Titanic-Ship of Dreams

It was capped with a dome of wrought iron and glass that admitted natural light to the stairwell.

The last known photo of Titanic taken as Fr Browne sailed back to Cork.

There were 76 stewards on hand to serve the 285 second-class passengers. Among their jobs what&apos;s changing bedsheets every day. There was one member of staff for every 3.75 second-class passengers.

Cabins were comfortable but the beds were attached to the walls and the floors were tiled, not carpeted. Cabins contained beds, a full set of linen, wardrobes, a small settee, wash basin and chamber part, a single light bulb with no shade and a linoleum tiled floor.

Facilities for second class passengers included a deck area, a dining room for shared meals, a smoking room, a library and a barbershop.

The second-class library was also known as the lounge. It served as a sitting area where passengers took afternoon tea.

Because of their flared shapes, both bow and stern descend in an undulating pattern. The stern corkscrews down clockwise, shedding more debris before smashing into the sea bottom.

15,000 men worked on the construction of The Titanic some as young as 14 years old. It was noisy and dangerous work. Thousands of men carrying equipment along planks high above the hull spelled danger. Men were injured by falling or being hit by equipment. 8 men died during its construction and 246 were injured. One worker was crushed to death at the launch.

About 20% of the workforce was made up of unskilled labourers. The skilled labourers carried out the many specialised jobs needed to build a luxury liner.

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.

At 12:05 Captain Smith ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats. Before the voyage Smith had cancelled lifeboat practice so some of the crew did not know where to go or what to do. It took about 20 minutes per boat to remove the cover, plug the hole that left out rainwater and arrange the ropes to swing the boat out over the ocean.

Second class on Titanic was as good as first-class on most of other liners. Passengers had their own staircase, though it was less grand than the one for first-class.

Second-class passengers included priests, families, servants, musicians and teachers. Also among them was Joseph Laroche, the only black passenger on board.

Children could enjoy books borrowed from the second-class library on C Deck.

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.

There were 51 stewards including an interpreter to communicate with the many non-English speakers in third class. There was one member of staff for every 14 third class passengers.

Cabins for women and families were towards the back of the boat. Single men were at the front. Most cabins had four or six berths. Cabins included bunkbeds made of wood or iron, mattresses, pillows and blankets (no sheets), hooks for hanging clothes and washbasins in some cabins but not all.

Facilities for the third class passengers included two dining rooms, a smoking room for men only, a general room with bare wooden furniture, use of the poop deck at the stern and two bathtubs (one for men and one for women). The third class general room allowed groups of third class passengers to gather and chat, sing, dance or play games. The nearby smoking room had a bar for the men to use.

The last lifeboat was launched at 2:05 AM. As the boat was lowered two men jumped the 3 metre gap from A deck just making it into the boat. 

The forward funnel broke off at 2:17 crushing some people but washing others to safety. Distress rockets were now being fired from the bridge every five minutes.

The back of the ship rose out of the water exposing the propellors and due to its huge weight the ship was ripped apart and split into two pieces between the second and third funnels.

Additional passengers were to be picked up at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now called Cobh) in Ireland.

The maiden voyage began at noon, as scheduled. An accident was narrowly averted only a few minutes later, as Titanic passed the moored liners SS City of New York and Oceanic of the White Star Line. Her huge displacement caused both of the smaller ships to be lifted by a bulge of water and then drop into a trough. New York&apos;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&apos;s engines to be put &quot;full astern&quot;. The two ships avoided a collision by about 1 metre. The incident delayed Titanic&apos;s departure for about an hour, while the drifting New York was brought under control.

The ship&apos;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 mixed with a pile of rust on the sea floor.

