Titanic

RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. Of the 2,208 passengers and crew aboard, about 1,500 died, though estimates vary. This made it one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship.

Titanic, operated by White Star Line, carried some of the wealthiest people in the world. It also carried hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The disaster drew public attention and spurred major changes in maritime safety rules. It has also inspired a lasting legacy in popular culture. It was the second time White Star Line had lost a ship on her maiden voyage, the first being RMS Tayleur in 1854.

Titanic was the largest ship afloat when it entered service. It was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners built for White Star Line by the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company in Belfast. Thomas Andrews Jr., the shipyard's chief naval architect, died in the disaster. Captain Edward John Smith commanded the ship and went down with the ship. White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, survived in a lifeboat.

The first-class rooms were designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury. They included a gymnasium, a swimming pool, smoking rooms, fine restaurants and cafes, a Victorian-style Turkish bath, and hundreds of opulent cabins. Passengers could also use a high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter. The ship had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, which helped earn it the reputation of being "unsinkable."

Titanic had sixteen lifeboat davits, but it carried only twenty lifeboats, including two cutter lifeboats and four collapsible boats. Together, these could have held 1,178 people, about half the number of passengers on board. The British Board of Trade required fourteen lifeboats for a ship of its size, and Titanic carried six more than that. When the ship sank, the lifeboats that had been lowered were carrying an average of 60% of their rated capacity. For the film by James Cameron, see Titanic (1997 film). For other uses, see Titanic (disambiguation).

Background

The name Titanic comes from the Titans of Greek mythology. RMS Titanic was built in Belfast, Ireland. It was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners. The lead ship was RMS Olympic, and the last was HMHS Britannic. These ships were by far the biggest in the fleet of the British company White Star Line, which had 29 steamers and tenders in 1912. The idea began in mid-1907, when White Star Line chairman J. Bruce Ismay talked with the American financier J. P. Morgan. Morgan controlled the company's parent business, the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM).

White Star faced strong rivals, including Cunard Line. With help from the Admiralty, Cunard had launched the sister ships Lusitania and Mauretania, the fastest passenger ships in service at the time. German lines Hamburg America and Norddeutscher Lloyd were also competitors. Ismay chose to compete on size rather than speed. The new ships would replace RMS Teutonic, RMS Majestic, and RMS Adriatic. The shipbuilder Harland & Wolff of Belfast built the ships, and it had worked with White Star since 1867. Wilhelm Wolff sketched the general ideas, and Edward James Harland turned them into designs. Lord Pirrie, Thomas Andrews, and Alexander Carlisle oversaw the design, which included an efficient lifeboat davit design. On 29 July 1908, the drawings were shown to Ismay, who approved them. The first ship had been called "Number 400," and Titanic was based on a revised version of the same design and given the number 401.

Dimensions and layout

Titanic was 882 feet 9 inches (269.06 m) long and 92 feet 6 inches (28.19 m) wide at its widest. It measured 46,329 GRT and 21,831 NRT, and it had ten decks, eight of which were for passengers. The boat deck held the lifeboats, and the First Class Grand Staircase started there. A Deck, also called the promenade deck, ran along the whole length of the superstructure and was reserved for First Class passengers. B Deck held luxury dining rooms, including an à la carte restaurant, and the raised poop deck at the back was used by Third Class passengers.

The lower decks held cabins, dining rooms, and areas for the crew. E Deck had a long passageway nicknamed 'Scotland Road', after a famous street in Liverpool. F Deck had a Turkish bath and a swimming pool for First Class passengers. The lowest levels, below the waterline, held cargo and the engine and boiler rooms, which passengers were not allowed to see. The ship also had trimmers and orlop decks, and well decks separated the forecastle and poop deck from the bridge deck.

Features

Titanic was powered by three main engines: two steam engines and one steam turbine, each driving a propeller. Together, the two steam engines produced 30,000 horsepower (22,000 kW), and the turbine produced 16,000 horsepower (12,000 kW). The ship burned coal, which was shovelled into the furnaces by hand by 176 firemen working around the clock. Its electrical plant could produce more power than an average city power station of the time. The ship had a radio room run by the Marconi Company, whose operators sent passenger telegrams and navigation messages, including weather reports and ice warnings. Its radio used Morse code.

Titanic was decorated in a lighter style, similar to high-class hotels, so that passengers would feel they were in a floating hotel rather than on a ship. First-class passengers could use a saltwater swimming pool, a gymnasium, a squash court, and a Victorian-style Turkish bath. One of the ship's most distinctive features was the First Class staircase, known as the Grand Staircase, which descended through seven decks. The dining saloon was the largest room afloat and could seat almost 600 passengers at a time. Third Class accommodations were better than those on many other ships of the time, with small private cabins instead of open dormitories.

