THE TITANIC
TITANIC PICTURES
Titanic
When the British ship Titanic steamed out of Southampton bound for New York on April 10, 1912, it was the largest and most sumptuous luxury liner that had ever sailed. It was a monument to the promise of technology and to Victorian elegance, magnificently appointed with oriental carpets and crystal chandeliers. It was thought to be unsinkable.
Confidence was so high that the owners and builders rejected plans calling for as many as 64 lifeboats. Although the number of lifeboats on the Titanic exceeded government standards, the boats would only accommodate about half of the 2,228 people aboard. In one of history's great ironies, the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, after colliding with an iceberg off the banks of Newfoundland. More than 1,500 people died in the accident.
Transatlantic liners were so-called because they made a “line voyage” between points A and B. Titanic sailed from Southampton on April 10th, 1912, but called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland to take on more passengers. She then began her maiden voyage proper across the Atlantic towards New York.
Floating Towns
Such ships had been compared to floating towns, so preparations for departure were elaborate and painstaking, especially for a maiden voyage. Final provisions and crane-loads of luggage were put on board. Then came the arrival of hundreds of crew members – including officers, firemen, stewards, chefs, nurses, orchestra members, lift-boys, barbers, bakers, window-cleaners and seamen (some crewmen were late and luckily for them were prohibited from coming on board. ) There was also a special focus of activity. Thomas Andrews, who had embarked at 6.30 a.m. on the day of departure, moved around the ship for six hours, inspecting and taking notes before giving the ship a clean bill of health.
Visit From an Author
A year before Olympic’s keel was laid, the author of Dracula, Bram Stoker, visited the Harland & Wolff shipyard and saw for himself how these huge ships were built.
In “the biggest and finest and best established” shipyard in the world, “there is omnipresent evidence of genius and forethought; of experience and skill; of organisation complete and triumphant”.
High praise indeed! He reported with near disbelief that all 12,000 men who worked in Harland & Wolff in 1907 were paid their weekly wages on Friday afternoons in ten minutes! Apart from an educated professional class of engineers and, draughtsmen, there was in Belfast a working-class elite that shipbuilders both created and drew upon, an “aristocracy of labour”, as one commentator put it, made up of expert workers achieving their skill from daytime training and night-time education. Many of the riveters, sheet-metal workers, boilermakers, fitters, turners and other skilled workers lived in the streets which lay in the shadow of the shipyard where they practised their trade.
It is fair to say that the city of Belfast built Titanic.
Collision
The ship made its fatal collision at an estimated 37 seconds after Fleet sighted the berg. The iceberg scraped the ship's starboard (right) side, buckling the hull in several places and popping out rivets below the waterline over a length of 299 feet (90 m). This opened the first six compartments (the forward peak tank, the three forward holds and Boiler Rooms Nos. 5 & 6) to the sea. The whole impact had lasted approximately 10 seconds. Captain Smith, alerted by the jolt of the impact, arrived on the bridge and ordered a full stop. The watertight doors were immediately shut, and within ten minutes of the collision the five forward compartments were flooded to a depth of 14 feet (4.3 m). While the ship was designed to remain afloat with the first four compartments flooded, the collision caused flooding of the six forward compartments. The fifth and sixth water-filled compartments weighed down the ship's bow enough to allow more water to flood the vessel, accelerated by secondary flooding as regular openings in the ship's hull became submerged. Additionally, about 130 minutes after the collision, water started pouring from the sixth into the seventh compartment over the top of the bulkhead separating them. Following an inspection by the senior officers, the ship's carpenter J. Hutchinson and Titanic's shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, which included a survey of the half-flooded two-deck postal room, it was apparent that Titanic would sink. The lifeboats were ordered to be readied and a distress call was sent out. Andrews estimated the ship would go down within an hour to an hour and a half, and said that the pumps would only keep Titanic afloat for a few extra minutes. The pumps could only cope with 2,000 tons of water per hour, but that quantity was flooding into the liner every five minutes. Shortly before midnight the forward third-class sections were beginning to flood. At 00:05, 25 minutes after the collision, Captain Smith ordered all the lifeboats uncovered; five minutes later, at 00:10, he ordered them to be swung out; then, at 00:25, he ordered them to be loaded with women and children and then lowered away. At 00:50, 4th Officer Joseph Boxhall fired the first white distress rocket
Photograph of an iceberg in the vicinity of RMS Titanic's sinking taken on 15 April 1912 by the chief steward of the liner Prinz Adalbert who stated the berg had red anti-fouling paint of the kind found on the hull from below Titanic's waterline.
Wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride began sending the international distress signal "CQD", which was received by several ships, including Mount Temple, Frankfurt, Virginian and Titanic's sister ship, Olympic. Despite assurances that they were on their way, none of the vessels were close enough to reach the liner before she sunk. The closest ship to respond was Cunard Line's Carpathia 58 miles (93 km) away, which would arrive in an estimated four hours—too late to rescue all of Titanic's passengers. The only land–based location that received the distress call from Titanic was a wireless station at Cape Race, Newfoundland. Phillips, on the advice of Bride, also used the new "SOS" distress call, in addition to the traditional CQD, as SOS had successfully been used to summon help for the White Star Liner SS Republic which sunk in 1909 after colliding with the liner SS Florida. Additionally, many of the responding liners did not fully comprehend the seriousness of the collision. As late as 1:30 am, a full 90 minutes after the first CQD was sent out, Olympic radioed her sister asking if they were steaming to the south to meet her, while the Frankfurt continually asked a frustrated Phillips for more details.