<a href="bookcreator://page/5jEXUoXoRJO--Fm4FFuTzg">White Star Line</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/pibUpQgARbOzqCBaKpprjA">Passengers</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/asifGq1QSuGrfDSCpf3U9w">Investigations</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/ts24H-c7QkOnt4I46CmfQg">Harland &amp; Wolff</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/vIxy9JgNQkmhLbMCiIbeyw">First Class</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/_Qw28QgeQJOSaMcsPorckw">SS Californian</a>

<a xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" href="bookcreator://page/0FZtAgu4TvqjH15MHF3Ydg">Workforce</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/0ondT2MzRGWu9J0Ev120DQ">Second Class</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/iFmCtGWuTXqZzmzc1m1JYw">Survivors</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/9G48bpqKSoGbPJKwNENL4A">Building Titanic</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/P8PkSjKqRcmFQ3AGhqFcNg">Third Class</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/DGr7t5bHSPGGxMzlNeIAKg">Wreck of Titanic</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/pghZ3Ln3Q12J3eKq2QlU6g">Fitting Out</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/iSFlSbqYTCaJYTXf31VO6A">Cargo</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/Q5DotTK8Sm-8PPtvyrAkJg">Legacy of Titanic</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/7cNkZzT2TxOnpkL1Fw-NcA">Launching Titanic</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/6NmWClbCQVS1gGpzBSoXmQ">Journey Begins</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/MPDdUnzkRHm4GmX9lkGiGw">Futility</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/8nWKpuaLSUqkyHe8Ihsqbg">Safety</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/YalyI76CTyCMSLfHwm8yIg">The Voyage</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/Kn-B_3AzQ4iYfzG75LOl5A">Stories from Titanic</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/wTSuDBU0S2mGoHV-3k2xwg">Layout</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/FcOm4D0PReGjNn_jMZxcNA">A Day on Titanic</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/6dREyvnFTEubX1e8JRultA">Videos</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/4wBP9P2wSy-gbtsTAd0L_A">Passenger Facilities</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/TbLqBwpuS8G5i7WrbPNn_A">Iceberg Dead Ahead</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/iSZDS6zeRpWSJrCJ9Oxe-w">Sea Trials</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/t1SCaqXTRdu7G6rORC_34w">Timeline</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/8oGxvsz6ShmqoSp2PPvagg">Aftermath</a>

Pressing this symbol at the end of each chapter will bring you back here.

The ship&apos;s arrival in New York led to a frenzy of press interest, with newspapers competing to be the first to report the survivors&apos; 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.

Water flowing over the bow snaps the foremast back over the bridge and tears off the funnels. About 500 feet down, air pockets in the stern implode, and it flips around to descend aft first.

The most financially successful by far has been James Cameron’s titanic (1997), which became the highest-grossing film in history up to that time, as well as the winner of 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards.

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 traveling 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 partial decks over the boiler, engine and turbine rooms.

There were 15 watertight doors that could be closed from the bridge of the ship. These created 16 watertight compartments along the bottom half of the ship. The ship could stay afloat even if 4 of these compartments flooded.

The passenger facilities aboard Titanic aimed to meet the highest standards of luxury. According to Titanic&apos;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.

Titanic was laid out in much the same way as that of high-class hotels at the time. A variety of other styles 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.

The Boat Deck-on which the lifeboats were housed. A Deck, the Promenade Deck. B Deck, the Bridge Deck. C Deck, the Shelter Deck. D Deck, the Saloon Deck. E Deck, the Upper Deck. F Deck, the Middle Deck. G Deck, the Lower Deck. This was just above the waterline The last two areas were below the waterline. The Orlop Deck-Cargo Spaces Tank Top provided the platform on which the ship&apos;s boilers, engines, turbines and electrical generators were housed.

The White Star Line, the owners of Titanic were a British shipping company who provided passenger and cargo services between the British Empire and the United States. While many other shipping lines focused primarily on speed, White Star branded their services by focusing more on providing steady and comfortable passages, for both upper class travellers and immigrants.

Today, it is most famous for the loss of Titanic in 1912. Despite this and a number of other accidents and sinking, the company retained a prominent hold on shipping markets around the globe before falling into decline during the Great Depression. This led to a merger with its chief rival, Cunard Line, which is still in operation today.

Titanic&apos;s maiden voyage began on Wednesday, 10 April 1912. Following the embarkation of the crew, the passengers began arriving at 9:30 a.m.

