as a mariner, he himself would be contented to be buried at sea.
Bodies recovered were preserved for transport to Halifax, the closest city to the sinking with direct rail and steamship connections. The Halifax Registrar of Vital Statistics, John Henry Barnstead, developed a detailed system to identify bodies and safeguard personal possessions. Relatives from across North America came to identify and claim bodies. A large temporary morgue was set up in the curling rink of the Mayflower Curling Club and undertakers were called in from all across eastern Canada to assist. Some bodies were shipped to be buried in their home towns across North America and Europe. About two-thirds of the bodies were identified. Unidentified victims were buried with simple numbers based on the order in which their bodies were discovered. The majority of recovered victims, 150 bodies, were buried in three Halifax cemeteries, the largest being Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Fairview Lawn Cemetery followed by the nearby Mount Olivet Cemetery (Halifax), Mount Olivet and Baron de Hirsch Cemetery, Halifax, Baron de Hirsch cemeteries.
In mid-May 1912, recovered three bodies over from the site of the sinking who were among the original occupants of Collapsible A. When Fifth Officer Harold Lowe and six crewmen returned to the wreck site sometime after the sinking in a lifeboat to pick up survivors, they rescued a dozen males and one female from Collapsible A, but left the dead bodies of three of its occupants. After their retrieval from Collapsible A by ''Oceanic'', the bodies were buried at sea.
The last ''Titanic'' body recovered was steward James McGrady, Body No. 330, found by the chartered Newfoundland sealing vessel ''Algerine'' on 22 May and buried at Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax on 12 June.
Only 333 bodies of ''Titanic'' victims were recovered, which amounted to one in five of the over 1,500 victims. Some bodies sank with the ship while currents quickly dispersed bodies and wreckage across hundreds of miles, making them difficult to recover. By June, one of the last search ships reported that life jackets supporting bodies were coming apart and releasing bodies to sink.
Wreck
''Titanic'' was long thought to have sunk in one piece and, over the years, many schemes were put forward for raising the wreck. None came to fruition. The fundamental problem was the sheer difficulty of finding and reaching a wreck that lies over below the surface, in a location where the water pressure is over . A number of expeditions were mounted to find ''Titanic'' but it was not until 1 September 1985 that a Franco-American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel (oceanographer), Jean-Louis Michel and Robert Ballard succeeded.
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 Titanic Canyon off the coast of Newfoundland. They are located from the inaccurate coordinates given by ''Titanic''s radio operators on the night of her sinking, and approximately from Halifax and from New York.
Both sections struck the seabed at considerable speed, causing the bow to crumple and the stern to collapse entirely. The bow is by far the more intact section and still contains some surprisingly intact interiors. In contrast, the stern is completely wrecked; its decks have pancaked down on top of each other and much of the hull plating was torn off and lies scattered across the sea floor. The much greater level of damage to the stern is probably due to structural damage incurred during the sinking. Thus weakened, the remainder of the stern was flattened by the impact with the sea bed.
The two sections are surrounded by a debris field measuring approximately . It contains hundreds of thousands of items, such as pieces of the ship, furniture, dinnerware and personal items, which fell from the ship as she sank or were ejected when the bow and stern impacted on the sea floor. The debris field was also the last resting place of a number of ''Titanic'' victims. Most of the bodies and clothes were consumed by sea creatures and bacteria, leaving pairs of shoes and boots—which have proved to be inedible—as the only sign that bodies once lay there.
Since its initial discovery, the wreck of ''Titanic'' has been revisited on numerous occasions by explorers, scientists, filmmakers, tourists and salvagers, who have recovered thousands of items from the debris field for conservation and public display. The ship's condition has deteriorated significantly over the years, particularly from accidental damage by submersibles but mostly because of an accelerating rate of growth of iron-eating bacteria on the hull. In 2006, it was estimated that within 50 years the hull and structure of ''Titanic'' would eventually collapse entirely, leaving only the more durable interior fittings of the ship intermingled with a pile of rust on the sea floor.
Many artefacts from ''Titanic'' have been recovered from the seabed by RMS Titanic Inc., which exhibits them in touring exhibitions around the world and in a permanent exhibition at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel and casino in Las Vegas Valley, Las Vegas, Nevada. A number of other museums exhibit artefacts either donated by survivors or retrieved from the floating bodies of victims of the disaster.