From the bridge, the lights of a nearby ship could be seen off the port side. The identity of this ship remains a mystery but there have been theories suggesting that it was probably either SS Californian or a Norwegian sealer called the Samson. As it was not responding to wireless calls, Fourth Officer Boxhall and Quartermaster Rowe attempted signalling the ship with a Morse lamp and later with distress rockets, but the ship never appeared to respond. Californian, which was nearby and stopped for the night because of ice, also saw lights in the distance, but its wireless was turned off for the night. Just before the Californian's wireless operator had gone off-duty at around 23:00, he attempted to warn Titanic that there was ice ahead, but he was cut off by an annoyed Jack Phillips. Occupied with sending backlogged passenger messages, Phillips fired back an angry response, "Shut up, shut up, I am busy; I am working (the Newfoundland wireless station) Cape Race". When Californian's officers first saw the ship, they tried signalling her with their Morse lamp, but never received a response. Later, they noticed Titanic's distress rockets in the sky above the ship's lights, and informed Captain Stanley Lord. Even though there was much discussion about the mysterious ship, which to the officers on duty appeared to be moving away, the master of Californian did not wake her wireless operator until morning.
Lifeboats launched
The first lifeboat launched was Lifeboat 7 on the starboard side with 28 people on board out of a capacity of 65. It was lowered at around 12:45 am as believed by the British Inquiry. Lifeboat 6 and Lifeboat 5 were launched ten minutes later. Lifeboat 1 was the fifth lifeboat to be launched with 12 people. Lifeboat 11 was overloaded with 70 people. Collapsible D was the last lifeboat to be launched. Titanic carried 20 lifeboats with a total capacity of 1,178 people. While not enough to hold all of the passengers and crew, Titanic carried more boats than was required by the British Board of Trade Regulations. At the time, the number of lifeboats required was determined by a ship's gross register tonnage, rather than her passenger capacity.
Titanic had ample stability and sank with only a few degrees list, the design being such that there was very little risk of unequal flooding and possible capsize. Furthermore the electric power plant was operated by the ship's engineers until the end. Hence Titanic showed no outward signs of being in imminent danger, and passengers were reluctant to leave the apparent safety of the ship to board small lifeboats. Moreover, large numbers of Third Class passengers were unable to reach the lifeboat deck through unfamiliar parts of the ship and past barriers, although some stewards such as William Denton Cox successfully led groups from Third Class to the lifeboats. As a result, most of the boats were launched partially empty; boat 1 meant to hold 40 people left Titanic with only 12 people on board. With "Women and children first" the imperative for loading lifeboats, Second Officer Lightoller, who was loading boats on the port side, allowed men to board only if oarsmen were needed, even if there was room. First Officer Murdoch, who was loading boats on the starboard side, let men on board if women were absent. As the ship's list increased people started to become nervous, and some lifeboats began leaving fully loaded. By 2:05 am, the entire bow was under water, and all the lifeboats, except for two, had been launched.
Final minutes
Around 2:10 am, the stern rose out of the water, exposing the propellers, and by 2:17 am the waterline had reached the boat deck. The last two lifeboats floated off the deck, collapsible B upside down, collapsible A half-filled with water after the supports for its canvas sides were broken in the fall from the roof of the officers' quarters. Shortly afterwards, the forward funnel collapsed, crushing part of the bridge and people in the water. On deck, people were scrambling towards the stern or jumping overboard in hopes of reaching a lifeboat. The ship's stern slowly rose into the air, and everything unsecured crashed towards the water. While the stern rose, the electrical system finally gave way causing the lights to go out. Shortly afterward, the stress on the hull caused Titanic to break apart between the last two funnels, and the bow went completely under. The stern righted itself slightly and then rose vertically. After a few moments, at 2:20 am, it also sank.
Only two of the 18 launched lifeboats rescued people after the ship sank. Lifeboat 4 was close by and picked up five people, two of whom later died. Close to an hour later, lifeboat 14 went back and rescued four people, one of whom died afterward. Other people managed to climb onto the lifeboats that floated off the deck. There were some arguments in some of the other lifeboats about going back, but many survivors were afraid of being swamped by people trying to climb into the lifeboat or being pulled down by the suction from the sinking Titanic, though it turned out that there had been very little suction.
As the ship fell into the depths, the two sections behaved very differently. The streamlined bow planed off approximately 2,000 feet (609 m) below the surface and slowed somewhat, landing relatively gently. The stern plunged violently to the ocean floor, the hull being torn apart along the way from massive implosions caused by compression of the air still trapped inside. The stern smashed into the bottom at considerable speed, grinding the hull deep into the silt.
After steaming at 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h) for just under four hours, RMS Carpathia arrived in the area and at 4:10 am began rescuing survivors. By 8:30 am she picked up the last lifeboat with survivors and left the area at 08:50 bound for New York.
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