Although Titanic was mainly a passenger ship, it also carried mail under contract with the Royal Mail and the United States Post Office Department, as well as a large amount of cargo. The ship had 20 lifeboats: 14 standard wooden lifeboats, four collapsible lifeboats, and two emergency cutters. Together they could hold 1,178 people, which was only about one-third of the ship's total capacity. This was still more lifeboat space than the British rules of the time required. At that time, lifeboats were meant to carry survivors from a sinking ship to a rescue ship, not to keep everyone afloat or carry them all to shore.

Building and preparing the ship

Building the Olympic class ships was a huge challenge for Harland and Wolff, because no shipbuilder had ever built ships this size. The ships were built on Queen's Island, now known as the Titanic Quarter, in Belfast Harbour. The company had to remove three existing slipways and build two new ones. A giant gantry, built by the Scottish firm Sir William Arrol & Co., which also built the Forth Bridge and London's Tower Bridge, helped with the work. The Arrol Gantry was 228 feet (69 m) high and weighed more than 6,000 tonnes. The ships were built like an enormous floating box girder, with the keel as a backbone. The hull was covered with rolled steel plate, laid in a clinkered (overlapping) pattern, and held together with more than three million rivets. Later studies found that the steel was especially brittleness-prone when cold, which made the damage from the impact worse. The steel was of good quality for its time, but it was weaker than steel used in later decades because of advances in metallurgy and steelmaking. The largest centre anchor was forged by hand and was hauled by twenty Clydesdale horses from the Noah Hingley & Sons Ltd forge. Titanic was launched on 31 May 1911, and tallow was spread on the slipway to help it slide into the River Lagan. Its sister ship Britannic had a similar design. Titanic was moved into the Thompson Graving Dock, the largest dry dock in the world at the time, to receive its propellers and final coating, but it was moved out again so that Olympic could be repaired.

Sea trials began on 2 April 1912. Representatives from the company, including Harold Sanderson, watched the tests, and Jack Phillips and Harold Bride tuned the radio equipment. The tests were carried out first in Belfast Lough and then in the open waters of the Irish Sea, where the ship was driven at different speeds, its turning was tested, and a "crash stop" was performed. After the trials, the ship was declared seaworthy and sailed to Southampton, arriving about midnight on 4 April.

Maiden voyage

The RMS Titanic began its first trip on Wednesday, 10 April 1912. It was planned as the first of many crossings of the Atlantic Ocean between Southampton and New York, with stops at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland. The ship was led by Captain Edward John Smith, and it carried many wealthy passengers as well as crew members from many places. Before reaching the open sea, it passed through the English Channel and picked up more passengers at both ports.

On the night of 14 April, the lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg straight ahead of the ship. William Murdoch tried to steer around it, but the ship struck the iceberg and water began to flood in. The ship could not stay afloat, and it sank in the early hours of 15 April. There were not enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and the crew had not been fully trained for such an emergency. The "women and children first" rule was mostly followed when loading the lifeboats. Many lifeboats were not full when they were lowered. The Carpathia came to help, but it arrived after the ship had sunk. Experts later learned that roughly 1,500 people died, though estimates vary.

Main article: Sinking of Titanic and Iceberg that sank the Titanic

Aftermath of sinking

The New York Times had gone to press on 15 April knowing about the collision but not the sinking. The International Mercantile Marine Company said on Monday 15 April that the ship was "unsinkable," even though nothing had been heard from it. RMS Carpathia took three days to reach New York, slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas, but it passed news by wireless. Early reports were confused, and the American press wrongly reported that Titanic was being towed by SS Virginian. Later, it was confirmed that Titanic had been lost and that most of her passengers and crew had died. Crowds gathered at White Star Line offices in London, New York, Montreal, Southampton, Liverpool and Belfast. The loss hit Southampton hardest, since four out of every five crew members came from that town. Carpathia docked at Pier 54 in New York on 18 April, where about 40,000 people waited in the rain. The Travelers Aid Society of New York and the Council of Jewish Women were among the groups that gave immediate help. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran a free special train to Philadelphia. Titanic's 214 surviving crew members were taken to the Red Star Line's steamer SS Lapland. Carpathia then went on to Fiume, Austria-Hungary. Reporters pushed hard to be first with the survivors' stories, with some bribing their way onto the pilot boat New York.

