By: Robert Fidler

The Titanic, the famous “unsinkable” ship of the white star line.  She was the product of a culture obsessed with their own achievements, advances, and technology.  Designed with the latest shipbuilding techniques she was the last word in safety and comfort.  So certain with her ability to stay afloat her builders only installed enough lifeboats for ⅓ of her passengers.  This arrogance lead to one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history.  With her immense presence she dwarfed all other competition, but underneath this hulking shroud of steel was a lesson humanity needed to learn.  One shrouded in the dark, cold, freezing depths of the North Atlantic.

Titanic and her sister ships Olympic and Britannic were thought up in the mind of Bruce Ismay owner of the White Star Line.  They were designed to compete with the cunard line and be the largest ships in the world and the last world in luxury.  These ships were built in Belfast Ireland at the construction yards of Harland & Wolff long time partners of the White Star Line.  Olympic was built first with the hull designation of 400 since it was Harland & Wolff’s 400th hull, Titanic was given hull designation 401.  Working Conditions were poor with workers having no or minimal protection while working this resulted in the deaths of multiple men while the ships were being built.  To build these massive ships two new slipways were constructed with giant steel supports over head and a crane imported from germany that could lift up to 200 tons.  Titanic’s keel was laid down on March 31, 1909 and construction began immediately.  Olympic and Titanic were built in virtually that same ways their hulls were completed with just the outer layers and decks being built.  When she was launched on May 31 1911 she was nearly ready to set sail with only her innards needing installed.

Titanic spent a fair time in dry dock as workers flowed over her installing carpets and light bulbs, fitting wood paneling and generally turning the empty shell into a floating palace.  Work under the waterline was also going on the the installation of three massive propellers that would drive the ship.  work went slightly over schedule since Bruce Ismay the ship’s owner wanted to add some extra features and the fact that Olympic was involved in a collision and needed the dry dock.  When all of her designs were complete she went on sea trials on April 2, 1912.  She went through all sorts of maneuvers and an emergency crash stop and was approved as fit for sea immediately she steamed for Southampton.  She arrived at 4 in the morning and began awaiting the arrival of crew and passengers.  Her crew arrived the next day they included, cleaners, chefs, waiters, maids, firemen, officers, marconi operators and her captain, Captain Edward J. Smith, Smith was a veteran captain taking every new ship of the white star line out on her maiden voyage.  It was said that after the voyage he planned to retire.

Titanic did not have a full load of passengers for her maiden voyage, there had been a national coal strike  in the U.K. Titanic had to take coal from the bunkers of several ships just to have enough fuel to make it the New York.  Since many trips had been cancelled many passengers decided to wait until the strike was over other were transferred to the Titanic instead.  She left Southampton on April 10, during her transit of the many channels out to open sea she passed the ship SS City of New York the massive size of the ship caused it’s mooring lines the snap and the ship’s stern to start drifting towards the ship.  A collision was avoided but this near accident caused some passengers to think that this ill omen meant trouble on this ship.  When she reached the channel she headed for her second stop, Cherbourg, France.  After Picking up more coal and passengers she steamed for Queenstown Ireland (now known as Cork).  Here she picked up the majority of her third class passengers and then she steamed into the atlantic never to be seen again for nearly 80 years.

During her transit of the atlantic the weather was fair if a bit cold she made good time.  She traveled an average of 480 nautical miles a day, during this time period she received several messages from other ships.  These messages warned of Ice drifting through the normal shipping lanes.  Despite these warnings she continued to sail at full steam as was common of the time.  Ships of that era trusted the skill of their lookouts to see icebergs before they collided.  Life on the ship was amazing for the passengers, first class had libraries, promenade decks, smoking rooms, and the luxurious turkish baths.  Even third class passengers experienced luxury, the white star line wanted to treat these passengers well, when they wrote to their families still in europe and tell them about the condition.  The white star line hoped that they would persuade them to come over on their lines compared to others.  So luxurious were their cabins that they were better than most first class rooms on other ships.

The night of the sinking Titanic received several more ice warnings but her owner, Bruce Ismay, chose to ignore those warnings.  As she steamed westward she entered an ice field off the Labrador coast.  There was no moon that night, only the stars illuminated the calm sea, with no moon and no waves to splash up against them icebergs were much harder to spot.  At 11:40 lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg directly ahead and informed the bridge.  First officer William Murdoch ordered full reverse and the ship to turn hard to port.  But it was too late, Titanic grazed the iceberg causing several holes along her hull under the water line.  Titanic was designed to float if four of her compartments were flooded, but the iceberg had open five, the unsinkable ship was doomed.  As with accordance with laws of the day Titanic only had to carry enough lifeboats for only a third of her total capacity, her crew was also ill prepared to deal with a catastrophy.  Officers used the command women and children first when launching the life boats, most boats in the beginning left only half full.  Third class was mostly ignored and left to to their own devices this left them trapped below deck as the ship filled with water.  As her bow dipped lower and lower passengers began a mad scramble to get onto the remaining life boats.  When the final lifeboats left the ship there were still hundreds of people aboard the ship, at 2:20 her rate of sinking increased as her bow dipped below the water.  Her stern rose up out of the water and then broke under the enormous strain, the bow continued down as the stern rose up nearly vertical and then slowly sank.  Thousands of people were plunged into the freezing north atlantic, most lifeboats didn’t want to go back, most survivors say that the worst sound of all is the slow stifling of screams as people slowly freeze to death.

As she sank Titanic sent out multiple distress signal to other ships in the area.  One of the ships that heard these calls was the liner The Carpathia.  Her captain Arthur Rostron ordered an immediate intercept of Titanic’s last known location, she sped on at full steam trying to get there in time.  When she arrived at the location that Titanic last reported her location she found only icebergs and lifeboats scattered across the vast ocean.  She was two hours too late, another ship, the SS Californian was much closer to the sinking but couldn’t respond.  This was due to her radio operator being off duty and the fact that she was trapped by ice.  The survivors in the lifeboats were cold, hungry, and shocked by the events when they were brought onboard The Carpathia.  They were handed blankets and coffee, members of the Carpathia offered them their cabins so that they could warm up and recover.  When the last of the lifeboats were recovered a surprising passenger was found.  The ship’s owner Bruce Ismay had gotten into a lifeboat before the ship sank, this angered many of those onboard as the thought he should have gone down with the ship.

As The Carpathia neared New York Harbor news of the disaster spread like wildfire.  Some newspapers said that the ship was afloat and being towed to New York, while others got much closer to the mark.  When the Carpathia unloaded the passengers many had no where to go, no one to take care of them, they were alone in a strange world.  The press was right on top of the story interviewing survivors and reporting the tragedy of the disaster.  When the public realized Ismay had survived they lashed out at him in rage, a rage he would endure for the rest of his life.  With the loss of so many lives both the U.S. and the U.K. started investigations into what caused the disaster, the results of this investigation created the bedrock for naval safety.  Ships were now required to carry enough lifeboats for all passengers with that they must have a radio operator on duty at all times.  They also started the international ice watch to scout shipping lanes for large icebergs and warn ships when ice fields drift southwards.

In total 1,514 people died that night in the middle of the atlantic, they died due to outdated safety standards and unpracticed emergency protocols.  They died because man thought that he in all of his technology had finally conquered nature, his ego got the best of him.  Even through all of this death and destruction something was born out of this.  With new safety protocols enacted accidents on this scale never again happened.  Humanity has this little problem in that we don’t want to fix a problem until something horrible happens, this was the disaster that we needed to get us into action.  This is another example of what happens when man thinks he has bested nature.