On 16 April 2012, the day after the 100th anniversary of the sinking, photos were released showing possible human remains resting on the ocean floor. The photos, taken by Robert Ballard during an expedition led by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA in 2004, show a boot and a coat close to ''Titanic'' stern which experts called "compelling evidence" that it is the spot where somebody came to rest, and that human remains could be buried in the sediment beneath them. The wreck of the ''Titanic'' falls under the scope of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This means that all states party to the convention will prohibit the pillaging, commercial exploitation, sale and dispersion of the wreck and its artefacts. Because of the location of the wreck in international waters and the lack of any exclusive jurisdiction over the wreckage area, the convention provides a state co-operation system, by which states inform each other of any potential activity concerning ancient shipwreck sites, like the ''Titanic'', and co-operate to prevent unscientific or unethical interventions.
Submersible dives in 2019 have found further deterioration of the wreck, including loss of the captain's bathtub. Between 29 July and 4 August 2019, a two-person submersible vehicle that was conducting research and filming a documentary crashed into the shipwreck. EYOS Expeditions executed the sub dives. It reported that the strong currents pushed the sub into the wreck leaving a "red rust stain on the side of the sub." The report did not mention if the ''Titanic'' sustained any damage.
Legacy
Safety
After the disaster, recommendations were made by both the British and American Boards of Inquiry stating that ships should carry enough lifeboats for all aboard, mandated lifeboat drills would be implemented, lifeboat inspections would be conducted, etc. Many of these recommendations were incorporated into the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea passed in 1914. The convention has been updated by periodic amendments, with a completely new version adopted in 1974.
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
''. International Maritime Organization, 1974. Signatories to the Convention followed up with national legislation to implement the new standards. For example, in Britain, new "Rules for Life Saving Appliances" were passed by the Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
on 8 May 1914 and then applied at a meeting of British steamship companies in Liverpool in June 1914.
Further, the United States government passed the Radio Act of 1912. This Act, along with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, stated that radio communications on passenger ships would be operated 24 hours a day, along with a secondary power supply, so as not to miss distress calls. Also, the Radio Act of 1912 required ships to maintain contact with vessels in their vicinity as well as coastal onshore radio stations. In addition, it was agreed in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea that the firing of red rockets from a ship must be interpreted as a sign of need for help. Once the Radio Act of 1912 was passed, it was agreed that rockets at sea would be interpreted as distress signals only, thus removing any possible misinterpretation from other ships.
Finally, the disaster led to the formation and international funding of the International Ice Patrol, an agency of the United States Coast Guard that to the present day monitors and reports on the location of North Atlantic Ocean icebergs that could pose a threat to transatlantic sea traffic. Coast Guard aircraft conduct the primary reconnaissance. In addition, information is collected from ships operating in or passing through the ice area. Except for the years of the two World Wars, the International Ice Patrol has worked each season since 1913. During the period, there has not been a single reported loss of life or property due to collision with an iceberg in the patrol area. In 1912, the Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
bareboat charter, chartered the barque to act as a weather ship in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland
The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting Atlantic cod, swordf ...
, keeping a look-out for icebergs. A Marconi wireless telegraph was installed to enable her to communicate with stations on the coast of Labrador and Dominion of Newfoundland, Newfoundland.
Cultural
''Titanic'' has gone down in history as the ship that was called unsinkable. For more than 100 years, she has been the inspiration of fiction and non-fiction. She is commemorated by monuments for the dead and by museums exhibiting artefacts from the wreck. Just after the sinking, memorial postcards sold in huge numbers together with memorabilia ranging from tin candy boxes to plates, whiskey jiggers, and even black mourning teddy bears. The sinking inspired many ballads such as "The Titanic (song), The Titanic". Several survivors wrote books about their experiences, but it was not until 1955 that the first historically accurate book – ''A Night to Remember (book), A Night to Remember'' – was published.
The first film about the disaster, ''Saved from the Titanic'', was released only 29 days after the ship sank and had an actual survivor as its star—the silent film actress Dorothy Gibson
Dorothy Gibson (born Dorothy Winifred Brown; May 17, 1889 – February 17, 1946) was a pioneering American silent film actress, artist's model, and singer active in the early 20th century. She is best remembered as a survivor of the sinking o ...
. This film is considered lost film, lost. The British film A Night to Remember (1958 film), ''A Night to Remember'' (1958) is still widely regarded as the most historically accurate movie portrayal of the sinking. The most financially successful by far has been James Cameron's ''Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...
'' (1997), which became the highest-grossing film in history up to that time, as well as the winner of 11 Academy Awards, Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Picture and Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director for Cameron.
