RMS TITANIC

Juan Herrero Tajahuerce

TITANIC
What was it?
When was it built?
Who built it?
What happened to it?
Influence and impact in modern life
Titanic length
Allowed capacity
Titanic speed
Films about the Titanic

WHAT WAS IT?

According to legend RMS Titanic was conceived at a dinner between
Lord Pirrie of the Harland & Wolff shipyard and Joseph Bruce Ismay,
Chairman of the White Star Line, at Downshire House, Lord Pirrie's
London home.
She was the largest ship in the world, she was only fractionally greater
in size than her sister ship RMS Olympic. RMS Olympic and RMS
Titanic were constructed side-by-side and less than one year would
elapse between their respective maiden voyages.
The new vessels would forsake speed for the increased safety and
comfort that would come with a significant increase in scale. Fittings and
appointments would also be improved over the competions. Lavish
staterooms, a swimmings pool, squash raquet court, gymnasium, stylish
cafe and plush a la carte restaurant would attract the wealthy, while
significantly improved accommodation in other classes was also
provided.
Millionaires might grab the headlines but it would be steerage (Third
Class) and the growing middle class (Second Class) that would drive
economic success.
Having been laid down in 1909 it would take three years of construction
and fitting out before RMS Titanic was ready for sea, commanded by
veteran Captain Edward John Smith. After brief sea trials she departed
Southampton on 10 April 1912.
After brief stops and Cherbourg and Queenstown she turned her head to
the Atlantic ocean never to return.
As to safety elements, the Titanic had 16 compartments that included
doors which could be closed from the bridge, so that water could be
contained in the event the hull was breached. Although they were
presumed to be watertight, the bulkheads were not capped at the top.
The ship's builders claimed that four of the compartments could be
flooded without endangering the liner's buoyancy. The system led many
to claim that the Titanic was unsinkable.


WHEN WAS IT BUILT?

By the summer of 1907, Cunard seemed poised to increase its share of
the market with the debut of two new ships, the Lusitania and the
Mauretania, which were scheduled to enter service later that year. The
two passenger liners were garnering much attention for their expected
speed; both would later set speed records crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Looking to answer his rival, White Star chairman J. Bruce Ismay
reportedly met with William Pirrie, who controlled the Belfast shipbuilding
firm Harland and Wolff, which constructed most of White Star's vessels.
The two men devised a plan to build a class of large liners that would be
known for their comfort instead of their speed. It was eventually decided
that three vessels would be constructed: the Olympic, the Titanic, and
the Britannic.
On March 31, 1909, some three months after work began on the
Olympic, the keel was laid for the Titanic. The two ships were built side
by side in a specially constructed gantry that could accommodate their
unprecedented size. The sister ships were largely designed by Thomas
Andrews of Harland and Wolff. In addition to ornate decorations, the
Titanic featured an immense first-class dining saloon, four elevators, and
a swimming pool. Its second-class accommodations were comparable to
first-class features on other ships, and its third-class offerings, although
modest, were still noted for their relative comfort.


WHO BUILT IT?

Thomas Andrews born February 7, 1873, Comber, near Belfast,
Northern Ireland and died April 15, 1912, at sea, northern Atlantic Ocean
Irish shipbuilder who was best known for designing the luxury liners
Olympic and Titanic.
In 1907 the White Star Line decided to create a class of luxury liners,
and Harland and Wolff was tasked with building the vessels. Ultimately,
Andrews became the main designer of both the Olympic and the Titanic,
which upon completion were the largest and arguably most luxurious
liners of their time. The final plans included 16 watertight compartments
featuring doors that could be closed from the bridge, sealing off the
compartments if necessary; four could flood, and the ship would still stay
afloat. This system, in part, led White Star to describe the vessels as
practically unsinkable.

WHAT HAPPENED TO IT?