In January 1912, Titanic and Olympic had been insured through Lloyd's of London and London Marine Insurance. Many charities were set up to help survivors and families, since many had lost their only wage earner, or, in the case of many third-class survivors, everything they owned. In New York, the American Red Cross and the Charity Organization Society worked together to give money to survivors and the families of those who died. Opera singers Enrico Caruso and Mary Garden and members of the Metropolitan Opera also held concerts to raise money. More than 60 survivors sued the White Star Line, but the company argued that it was only a limited liability company. In 1914, the United States Supreme Court ruled in White Star's favour, which greatly reduced what survivors could receive. The company settled for much less than the claims asked for.

Two inquiries were held after the disaster, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom. The US Senate's inquiry began on 19 April, led by Senator William Alden Smith. The British inquiry, headed by Lord Mersey, took place between 2 May and 3 July.

Main articles: United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic and British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic

Both inquiries agreed on several points. The rules on lifeboats were out of date, Captain Smith had not paid proper attention to ice warnings, the lifeboats had not been filled or crewed properly, and the ship had sailed too fast into a dangerous area. Neither inquiry blamed the company. The American inquiry called the disaster an act of God, while the British inquiry said Smith had done what other skilled men would have done. Lord Mersey did criticise the high speed. The inquiries recommended safety changes, such as more lifeboats and constant radio watch. An International Ice Patrol was set up to track icebergs, and safety rules were agreed internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. Guglielmo Marconi also gave evidence about wireless telegraphy.

One of the most debated questions was the role of the SS Californian, which was only a few miles away but did not respond to Titanic's distress calls or rockets. Its wireless operator, Cyril Furmstone Evans, was told to stop sending messages by Titanic's operator Jack Phillips, who was busy with the Cape Race station. The ship's captain, Stanley Lord, was told that the rockets had been seen but did not wake the wireless operator or try to reach Titanic. The ship later set out to help, but arrived after Carpathia had already rescued the survivors. The inquiries found that Captain Lord had acted wrongly, because Californian could have helped with the rescue.

Fewer than a third of those aboard Titanic survived. The number of deaths is unclear, but it is estimated at between 1,490 and 1,635. The cold water was a major cause of death, with temperatures well below normal, and it often caused death within minutes. Survival differed greatly by class and gender. Most first- and second-class women survived, while 54% of third-class women died. Men in first class died at a higher rate than women in third class. Among the crew, about 688 of roughly 898 died.

Main articles: Passengers of the Titanic and Crew of the Titanic

The last living survivor, Millvina Dean, was only nine weeks old when the ship sank. She died in 2009 at age 97. Two other survivors were the stewardess Violet Jessop and the stoker Arthur Priest, who also survived the sinkings of HMHS Britannic and had been aboard RMS Olympic when it was rammed in 1911. A first-class passenger, Richard N. Williams, reached Collapsible A and was rescued by Lifeboat 14. Rhoda Abbott, a third-class passenger, was the only woman to survive in the cold water, reaching Boat A. Her two sons died.

After the loss of life became known, White Star Line chartered the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to recover bodies. The CS Minia, the Montmagny and a sealing vessel, Algerine, also searched. Of the 333 victims recovered, 328 were found by these Canadian ships. Because the supplies ran out, only first-class bodies were preserved, so many third-class passengers and crew were buried at sea. Bodies of passengers of the Titanic were numbered and their belongings were recorded. Halifax registrar John Henry Barnstead created a detailed system to identify the dead. A temporary morgue was set up in the curling rink of the Mayflower Curling Club. About two-thirds of the bodies were identified. The largest group, 150 bodies, was buried in three Halifax cemeteries: Fairview Lawn Cemetery, Mount Olivet Cemetery and the Jewish Baron de Hirsch Cemetery. In May 1912, RMS Oceanic recovered three bodies from Collapsible A. Fifth Officer Harold Lowe had earlier rescued survivors from that boat. The last body recovered was found on 22 May.

Wreck

Main article: Wreck of the Titanic

For a long time, people thought Titanic had sunk in one piece, and many plans to raise the wreck were suggested, but none succeeded. The wreck lies over 12,000 feet (3,700 m) deep, where the water pressure is about 370 standard atmospheres, which made it very hard to find and reach. A Franco-American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel and Robert Ballard finally found it on 1 September 1985. The team discovered that the ship had split apart, probably near or at the surface, before sinking. The two sections lie about one-third of a mile (0.54 km) apart in Titanic Canyon off the coast of Newfoundland, about 715 miles (1,151 km) from Halifax. Hundreds of thousands of items, such as pieces of the ship, furniture, dishes and personal belongings, lie in a debris field nearby.