The ''Titanic'' disaster was commemorated through a variety of memorials and monuments to the victims, erected in several English-speaking countries and in particular in cities that had suffered notable losses. These included Southampton, Liverpool and Belfast in the United Kingdom; New York and Washington, D.C. in the United States; and Cobh (formerly Queenstown) in Ireland. A number of museums around the world have displays on ''Titanic''; the most prominent is in Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
, the ship's birthplace (see #In Northern Ireland, below).
RMS Titanic Inc., which is authorised to salvage the wreck site, has a permanent ''Titanic'' exhibition at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel and casino in Nevada which features a 22-ton slab of the ship's hull. It also runs an exhibition which travels around the world. In Nova Scotia, Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic displays items that were recovered from the sea a few days after the disaster. They include pieces of woodwork such as panelling from the ship's First Class Lounge and an original deckchair, as well as objects removed from the victims. In 2012 the centenary was marked by plays, radio programmes, parades, exhibitions and special trips to the site of the sinking together with commemorative stamps and coins. Royal Mail
, kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga
, logo = Royal Mail.svg
, logo_size = 250px
, type = Public limited company
, traded_as =
, foundation =
, founder = Henry VIII
, location = London, England, UK
, key_people = * Keith Williams ...
(whose mail was carried by RMS (Royal Mail Ship
Royal Mail Ship (sometimes Steam-ship or Steamer), usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract to the British Royal Mail. The designation dates back to 1840. Any vessel de ...
) ''Titanic'') issued Great Britain commemorative stamps 2010–2019#2012, ten 1st class UK postage stamps, each with the "crown seal", to mark the centenary of the disaster.
In a frequently commented-on literary coincidence, Morgan Robertson authored a novel called ''Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan, Futility'' in 1898 about a fictional British passenger liner with the plot bearing a number of similarities to the ''Titanic'' disaster. In the novel, the ship is the SS ''Titan'', a four-stacked liner, the largest in the world and considered unsinkable. And like the ''Titanic'', she sinks in April after hitting an iceberg and does not have enough lifeboats.
In Northern Ireland
Only recently has the significance of ''Titanic'' most notably been given by Northern Ireland where it was built by Harland and Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
in the capital city, Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
. While the rest of the world embraced the glory and tragedy of ''Titanic'', in its birth city, ''Titanic'' remained a taboo subject throughout the 20th century. The sinking brought tremendous grief and was a blow to the city's pride. Its shipyard was also a place many Catholics regarded as hostile. In the latter half of the century, during a 30-year sectarian conflict, ''Titanic'' was a reminder of the lack of civil rights that in part contributed towards the Troubles. While the fate of ''Titanic'' remained a well-known story within local households throughout the 20th century, commercial investment in projects recalling RMS ''Titanic'' legacy was modest because of these issues.
After the Troubles and Good Friday Agreement, the number of overseas tourists visiting Northern Ireland dramatically increased to 30 million (100% rise by 2008). It was subsequently identified in the Northern Ireland Tourism Board's Strategic Framework for Action 2004–2007 that the significance of and interest in ''Titanic'' globally (partly due to the Titanic (1997 film), 1997 film ''Titanic'') was not being fully exploited as a tourist attraction. Thus, ''Titanic'' Belfast was spearheaded, along with some smaller projects, such as a Titanic Memorial, Belfast, ''Titanic'' memorial.
In 2012 on the ship's centenary, the Titanic Belfast, ''Titanic'' Belfast visitor attraction was opened on the site of the shipyard where ''Titanic'' was built. It was Northern Ireland's second most visited tourist attraction with almost 700,000 visitors in 2016.
Despite over List of ships built by Harland and Wolff, 1,600 ships being built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast Harbour, Queen's Island became renamed after its most famous ship, Titanic Quarter in 1995. Once a sensitive story, ''Titanic'' is now considered one of Northern Ireland's most iconic and uniting symbols.
In late August 2018, several groups were vying for the right to purchase the 5,500 ''Titanic'' relics that were an asset of the bankrupt Premier Exhibitions. Eventually, Titanic Belfast, ''Titanic'' Belfast, Titanic Foundation Limited and the National Museums Northern Ireland joined with the National Maritime Museum as a consortium that was raising money to purchase the 5,500 artefacts. The group intended to keep all of the items together as a single exhibit. Oceanographer Robert Ballard said he favoured this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast (where ''Titanic'' was built) and in Greenwich. The museums were critical of the bid process set by the Bankruptcy court in Jacksonville, Florida. The minimum bid for the 11 October 2018 auction was set at US$21.5 million (£16.5m) and the consortium did not have enough funding to meet that amount. On 17 October 2018, ''The New York Times'' reported that a consortium of three hedge funds—Apollo Global Management, Alta Fundamental Advisers, and PacBridge Capital Partners—had paid US$19.5 million for the collection.
