It was written on Sunday, April 14, 1912, shortly before midnight. The giant ocean liner Titanic was already on her fifth day on her maiden voyage on the route from Southampton, England to New York. On a clear night, she sailed through the North Atlantic near the Canadian island of Newfoundland, she was supposed to reach the American shores in about three days.
Fatal impact
The patrol suddenly saw a large floating iceberg about 700 meters ahead. The helmsman veered the ship sharply to the left and the engine room stopped running. But it was too late. The steamer was heavy and sailed fast, so it had considerable inertia. The maneuver prevented a head-on collision, but the ship struck an iceberg on the starboard side, just behind the bow. However, most of the people on the ship did not feel the impact, only a shudder lasting about 10 seconds.
During them, the iceberg split the side of the steamship in several places below the waterline, in a length of about 90 meters. Water began to flow rapidly into the bow hold. Because of this, the front part of the ship sagged, and the water penetrated further into the interior of the steamer.
Although the Titanic had a system of bulkheads that could be sealed watertight if needed to isolate the rest of the deck, they filled so much immediately after the impact that this safety feature failed.
Facts about the Titanic
- Year of production: 1911
- Operator: White Star Line, Great Britain
- Size: length 296 meters, width 28 meters, tonnage 46 thousand tons
- When did he set sail: April 10, 1912
- Route: Southampton (UK) – New York (USA)
- When he wrecked: April 15, 1912
- How long was he supposed to sail: week
- Where he wrecked: off the Canadian island of Newfoundland
- Number of victims: but 1500
- How many people were saved: 706
- How deep the wreck lies: market 4 km
At Southampton before departure, April 1912
Lives in the hands of the captain
Within minutes it was clear to the crew that the water was coming in so fast that the pumps couldn’t handle it. Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer, was also on board, and according to surviving witnesses, he estimated that the ship would sink within an hour and a half at the latest.
The situation was made all the more difficult by the fact that there were not enough lifeboats on the ship to accommodate all the people. Although the Titanic could carry up to 64 boats for a total of four thousand people, there were only 20 of them here. In the event of an accident, it was calculated that the boats would be used to evacuate to a rescue ship, so they would be used several times in a row.
However, the crew was not aware of any ships nearby. At the same time, the steamer was surrounded by water, which had a temperature of minus two degrees due to the melting glaciers. People could only survive in it for 5-10 minutes, the more resistant ones 20 minutes at most. So it was up to the captain to quickly decide who had a chance to save himself and who was likely to perish.
Confusion during evacuation
Passengers and crew members were given life jackets and shortly after midnight the captain ordered the lifeboats to be launched. According to custom, women and children were the first to evacuate. But at that moment there was confusion. The crew was not rehearsed for the rescue operation and launched some ships even when they were very little full. Some she failed to launch at all. A number of people also did not want to board the boats, perhaps so that relatives would not be separated.
Therefore, far fewer people were saved than even the limited places in the boats allowed. Many passengers and crew members perished on board, others after jumping into the icy water, hoping to get into one of the boats.
Titanic in the movie
The first Titanic-themed film was released by the Eclair Film company just a month after the disaster, i.e. in 1912. The main role in the silent film Saved from Titanic (Saved from the Titanic) was portrayed by actress Dorothy Gibson, who herself survived the disaster.
The most famous film adaptation of the tragedy became the film Titanic James Cameron’s 1997 film starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. As of February 2023, it ranks third among the most commercially successful films of all time.
After a quarter of a century, the film saw a renewed premiere in February 2023 in a remastered version under the title Titanic: 25th Anniversary.
Completing the destruction – the number of victims up to 1500
The Titanic sank below the surface at 20 minutes after two in the morning. The radio operators had managed to broadcast a distress signal beforehand, and the ship Carpathia, 58 miles away, was the first to go to the scene of the accident. She then rescued all the survivors, who numbered 706, and transported them to New York.
Estimates of the number of victims vary, the most common being about 1,500. Of the total of 2,200 people on board, they were two-thirds. Titanic’s chief designer Thomas Andrews also perished in the disaster. On the contrary, J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the shipping company White Star Line, which operated the Titanic, saved himself, for which he received strong criticism.
The bow of the Titanic wreck captured by the robotic submarine Hercules in 2004.
Titanic, installation of equipment at the docks, 1911–12.
Titanic’s propellers before launching, 1911.
Titanic sails from Belfast for sea trials, 2 April 1912.
The Great Promenade Deck of the Titanic.
The main staircase on the Olympic’s sister ship, the Titanic, was the same.