Titanic was constructed with sixteen watertight compartments. Each compartment had doors that were designed to close automatically if the water level rose above a certain height. The doors could also be electronically closed from the bridge. Titanic was able to stay afloat if any two compartments or the first four became flooded.

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.

The launch of Titanic in May 1911 was the peak of Belfast’s golden age of shipbuilding. Titanic was the largest man-made object ever to have taken to the seas.

Two rockets were fired to signal the launch of Titanic but there was no big ceremony that we&apos;re used to seeing nowadays. It took Harland and Wolff around three years to finish the ship but only 62 seconds for it to slide off the slipway and into the water.

The launch was a momentous occasion for the city of Belfast. It was attended by over 100,000 people and interest was so great that people gathered wherever they could get a vantage point so that they could catch a glimpse of the ship before it set off.

At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday 11 April, Titanic arrived at Cork Harbour. 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&apos;s size and boats were used to bring passengers on board. 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, a Jesuit trainee who was a keen photographer and took many photographs aboard Titanic, including the last-ever 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 p.m. and departed on her westward journey across the Atlantic.

Titanic included all of the most modern safety features leading everyone to think that the ship was unsinkable.

However, The White Star Line, like other large shipping companies, publicly emphasised safety as its top priority. But speed and luxury were more attractive marketing features to travellers. Thus, some of the Titanic’s features compromised its safety.

The Carpathia 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 another ship, the SS Virginian.

Newspaper reporting that now lives had been lost. The first reports of the disaster were sadly wrong.

Harland and Wolff employed thousands of men, with over 15,000 working on Titanic alone. The men worked six days a week with a half an hour for lunch each day. Many jobs involved working with steel including welders, riveters, platers and plumbers. Carpenters worked with wood to design things like cabinets and staircases, while architects designed the ship in their offices.

Titanic was built in a graving or dry dock. This is a large enclosed dock with all of the water taken out so that workers can easily move around the outside of a ship. Harland and Wolff had three of them - Hamilton, Alexandra and Thompson. Thompson Dock was the largest and was designed to accommodate Titanic. You can still visit it today.

Titanic&apos;s owner JP Morgan was scheduled to travel on the maiden voyage but cancelled at the last minute. Also aboard the ship were the White Star Line&apos;s managing director J. Bruce Ismay and Titanic&apos;s designer Thomas Andrews, who was on board to observe any problems and assess the general performance of the new ship.

During the filming of James Cameron&apos;s Titanic movie 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.

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.

The architect of Titanic and its sister ships Olympic and Britannic was Alexander Carlisle. The designer was born in Ballymena and is generally thought to have been responsible for much of the internal design of the ships. Having retired in 1910, Thomas Andrews took over from Carlisle.

Nearly every structural part of the ship as well as many of their fixtures and fittings was designed and made on-site.

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.

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. 

Titanic was equipped with a new technology-wireless radio which had in 1909 helped avert disaster when the RMS Republic had struck another ship and begun sinking. Radio distress signals had been sent out using this new technology and 1,700 people were saved.

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 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 600 metres apart in what is now called Titanic Canyon off the coast of Newfoundland. 

Engineers, stokers, trimmers and greasers kept the ships machinery running. The men worked in teams in shifts of four hours on and eight hours off. The members of each team shared a dormitory so that they did not disturb others when they finished their shifts.

At 12:30 the crew loaded women and children on to the first lifeboat. It took nearly 15 minutes before this first lifeboat, which was less than half full was lowered towards the ocean. At 12:45 a distress rocket was launched alerting passengers to the fact that the ship truly was in great danger.

As more lifeboats were lowered and the water rose people on Titanic realised that not all of them would be saved. Stewards banged on locked cabin doors to wake passengers who were still asleep. Some in first class had trouble fitting lifejackets over their fur coats. Many passengers in third class were struggling to haul their belongings along corridors and upstairs. Everything they owned was in their luggage.

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 3,700 m below the surface.

First Class Reading and Writing Room Ladies Only

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&apos;s offices in London, New York, Montreal, Southampton, Liverpool and Belfast. The news hit hardest in Southampton, whose people suffered the greatest losses from the sinking. Four out of every five crew members came from this town.