Appendix
Diagram of RMS ''Titanic'' showing the arrangement of the bulkheads in red. Compartments in the engineering area at the bottom of the ship are noted in blue. Names of decks are listed to the right (starting at top on Boat deck, going from A through F and ending on Lower deck at the waterline). Areas of damage made by the iceberg are shown in green. The scale's smallest unit is and its total length is .
A cutaway diagram of ''Titanic''s midship section.
S: Sun deck. A: Upper promenade deck. B: Promenade deck, glass-enclosed. C: Saloon deck. E: Main deck. F: Middle deck. G: Lower deck: cargo, coal bunkers, boilers, engines. (a) Welin davits with lifeboats, (b) Bilge, (c) Double bottom
Comparison of Titanic in size to modern means of transport and a person
* 17 September 1908: Ship ordered.
* 31 May 1911: Ship launched.
* 1 April 1912: Trials completed.
* 10 April, noon: Maiden voyage starts. Leaves Southampton dock, narrowly escaping collision with American liner ''New York''.
* 10 April, 19:00: Stops at Cherbourg for passengers.
* 10 April, 21:00: Leaves Cherbourg for Queenstown.
* 11 April, 12:30: Stops at Queenstown for passengers and mail.
* 11 April, 14:00: Leaves Queenstown for New York.
* 14 April, 23:40: Collision with iceberg (Latitude 41° 46′ N, Longitude 50° 14′ W).
* 15 April, 00:45: First boat, No. 7, lowered.
* 15 April, 02:05: Last boat, Collapsible D, lowered.
* 15 April, 02:20: Foundering.
* 15 April, 03:30–08:50: Rescue of survivors.
* 19 April – 25 May: US inquiry.
* 2 May – 3 July: British inquiry.
* 1 September 1985: Discovery of wreck.
Replicas
There have been several proposals and studies for a project to build a ship replica, replica ship based on the ''Titanic''. A project by South African businessman Sarel Gaus was abandoned in 2006, and a project by Australian businessman Clive Palmer was announced in 2012, known as the ''Titanic II''.
A Chinese shipbuilding company known as Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co., Ltd commenced construction in November 2016 to build Romandisea Titanic, a replica ship of the ''Titanic'' for use in a resort. The vessel will house many features of the original, such as a ballroom, dining hall, theatre, first-class cabins, economy cabins and swimming pool. Tourists will be able to reside inside the ''Titanic'' during their time at the resort. It will be permanently docked at the resort and feature an audiovisual simulation of the sinking, which has caused some criticism.
RMS ''Olympic'' was the sister ship of the ''Titanic''. The interior decoration of the dining salon and the grand staircase were in identical style and created by the same craftsmen. Large parts of the interior of the ''Olympic'' were later sold and are now in the White Swan Hotel, Alnwick, which gives an impression of how the interior of the ''Titanic'' looked.
See also
* Titanic conspiracy theories, ''Titanic'' conspiracy theories
* Titanic in popular culture, ''Titanic'' in popular culture
* Seamen's Act
* Lists of shipwrecks
* ''The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility''
Comparable disasters
* Eastland disaster, a ship capsizing in 1915 after being fitted with extra lifeboats
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Investigations
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External links
RMS ''Titanic'', Inc
exclusive steward of RMS ''Titanic''
''Titanic'' Historical Society
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* [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/titanic/index.html ''New York Times'' coverage of the ''Titanic'']
"Titanic in Black and White"
at Library of Virginia
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References to the ''Titanic'' in European Historic Newspapers
Rare Postcard from the ''Titanic''
* – Professor William S. Hammack
{{DEFAULTSORT:Titanic
RMS Titanic,
1910s in Newfoundland
1911 ships
1912 in Canada
1912 in the United Kingdom
1912 in the United States
Four funnel liners
History of Halifax, Nova Scotia
Olympic-class ocean liners
Passenger ships of the United Kingdom
Ships sunk by icebergs
Ships built by Harland and Wolff
Ships built in Belfast
Ships of Ireland
Ships of the White Star Line
Shipwrecks of the Newfoundland and Labrador coast
Steamships of the United Kingdom
Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean
1985 archaeological discoveries