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank
in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after
colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage
from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The
sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of more than
1,500 people in one of the deadliest peacetime
maritime disasters in modern history
Throughout much of the voyage, the wireless radio operators on the
Titanic, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, had been receiving iceberg
warnings, most of which were passed along to the bridge. The two men
worked for the Marconi Company, and much of their job was relaying
passengers' messages. On the evening of April 14 the Titanic began to
approach an area known to have icebergs. Smith slightly altered the
ship's course to head farther south. However, he maintained the ship's
speed of some 22 knots.
At approximately 9:40 PM the Mesaba sent a warning of an ice field.
The message was never relayed to the Titanic's bridge. At 10:55 PM the
nearby Leyland liner Californian sent word that it had stopped after
becoming surrounded by ice. Phillips, who was handling passenger
messages, scolded the Californian for interrupting him.

Two lookouts, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee, were stationed in the
crow's nest of the Titanic. Their task was made difficult by the fact that
the ocean was unusually calm that night: because there would be little
water breaking at its base, an iceberg would be more difficult to spot. In
addition, the crow's nest's binoculars were missing. At approximately
11:40 PM, about 400 nautical miles (740 km) south of Newfoundland,
Canada, an iceberg was sighted, and the bridge was notified. First
Officer William Murdoch ordered both the ship hard-a-starboard (to the
left) and the engines reversed.
The Titanic began to turn, but it was too close to avoid a collision. The
ship's starboard side scraped along the iceberg. At least five of its
supposedly watertight compartments toward the bow were ruptured.
After assessing the damage, Andrews determined that, as the ship's
forward compartments filled with water, its bow would drop deeper into
the ocean, causing water from the ruptured compartments to spill over
into each succeeding compartment, thereby sealing the ship's fate. The
Titanic would founder.


INFLUENCE AND IMPACT IN MODERN LIFE

Lifeboats
24 hour radio watch and distress rockets
International Ice Patrol
Ship design changes
LIFEBOATS
Alexander Carlisle, Harland and Wolff's general manager and chairman
of the managing directors, suggested that Titanic use a new, larger type
of davit which could give the ship the potential to carry 48 lifeboats; this
would have provided enough seats for everyone on board. However, the
White Star Line decreed that only 20 lifeboats would be carried, which
could accommodate about 38% of those on board when the ship was
filled to capacity.

At the time, the Board of Trade's regulations stated that
British vessels over 10,000 tons must carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity
of 5,500 cubic feet (160 m
3
), plus enough capacity in rafts and floats for
75% (or 50% in case of a vessel with watertight bulkheads) of that in the
lifeboats. Therefore, the White Star Line actually provided more lifeboat
accommodation than was legally required.The regulations made no
extra provision for larger ships because they had not been changed
since 1894, when the largest passenger ship under consideration was
only 13,000 tons, and because of the expected difficulty in getting away
more than 16 boats in any emergency.

On the night of the sinking, Titanic's lifeboat complement was made up
of three types of boats. The most numerous were the 14 standard
wooden lifeboats, each 30 ft (9.1 m) long by 9 ft 1 in (2.77 m) wide, with
a capacity of 65 persons each. Forward of them, one on each side of the
ship, two smaller emergency boats, 25 ft (7.6 m) long, had a capacity of
40 persons each. Four Engelhardt collapsible lifeboats measuring 27 ft
5 in (8.36 m) long by 8 ft (2.4 m) wide had a capacity of 47 persons
each; they had canvas sides, and could be stowed almost flat, taking up
a comparatively small amount of deck space. Two were stowed port and
starboard on the roof of the officers' quarters, at the foot of the first
funnel, while the other two were stowed port and starboard alongside
the emergency cutters.
After the Titanic disaster, recommendations were made by both the
British and American Boards of Inquiry stating, in part, that ships would
carry enough lifeboats for those aboard, mandated lifeboat drills would
be implemented, lifeboat inspections would be conducted, etc. Many of
these recommendations were incorporated into the International
Convention for the Safety of Life at Seapassed in 1914.