Titanic was full of activity from early morning until midnight. The crew worked 24 hours a day to serve passengers and feel the ship. Passengers of different classes could not share activities except by special invitation.

Passengers were given schedules of mealtimes and other activities. First class passengers had the most options but everyone was told when to go to bed.

First-class passengers had breakfast between 8 and 10 AM. Lunch was served between 1 and 2:30 PM with tea at 4 PM. A formal dinner was held each evening between 7 and 9 PM. A Bugler played to announce not was time for each meal. First class passengers could swim, play squash or use the fitness room. Passengers could also listen to the band or play the piano. Lights in the public rooms were switched off to tell passengers to go to bed. Bedtime for first class passengers was at midnight.

Second-class passengers had breakfast between 8 and 10 AM. Lunch was served at 12:30 PM with tea at 4 PM. Dinner was served at 6:30 PM. A gong announced mealtimes. Second-class passengers could stroll on the deck or spend the journey reading, writing or playing games. Deck games such as shuffleboard and quoits were popular. Quoits involved throwing rope rings at a target. Bedtime for second class passengers was at midnight.

Third class passengers had breakfast between 8 and 9 AM. At 11 AM broth was served for women and children. Dinner was served at 1 PM with tea at 6 PM. The music and dancing in third class could get very noisy. It sometimes disturbed people trying to sleep in nearby cabins. Music was provided by the passengers with their own instruments. Bedtime for women and children in third class was at 10 PM and from men at 10:30 PM.

Cabins contained wood sprung beds would hair mattresses, chaise longues, wardrobes, dressing tables, washbasins and a carpeted floor.

Cabins contained wood sprung beds, hair mattresses, chaise longues, wardrobes, dressing tables, washbasins and a carpeted floor. Facilities for a first-class passengers included a promenade deck and two private promenades exclusively for first class passengers. They also had a lounge, the gymnasium and squash court, a Turkish bath and heated swimming pool and a barbershop. There was a reading and writing room for ladies only and a smoking room for gentleman only. They also had access to a dining room, a la carte restaurant and two cafes. The gentleman is smoking room contained a real fireplace, leather chairs, stained-glass windows and wood panelled walls.

Some of the most prominent people of the day booked a passage aboard Titanic, travelling in First Class. Among them were the American millionaires John Jacob Astor and his wife and Margaret ”Molly” Brown, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, the owner of Macy’s Department Store Isidor Straus, millionaires and many more celebrities of the day.

Jack Thayer was a 17-year-old high school senior from an upper class family returning from a trip to Paris with his parents. In the confusion following the collision with the iceberg, Jack became separated from his parents. Jack and a young man he’d met on board named Milton Long stayed together as the ship’s bow sank lower. Just before the Titanic sank, they decided to jump from the rail. Milton went first. Jack never saw him again. &quot;The shock of the water took the breath out of my lungs,&quot; he recalled. &quot;Down and down I went, spinning in all directions.&quot; And there was something almost miraculous about his survival: &quot;I finally came up with lungs bursting, but not having taken any water.&quot;

The Boat Deck was where the lifeboats were kept. It was from here during the early hours of 15 April 1912 that Titanic&apos;s lifeboats were lowered into the North Atlantic. The bridge and wheelhouse were at the forward end, in front of the captain&apos;s and officers&apos; quarters. The bridge stood 2.4 metres above the deck, extending out to either side so that the ship could be controlled while docking.

The entrance to the famous First Class Grand Staircase 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 novel called Futility seems to have predicted the disaster before it happened. It was written by Morgan Robertson and published in 1898. The novel tells the fictional story of a British passenger liner called the SS Titan, a four-stacked liner, the largest in the world and considered unsinkable.

Like the Titanic, the fictional ship sinks in April in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg, and there were not enough lifeboats for all the passengers. There are also similarities between the size of the ships. 244 metres long for Titan versus 269 metres for the Titanic. They were both travelling at similar speeds when they hit their respective fictional and real icebergs. Spooky!!!!!

