Facts about the Titanic and the Titanic tragedy. Page 1

The White Star Liner RMS Titanic

One of the primary designers was Lord James Pirrie, who was a partner at Harland and Wolff. He and J. Bruce Ismay, who was the managing director at White Star Line, were largely responsible for the designing and construction of the steam liners. It is interesting to compare the Titanic and Olympic with some of the other famous ships of their day. The first Cunard ship to cross the Atlantic was the Britannia, which made the crossing in 1840. Her tonnage was 1,154, and she was 207 ft. long. The Scotis, which was referred to as an "Leviathan" in 1862 had a tonnage of 3,871. The tonnage of either the Olympic or Titanic was more than the Spanish Armada, which was 59,120.

Thomas Ismay purchased the White Star Line for £1000 in 1867 from Henry Wilson. The White Star Line was originally founded in Liverpool in 1845 by John Pilkington and Henry Wilson. After the death of his father on 23 November 1899, Bruce Ismay succeeded him as the chairman of White Star Line.

Bruce Ismay was high in the social strata of the world. A wealthy steamship magnate, He did as he pleased. He was not only in the top notch of the social and business world, but he was surrounded by fawning millionaires. He was president of the International Mercantile Marine Company and chairman of the board of directors and managing director of the White Star Line.

In January 1913 he resigned from his place as managing director of the White Star Line. Resigned as head (president) of the International Mercantile Marine Company (IMM).

He was succeeded by Harold A. Sanderson. Although Ismay resigned as chairman of the White Star he continued as a director of the International Mercantile Marine, and a member of the British committee and retained the chairmanship of the Asiatic Steamship Company and the Liverpool and London Steamship Protective association.

The Titanic owned by the White Star Line, was the largest ship at that time and was considered unsinkable thanks to a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 watertight compartments.

There were 15 bulkheads in the Titanic. Two of these were what was known as collision bulkheads and the other thirteen were water tight and of the kind common to modern steamers. One collision bulkhead was in the forepart of the hull, fifty feet from the bow. It was of steel, with no inlet the hold, and it was entered from the main deck. The other collision bulkhead was at the stern and also must be entered from the main deck.

The other thirteen bulkheads divide the hull of the Titanic into seperate compartments and doors into these divisions and can be closed seperately or all at one time. The closing mechanism was hydraulic. There was, however, an element of weakness in the strongest of water-tight bulkheads which lied in the pressure resisting power of the bulkheads. While it was claimed that two compartments of the Titanic could be flooded with water without the vessel sinking, it was admitted that, were any of the compartments flooded with water, the pressure of water on those bulkheads might cause a leak which would admit water into the next compartment and so on from one bulkhead to the next, until the hull was water-logged.

The RMS Titanic was the world's largest manmade wonder, most luxurious, and expensive ship ever built in those days - a "floating palace", as reporters called it - turkish baths (a wonder in marine architecture), staterooms (Stateroom B-58 onboard Titanic was decorated in Louis XVI style, B-59, in Old Dutch style), a first class gymnasium, reading and writing room on the A-Deck mainly for the use of first class women, A La Carte restaurant, cafe Parisien, parlors, a splendid dining saloon, a swimmingpool and indoor gardens. Passengers were provided with environments to make them believe they were still on land.

Four days after launch - In the North Atlantic Ocean about 450 miles south of Cape Race, the most westerly point of Newfoundland and 1150 miles due east of New York. Frederick Fleet spotted a black mass of ice ahead. The iceberg, of course was difficult to see because there was no moon, the night was dark. The iceberg looked like a black bump on the horizon. Fleet rang the crows nest bell.

If he had had glasses he could have seen the iceberg enough sooner to have escaped it. There were no lookout glasses (binoculars) in the Titanic's crow's nest after leaving Southampton. Boxhall said he could see the iceberg dimly. It lay low in the water and was as high as the lower rail of the ship or about 30 feet out of the water. As usual, the great bulk of the iceberg was below the surface. It is certain, that the greatest of these icebergs and of the kind that the mariners call a "blue bird"stood directly in the path of the Titanic.

Then he called the bridge. "Iceberg, right ahead!" Murdoch ordered the Titanic to turn (turned about two points to port) and put the engines in reverse - in his own words "Hard-a-starboard," and down to the engine room "Stop. Full speed astern." but it was too late. The RMS Titanic collided with a submerged iceberg or underwater (submerged) plateau of an iceberg on the starboard side shortly before midnight.When the collision came there was little impact and just a sharp, grinding noise. Time 11.40 pm.

As it scraped along the iceberg a 300 foot gash was torn through the hull (to the bottom of the starboard side) well below the waterline flooding 5 of the 16 compartments to the sea. The Starboard in nautical terms refers to the right side of a ship. The left side is the Portside. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.

Water was pouring in. Murdoch ordered to close the eleven vertically closing watertight doors but sea water was already gashing into the bowels of the ship. After the first ten minutes, the water rose steadily in 6 compartments. Five minutes after the collision water was seen rushing in at the bottom of the firemen's passage on the starboard side. Water flooded the mail room and above G deck in 25 to 30 min, the baggage room in 25 min, the seamen's quarters on E deck in 40 min. Then followed the boiler rooms. The flooding of deck E contributed largely to the sinking of vessel. This was more than the ship would sustain. It was just plain common sense that the ship was going to sink. The passengers were at first assured that the ship was in no danger and was unsinkable.

It is conceivable that in developing longitudinal strength in a ship of such great dimensions as the Titanic the longitudinal girders might be of such great strength and rigidity than instead of huckling forward, as on an ordinary ship, when it crashed into the berg they might deliver a thrust backward to the transverse bulkheads that would cause the rendering of the rivets, ripping of seams and such general distortion sufficient to cause these bulkheads to leak. Such leakage is progressive in that, as the water comes in and rises up in the bulkheads, the pressure increases so that ones the forward bulkheads were damaged sufficiently to allow water to enter it would only a question of time when the vessel would sink.

Moments after the collision captain Smith rushed to the bridge. Bruce Ismay managing director of the white Star Line also felt the ship shatter. He too came up to see what had happened. Captain Smith asked Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer to assess the damage. Andrews replied the ship had less than two hours to live.

Captain Smith was faced with a seamans worst nightmare, the ship was sinking and he knew there were only enough lifeboats to save less than half of Titanic's passengers. The captain gave his crew orders to uncover the lifeboats. There were a few passengers on the deck at this time.

Word of the disaster spread slowly across the ship. The stewards were despatched to all three classes where they poun- ded on cabin doors waking passengers ordering them up to the deck with their lifebelts on.

Many of the people did'nt know why they were getting into the lifeboats. Captain Smith instructed his officers to load women and children first into the lifeboats but many wifes were reluctant to obey orders. As soon as men passengers tried to get to the boats they were shot at. Captain Smith told the wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride to send the international call for help which was C.Q.D. Distress signals were fired until two hours after the collision (1.45 am.). At this time the fore deck was under water.

1st Officer Murdoch who was in command killed himself (shot himself) later.

Captain Smith was blamed for ignoring ice warnings and forging ahead at a high rate of speed (23 knots an hour). But Smith expiated his fault by a heroic death. There was no reason for sailing at such a high rate of speed. She was a day ahead of her schedule and its considered probable that an attempt to make a record breaking voyage was the hope of her crew when she entered the ice field.