Explorers, scientists, filmmakers, tourists and salvagers have visited the wreck many times and recovered thousands of items. Many artefacts are now shown by RMS Titanic Inc. in touring exhibitions and at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel in Nevada. The ship has weakened over the years, partly because of accidental damage by submersibles and mostly because iron-eating bacteria on the hull are growing faster. In 2006, it was estimated that within 50 years the hull would collapse entirely. On 16 April 2012, photos taken by Robert Ballard during a NOAA expedition in 2004 were released, showing what experts called "compelling evidence" of possible human remains near the stern. The wreck is covered by the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which prohibits looting and sale of the wreck. Because the wreck lies in international waters, countries share information to prevent unscientific or unethical activity there. In 2023, the submersible Titan, operated by OceanGate, imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland while carrying tourists to view the wreckage.

Legacy

Main article: Changes in safety practices after the sinking of the Titanic

After the disaster, the British and American Boards of Inquiry recommended that ships carry enough lifeboats for everyone aboard, hold lifeboat drills, and inspect lifeboats. Many of these ideas were included in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, passed in 1914. The United States passed the Radio Act of 1912, which required radio on passenger ships to work 24 hours a day with a backup power supply, so that distress calls would not be missed. The Board of Trade chartered the barque Scotia to work as a weather ship on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, watching for icebergs. The disaster also led to the International Ice Patrol, an agency of the U.S. Coast Guard that still tracks icebergs in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has worked every season since 1913, except during the two World Wars, and no ship has been reported lost or damaged in a collision with an iceberg in its patrol area.

Main article: Cultural legacy of the Titanic

The Titanic story is remembered as a tragedy and a warning, mostly because the ship was thought to be unsinkable. It has inspired fiction, documentaries, memorials, and museum exhibits. The ballad "The Titanic" was written about the sinking. The first film about the disaster, Saved from the Titanic, came out just 29 days later and starred a real survivor, Dorothy Gibson; that film is now lost. The British film A Night to Remember (1958) is still seen as the most historically accurate movie about the sinking. James Cameron's Titanic (1997) was the highest-grossing film of its time and won 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cameron. Memorials were built in cities that lost many people, including Southampton, Liverpool, New York, Washington, D.C., Belfast, and Cobh. The most prominent museum display is in Belfast, the ship's birthplace (see below). A permanent exhibit is at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel in Nevada, and items recovered from the sea are shown at Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. For the 2012 centenary, Royal Mail issued ten 1st class UK postage stamps. In 1898, Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called Futility about a fictional liner that sinks after hitting an iceberg, a similarity often mentioned. In Northern Ireland, the ship was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, and for many decades its story was a painful subject during the Troubles. After the Good Friday Agreement, a Titanic memorial and the Titanic Belfast visitor attraction, opened in 2012 on the shipyard site, helped share the story. In 2018, a group including Titanic Belfast and the National Museums Northern Ireland tried to buy the bankrupt Premier Exhibitions's 5,500 relics, but a group of hedge funds, including Apollo Global Management, bought the collection for US$19.5 million, as reported by The New York Times.

Diagrams and timeline

The diagrams show how RMS Titanic was built inside. One diagram shows the walls that divided the ship into separate parts, marked in red, and the areas damaged by the iceberg, marked in green. The decks are labeled from the Boat deck at the top down to the Lower deck at the waterline.

A cutaway diagram shows a slice through the middle of the ship, with its decks and lifeboats labeled.

Another picture compares the size of Titanic to modern vehicles and to a person.

The ship was ordered on 17 September 1908 and launched on 31 May 1911. Its trials were completed on 1 April 1912. On 10 April 1912, it began its maiden voyage from Southampton and narrowly avoided a collision with the American liner New York. It stopped at Cherbourg and Queenstown to pick up passengers, then sailed for New York. At 11:40 pm on 14 April, it struck an iceberg. The ship sank at 2:20 am on 15 April. Survivors were rescued between 3:30 and 8:50 am. An inquiry was held in the United States from 19 April to 25 May, and one in Britain from 2 May to 3 July. The wreck was discovered on 1 September 1985.

Replicas

There have been several proposals and studies for a project to build a replica ship based on the Titanic.

A Chinese shipbuilding company, Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co., Ltd, started building a replica ship of the Titanic for a resort in November 2016. The ship was to have many features of the original, such as a ballroom, dining hall, theatre, first-class cabins, economy cabins, and a swimming pool. Tourists were to be able to stay inside the Titanic during their visit. The ship was to be permanently docked at the resort and was to include an audiovisual simulation of the sinking, which has caused some criticism. As of 2022, however, it was reportedly only 25% complete, and its website and Twitter account were offline.