The inquiry took testimony from both passengers and crew of Titanic, crew members of Leyland Line&apos;s Californian, the captain of the Carpathia and other experts. 

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&apos;s findings listed negligence by the White Star Line as a factor.

The British inquiry concluded that Smith had done what had been down for years before without any incident. Lord Mersey did however find fault with the extremely high speed at which the Titanic had been travelling despite numerous ice warnings.

From many third class passengers a ticket on Titanic provided much better accommodation than they were used to at home. But they were kept away from First-Class areas. Many were families or single men fleeing from persecution or poverty in their homelands.

They trekked for many weeks to reach Southampton from eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Titanic was to be the first stage in a journey to a new life. For many everything they owned was on the ship.

Third class passengers were served three meals a day into separate sittings. Women and children also glass chicken broth or beef tea at 11 AM possibly to help fight seasickness. In the dining hall long tables well bolted to the floor to keep them from sliding.

Several survivors wrote books about their experiences, but it was not until 1955 that the first historically accurate 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. She even wore the same dress in the movie as she had on the night of the activation sinking.

Seconds later maximum bending stress breaks the hull, with bow and stern held together only by the reinforced hull bottom. The stern lurches to port, throwing people against the port rail.

When the ship struck the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday night, April 14, Harvey left the cabin to investigate. Upon his return he told a sleepy Charlotte, “‘What do you think…We have struck an iceberg, a big one, but there is no danger, an officer just told me so.’” But, of course, there was danger. Later, Charlotte clung to Harvey’s arm, unwilling to get into a lifeboat. All around her the sailors were shouting, “‘Women and children first!’” Suddenly a sailor grabbed Marjorie and threw her into a boat. Charlotte had to be physically torn from her husband. Harvey tried to reassure her: “‘Go Lotty, for God’s sake be brave and go! I’ll get a seat in another boat.”

A week later, safe in New York with her young daughter, Charlotte broke the news to her mother-in-law. 

Workers adding rivets to bind the steel plates together.

On the first day, Titanic covered 484 nautical miles (896 km); the following day, 519 nautical miles (961 km); and by noon on the final day of her voyage, 546 nautical miles (1,011 km). From then until the time of her sinking, she travelled another 258 nautical miles (478 km), averaging about 21 knots (39 km/h).

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 with strong winds and waves of up to 2.4 metres. These died down as the day progressed until, by the evening of Sunday 14 April, it became clear, calm and very cold.

One of Titanic&apos;s most distinctive features was her First Class staircase, known as the Grand Staircase. Built of solid English Oak 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.

As the bow speeds towards the bottom, the stern angles almost to vertical, then disappears from the surface, shedding debris from its open end. Boilers tumble out and head straight down.

At the time nearly all the passengers were asleep so they did not realise what had happened. But some woke as chunks of ice crashed onto the deck and others woke when they heard the iceberg scraping the side of the ship. Minutes later an eerie silence fell on Titanic. Its engines had stopped.

Up to an hour after Titanic hit the iceberg most of the passengers had no idea how much in danger they were in. Below them in the lowest decks stokers were fighting a flood. Some people quickly ran from their rooms. Many were still in their pyjamas. Many refused to believe there was any real danger and carried on as if nothing was wrong. They could not believe or did not want to believe that the ship was sinking. Relaxed passengers joked that captain Smith wanted to repaint the damaged hall before sailing on. After the collision the engines were shut down immediately. Steam had to be released from the boilers so that they did not explode. The steam was fed into pipes on the sides of the funnels. The escaping steam was so loud that people had to shout to be heard.

At 11:40 p.m. (ship’s time) on 14 April, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of Titanic and alerted the bridge. First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship to be steered around the obstacle and the engines to be stopped, 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&apos;s seams buckled and separated, allowing water to seep in. Five of the ship&apos;s watertight compartments were breached.

Each Friday workers were paid in cash. Skilled workers earned about £2 per week while unskilled workers earned about £1.

Workers were also fined for crimes or misdemeanours committed on the site. For example a worker would lose one days pay for stealing a tool, half a days pay for being late or playing soccer during working hours and a quarter days pay for making tea or smoking.