24 HOUR RADIO WATCH AND DISTRESS ROCKETS
Following the inquiries, United States government passed the Radio Act
of 1912. This act, along with the International Convention for the Safety
of Life at Sea, stated that radio communications on passenger ships
would be operated 24 hours along with a secondary power supply, so as
not to miss distress calls. Also, the Radio Act of 1912 required ships to
maintain contact with vessels in their vicinity as well as coastal onshore
radio stations.
In addition, it was agreed in the International Convention for the Safety
of Life at Sea that the firing of red rockets from a ship must be
interpreted as a sign of help. This decision was based on the fact that
the rockets launched from the Titanic prior to sinking were interpreted
with a bit of ambiguity by the freighter SS Californian. Officers on
the Californian had seen rockets fired from an unknown liner from their
decks, yet surmised that they could possibly be "company" or
identification signals, used to signal to other ships.
At the time of the sinking, aside from distress situations, it was
commonplace for ships without wireless radio to use a
combination of rockets and Roman candles to identify themselves
to other liners. Once the Radio Act of 1912 was passed it was
agreed that rockets at sea would be interpreted as distress
signals only, thus removing any possible misinterpretation from
other ships.
It is also considered today that the damage would be limited with a
head-on collision; indeed, only the bow and the rudder would then hit the
iceberg, and not the hull, which must remain tight so that the ship can
continue to float. It is now a fully rule of navigation. The experience has
been tried in 1914 (only two years after the Titanic disaster and around
the creation of the International Ice Patrol) by HMT Royal Edward. As a
result, only the behind compartments were flooded, and none of the 800
passengers suffered from the shock.

INTERNATIONAL ICE PATROL
After the Titanic disaster, the U.S. Navy assigned the Scout
Cruisers Chester and USS Birmingham to patrol the Grand Banks for
the remainder of 1912. In 1913, the United States Navy could not spare
ships for this purpose, so the Revenue Cutter Service assumed
responsibility, assigning the Cutters Seneca and Miami to conduct the
patrol.
The Titanic disaster led to the convening of the first International
Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in London, on 12 November
1913. On 30 January 1914, a treaty was signed by the conference that
resulted in the formation and international funding of the International Ice
Patrol, an agency of the United States Coast Guard that to the present
day monitors and reports on the location of North Atlantic Ocean
icebergs that could pose a threat to transatlantic sea traffic.
Since the mid-1900s ice patrol aircraft became the primary ice
reconnaissance method with surface patrols phased out except during
unusually heavy ice years or extended periods of reduced visibility. Use
of the oceanographic vessel continued until 1982, when the Coast
Guard's sole remaining oceanographic ship, USCGC Evergreen, was
converted to a medium endurance cutter. The aircraft has distinct
advantages for ice reconnaissance, providing much greater coverage in
a shorter period of time.

SHIP DESIGN CHANGES
Following the Titanic disaster, ships were refitted for increased safety.
For example, the double bottoms of many existing ships, including
the RMS Olympic, were extended up the sides of their hulls, their
waterlines, to give them double hulls. Another refit that many ships
underwent were changes to the height of the bulkheads. The bulkheads
on Titanic extended 10 feet (3 m) above the waterline. After
the Titanic sank, the bulkheads on other ships were extended higher to
make the compartments fully watertight.
TITANIC LENGTH

The length of titanic is 269 m.
PERMITTED CAPACITY

The permitted capacity of titanic was 2787
TITANIC SPEED
Cruising: 21 kn (39 km/h; 24 mph). Max:
24 kn (44 km/h; 28 mph)
FILMS ABOUT THE TITANIC
They have made at least 14 films and the last
film was in 1997.
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster
film directed, written, co-produced, co-edited and
partly financed by James Cameron. A
fictionalized account of the sinking of
the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo
DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of
different social classes who fall in love aboard
the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage.
1997 OTHERS