Titanic, cafe on the veranda, palm court in the background.
The French À la Carte restaurant on the Olympic, the same one on the Titanic, was led by chef Gaspare Luigi Gatti.
Gymnasium in first class Titanic.
Turkish baths on the Titanic.
Salon in the first class of the Olympic ship, they were the same on the Titanic.
The main dining room on the saloon deck of the Titanic.
Titanic, Marconi’s radio station, captured radio operator Harold Bride survived the disaster.
Lifeboat from the Titanic with survivors at the Carpathia.
Titanic castaways arrive at Carpathia.
Rescued Frenchmen Michel and Edmond Navratil, “Orphans of the Titanic”. Their father, a Slovak emigrant, died in an accident. The elder Michel became a professor of philosophy.
The hull of the ship broke into two parts during the sinking, the front one sank into the mud. The search for the wreck began shortly after the accident, but due to the sea depth of around four kilometers, there was no suitable technique for a long time.
The first debris was found only in 1985 by oceanographer and geologist Robert D. Ballard. A French expedition picked up hundreds of objects from there two years later, but this was met with public disapproval. Since then, it has been agreed that the wreck should be respected as an international monument and the grave of 1,500 victims.
The RMS Titanic company, which cares for the wreck, wanted to retrieve the telegraph that saved so many lives from the wreckage in 2020. How, though wrote the British newspaper The Guardiandropped the plan due to legal disputes and the covid pandemic.
It could have turned out differently
During the later investigation, a number of mistakes were found that could have prevented the disaster or mitigated the consequences. For example, during the fateful day, the crew received warnings about icebergs from other vessels in the vicinity, but the messages apparently did not reach the right people.
By the time the Titanic began to sink, the SS Californian was only about 20 miles away. If the crew of the Titanic knew about her and a distress signal reached her in time, it was possible to save all the people. The radio operator of the SS Californian was one of those who warned the Titanic in vain about the icebergs. Unfortunately, he was asleep at the time of the accident, so he did not catch the call for help.
A different set of circumstances, on the other hand, apparently saved many lives. The total capacity of the Titanic was 3.5 thousand people, which is much more than the number of people who sailed on it. So the number of victims could have been much higher. The low occupancy was caused by the miners’ strike in England. Because of her, there was a threat that there would not be enough coal for the voyage in time, and many interested parties therefore refused the trip.
The Titanic Siblings
Titanic was one of the “triplets”. It belonged to a trio of Olympic-type ships of the same size, the largest in the world at the time. They were operated by the British company White Star Line and manufactured by the Northern Irish shipyard Harland & Wolff.
It was the first to leave the docks in 1911 Olympic, Titanic followed a year later, Britannic joined in 1914. Titanic had about a thousand tons more tonnage than Olympic, so she was the world record holder at the time of setting sail and sinking. However, the later completed Britannic surpassed it in tonnage by two thousand tons.
The Britannic was also wrecked when it hit a mine in 1916. However, the disaster claimed only 30 victims, probably also thanks to adjustments made after the Titanic disaster. Olympic sailed the oceans until 1935.
Titanic and sister ship Olympic were built simultaneously in 1909-1911.
The first collision right after setting sail
Ocean liners served in the early 20th century as the only means of transportation for travel between Europe and North America. Titanic was supposed to take a place on the regular line from Southampton, England to New York, on which she was supposed to alternate with the ship Olympic.
The steamship carried a number of people who were among the richest in the world. For them, the luxuriously equipped first class served, in which they had access to top restaurants and cafes, a swimming pool, a Turkish bath or a squash court. In addition, hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia were also on board, who were looking for a better life across the ocean.
On her first and last voyage, Titanic left Southampton on April 10, 1912, arriving in New York a week later. The accident almost happened just a few minutes after setting sail.
As the large steamer passed the two ships in the harbor, her enormous displacement lifted them high on the waves. Immediately, they began to descend sharply towards the Titanic’s hull, and their mooring lines broke under the strong pressure. The collision was finally avoided at the last moment, when there was only about a meter wide gap left between the Titanic and one of the ships. In a later collision with an iceberg, the ship was not so lucky.
Comparison with the present
By today’s standards, the Titanic would be tiny. The largest ship of the early 20s of the 21st century, Wonder of the Seasmeasures in length 362 meters and its tonnage reaches almost 237 thousand tonsi.e. about five times that of the Titanic.
Between 2023 and 2026, new giant triplets are to set sail on the oceans. Three identical steamships of Royal Caribbean International will reach length 365 meters and tonnage over 250 thousand tons.