When finished Titanic was the largest moving object ever built.  It was 269 metres long and her total height, measured from the base of the keel to the top of the bridge, was 32 metres.

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.

Moving at some 30 knots the bow plows into the bottom at an angle of about 20 degrees, breaking the hull and collapsing decks. The tortured wreck of the stern pays witness to its more violent descent.

Rhoda Abbott was returning to America with her two teenage sons, Rossmore and Eugene. The family managed to reach the boat deck by climbing a steel ladder onto the stern and walking on the slanting deck over ropes left from lifeboats which had already been launched.

Collapsible C, one of the lifeboats with canvas sides, was being loaded – but only with women and children. At 16 and 13, the Abbot boys would be considered too old. Their mother stepped back to stay with her children. As the boat was being lowered, J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, jumped in.

In the final moments, Rhoda and her boys jumped from the deck. She managed to get into Collapsible A, the only woman in that boat. Her beloved sons were lost. It took a long time for Rhoda to recover from the effects of injuries and exposure she suffered that night. She never recovered from the loss of her sons and died, alone and poor, in 1946.

The first three days of the voyage from Queenstown had passed without apparent incident. A fire had begun in one of Titanic&apos;s coal bunkers  approximately 10 days prior to the ship&apos;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 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 over on 14 April.

Titanic received a series of warnings from other ships of drifting ice in the area of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. One of the ships to warn Titanic was the Atlantic Line&apos;s Mesaba. 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.

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.

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.

Titanic was planned to arrive at New York on the morning of 17 April. After leaving Queenstown, Titanic followed the Irish coast as far as Fastnet Rock. From there she travelled 1,620 nautical miles (3,000 km) along a great circle route across the North Atlantic to reach a spot in the ocean known as &quot;the corner&quot; south-east of Newfoundland, where westbound steamers carried out a change of course. Titanic had sailed only a few hours past tis point when she made her fatal contact with an iceberg. The final leg of the journey would have been 193 nautical miles (357 km) to New York Harbour.

Four hours after Titanic left Southampton, she arrived at Cherbourg. The weather was windy, very fine but cold and overcast. Because Cherbourg lacked docking facilities for a ship the size of Titanic, boats had to be used to transfer passengers from shore to ship. 274 additional passengers were taken aboard – 142 First Class, 30 Second Class, and 102 Third Class. Twenty-four passengers left to be conveyed to shore, having booked only a cross-Channel passage. The process was completed within only 90 minutes and at 8 p.m. Titanic weighed anchor and left for Queenstown with the weather continuing cold and windy.

The pressure of rising seawater buckles the boiler uptake supporting the number 1 funnel and the funnel falls. Water floods in the new opening, accelerating the rate of sinking.

First Class Smoking Room Gentlemen Only

One of the most controversial issues examined by the inquiries was the role played by the SS Californian, 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&apos;s senior wireless operator.

Testimony before the British inquiry revealed that at 10:10 p.m., the Californian observed the lights of a ship to the south. As they watched the saw the lights shut down but believed that the ship had simply turned. They said they attempted to contact the ship using Morse lights but had not attempted to contact them using the wireless radio on board. Had they done so it is possible they could have reached Titanic in time to save additional lives.

A Deck, also called the Promenade Deck, extended along the entire 166 metre length of the ship. It was reserved exclusively for First Class passengers and contained First Class cabins, the First Class lounge, smoking room, reading and writing rooms and Palm Court.

Even before the survivors arrived in New York, investigations were being planned to discover what had happened, and what could be done to prevent something like it happening again.

Inquiries were held in both the United States and United Kingdom.

The British Board of Trade’s inquiry into the disaster was headed by Lord Mersey, and took place between 2 May and 3 July. Being run by the Board of Trade, who had previously approved the ship as seaworthy, it was seen by some as having little interest in its own or White Star&apos;s conduct being found negligent.

On returning to Belfast at about 7 p.m., the surveyor signed an &quot;Agreement and Account of Voyages and Crew&quot;, valid for 12 months, which declared the ship seaworthy. An hour later, Titanic departed Belfast to head to Southampton, a voyage of about 570 nautical miles (1,060 km). After a journey lasting about 28 hours she arrived about midnight on 4 April and was towed to the port&apos;s Berth 44, ready for the arrival of her passengers and the remainder of her crew.

Titanic was ready for her maiden voyage.

The ship was propped up in a dry dock while the propellors were fitted and the outside painted. Meanwhile, inside the ship, thousands of workers toiled around the clock to equip and furnish Titanic. Titanic had three propellers which were powered by steam. The rotation of the propellers powered the ship through the sea.

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.

In total, 50% of the children survived, 20% of the men and 75% of the women.

The last living survivor, Milvina Dean from England, who at only nine weeks old was the youngest passenger on board, died aged 97 on 31 May 2009.

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 10 passengers.

Workers on their way home from another days work. The Titanic can be seen in the background.

There were 225 stewards to serve 329 first class passengers. They were on call all day until late evening. There was one member of staff for every 1.5 first-class passengers.

Several first class luxuries were powered by electricity. Most people did not have electricity at home at this time.

The cabins ranged from comfortable single berths to magnificent parlour suites. Electrical luxuries included heaters, table fans, telephones, dimmable lamps, hot running water and doorbells.

Both sections struck the sea bed 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.

The two sections are surrounded by a large debris field. 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&apos;s victims.

In 1987, treasure hunters began recovering artefacts from the wrecked ship. Over the course of seven expeditions, they brought up thousands of items. In 2012, around the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, the artefacts were put up for sale at auction. The sale carried strict conditions—the artefacts were to be kept together, preserved to museum standards, and made available to researchers.

“My dear Mother, I don’t know how to write to you or what to say. I feel I shall go mad sometimes but dear as much as my heart aches it aches for you too for he is your son and the best that ever lived…Oh mother how can I live without him…he was so calm…The agony of that night can never be told…I haven’t a thing in the world that was his, only his rings. Everything we had went down.”

There was an À la Carte Restaurant, a Café Parisien decorated in the style of a French sidewalk café, complete with ivy covered trellises and wicker furniture and 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.

The first step in building the biggest ship in the was to construct the strongest hull. Steel plates covered the structure to create the hull, or outer shell. The plates were held together using steel rivets. Over 3 million rivets were used in the building of the Titanic. Four person teams used long hammers to beat the rivets into place. They were paid based on how many rivets they fitted making this very competitive work between the different teams.

A record of 12,000 rivets hammered in one week was set in 1909. The noise from the shipyard was deafening as thousand of men hammered steel and rivets into place all day every day for months.

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&apos;s watertight bulkheads (though only by eight of the fifteen bulkheads).

There were twenty-four double ended boilers and five single ended boilers which were housed in six boiler rooms. Each boiler was the height of a three storey house and contained three or six furnaces to burn the coal that heated water flowing through a network of pipes.

The steam that was created powered the engines, generated  electricity, supplied the refrigeration plant and heated the ships’ public rooms and second and third class cabins. Smoke and waste gasses were expelled through three funnels.

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.

Titanic was not just carrying passengers. The ship also had to carry cargo as well as enough supplies for 17 days. It also had to carry enough food for the 7,000 meals served daily to passengers and crew. There were more than 3,000 bags of mail and 700 packages on board. Titanic carried 5,345 tonnes of coal stored in bunkers near the bottom of the ship. A small army of workers called trimmers wheeled and shovelled up to 750 tonnes every 24 hours to fire the 29 boilers.

Titanic&apos;s sea trials began at 6 a.m. 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. On board were 78 stokers, greasers and firemen, and 41 members of crew.

The sea trials consisted of a number of tests of her handling characteristics, carried out first in Belfast Lough and then in the open waters of the Irish Sea. Over the course of about 12 hours, Titanic was driven at different speeds, her turning ability was tested and a &quot;crash stop&quot; was performed in which the engines were reversed, bringing her to a stop in 777 metres or 3 minutes and 15 seconds.

Carpathia docked at 9:30 p.m. on 18 April in New York 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 to the survivors. Many of Titanic&apos;s surviving passengers did not linger in New York but headed onwards immediately to relatives&apos; homes. Some of the wealthier survivors chartered private trains to take them home. Titanic’s 214 surviving crew members were taken to the Red Star Lines steamer, the SS Lapland, where they were accommodated in passenger cabins.

Carpathia was hurriedly restocked with food and provisions before resuming her journey. Her crew were given a bonus of a month&apos;s wages by Cunard as a reward for their actions, and some of Titanic&apos;s passengers joined together to give them an additional bonus of nearly £900 (€100,000 today), divided among the crew members.

At the beginning of the 20th Century The Cunard Line had two large passenger ships operating on the Atlantic, The Lusitania and the Mauretania. Not wanting to fall behind their competitor The White Star Line ordered the Olympic class liners: Olympic, Titanic and Britannic. It had long been customary for many shipping lines to have a common theme for the names of their ships. White Star gave their ships names ending in -ic while Cunard went with -ania.

While Cunard was famed for the speed of their ships, the Olympic class were to be the largest and most luxurious ships in the world. Olympic, however, was the only ship of this class to have a successful career. But more of that later.

The ships were to be built in Belfast by the Harland and Wolff Shipbuilding Company.

The bow pulls loose from the still buoyant stern, which briefly settles back almost level with the surface before angling down again as water floods its ruptured forward end.

Many artefacts from Titanic have been recovered from the sea bed 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. A number of other museums exhibit artefacts either donated by survivors or retrieved from the floating bodies of victims of the disaster.

The glass still remains intact on some of the windows.

The British film A Night to Remember (1958) is still widely regarded as the most historically accurate movie portrayal of the sinking.

Coal was the fuel used to power Titanic’s engines but before they could be fired up, workers used 22 tonnes of soap to make sure it could slip into the water smoothly. Titanic weighed over 24,000 tonnes when it was launched. It weighed much more when it was fully fitted and all passengers were on board, making it one of the largest man-made structures of its time.

Titanic stored 3,560 cork and canvas life jackets all over the ship, in wardrobes and on racks. They did not need to be inflated.

Board of Trade regulations said that ships that weighed more than 9,000 tonnes should carry 16 lifeboats. Titanic had 20 (16 wooden boats and 4 canvas collapsibles). Each lifeboat could carry 65b people. That meant that the ship only carried enough lifeboats to hold about half of its passengers and crew. Legally, it had enough lifeboats for a ship crossing the Atlantic. But the laws in force at the time had been established many years earlier, when transatlantic steamships were much smaller and carried fewer people.

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 featuring their own private promenades. On Titanic, the À La Carte Restaurant and the Café Parisien provided luxury dining facilities to First Class passengers. The Second Class smoking room and entrance hall were both located on this deck. Aft of the Bridge Deck was the raised Poop Deck (yes-that’s what it was called), 32 metres long, used as a promenade by Third Class passengers. It was where many of Titanic&apos;s passengers and crew made their last stand as the ship sank.

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&apos;s hull—provided the platform on which the ship&apos;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.

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, the ship&apos;s birthplace.

The Captain of the Californian was awakened later in the night to say that the ship had fired five rockets. He told his crew to continue trying to contact the ship using the Morse lamp, and went back to sleep. Three more rockets were observed at 1:50 a.m. and some of the crew noted that the ship looked strange in the water, as if she were listing to one side. At 2:15 a.m., the captain was notified that the ship could no longer be seen. At around 5:30 a.m., the Chief Officer on board the Californian asked the wireless operator to contact the ship and they received word of the loss of Titanic. They arrived on the scene well after the 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 and that the captain had acted improperly in failing to do so.

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, which is still in force today.

The ships crew strictly enforced the practice that in case of emergency women and children should be evacuated first. Officers did allow a few men to climb in and others jumped in as boats were winched down. One man, Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to get aboard a lifeboat.

The officers did not know how many they could safely put aboard the lifeboats and launched many of them barely half-full. First class passengers had their cabins near the top so they were closer to the lifeboats. 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.