Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic was one the greatest ship built in the twentieth century. The ship was supposed to be unsinkable but some things are beyond the reach of human intelligence.
The Titanic as her name implies was enormous. The Titanic was a symbol of the advances mankind had made. Titanic was truly the grandest, the largest and most luxurious ship of her time. It was believed that the ship was so well constructed that she could sustain any amount of damage. The Titanic carried the passengers between Europe and the United States. The Ship also carried British and US mail–hence the full name of the ship is Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic.
J. P. Morgan was the owner of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company popularly known as of White Star. In 1907, White Star Line’s managing director J. Bruce Ismay and Lord James Pirrie, a partner in Harland & Wolff conceived of three magnificent steamships, which set a new standard for comfort, elegance, and safety. On July 31, 1908, the final contracts were signed for the construction of Titanic and her sister ships the Olympic and the Britannic.
Titanic and her sisters were designed to provide a three-ship weekly express service. The main designer of Titanic was Mr. Thomas Andrews who was the head of Harland and Wolff’s design department and Harland and Wolff chairman William Pirrie. The Titanic was built at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.
The Titanic ship was considered to be strong enough and built on the latest technologies and was equipped with all sorts of emergency facilities. The Titanic had the best of technology in the form of sonar, satellite tracking, and deep-dive technology. She had a double-hull of 1-inch thick steel plates and a system of 16 water-tight compartments.
Titanic was 882 feet 9 inches in length, 94 feet wide and 100 feet high. At the waterline the Titanic weighed 52,310 tons. There were 1,316 passengers on board: 325 in first-class, 285 in second, and 706 in third-class. Though the ship was in the middle of ocean but all sorts of entertainment things were available. The ship had abundant supply of electricity and was equipped with 400-kilowatt electrical generators. The passengers were able to use electric lamps and heaters. All variety food and drinks were available. There were many indoor games, gymnasium, onboard swimming pool, a Turkish bath, libraries for each passenger class, and a squash court. Titanic had three classes of passengers on it. The fare of the first-class depended on the size and décor of the room. First-class started at $125. The highest-priced deluxe suite was priced at £900, or $4,500. In second-class, the starting price was $66.The lowest fare for third-class passage was approximately $36.25 one way for a single person willing to share a cabin. The Titanic began its voyage from south England at 7:30am,on Wednesday, April 10, 1912. The ship was supposed to pass through Atlantic Ocean on the way of its journey. Captain Edward John Smith was the captain of the Titanic. Captain Smith was quite experienced person and had travelled the North Atlantic for 26 years. By sundown, Titanic had stopped in Cherbourg, France to pick up additional passengers. That evening she sailed for Queenstown, Ireland, and at 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 11, she headed out into the Atlantic.
The maiden voyage lured the people of British nobility, American industrialists, the very cream of New York and Philadelphia society. It also attracted many poor emigrants, hoping to start a new life in America or Canada.
On April 14th of 1912, the Captain of the ship realized that he failed to identify a huge white iceberg. The ship was moving at full speed. Captain Smith and the crew tried their level best to turn the ship to avoid hitting the iceberg. At 11.40 p.m., she struck an iceberg about 400 miles off Newfoundland, Canada. Within three hours, the Titanic plunged to the bottom of the sea. There were only twenty safety ships. Women and children were sent onto the lifeboats.
An SOS was sent out to neighboring ship ‘The Carpathia’. By the time the Carpathia arrived, the Titanic had already sunk and all that remained of the Titanic was a handful of lifeboats filled with shocked survivors. The Titanic sank at 2:20 A.M. the morning of April 15. Till the moment that it sank, the band, under the direction of bandmaster Wally Hartley, played hymns. There was a great loss of life. More than 1,517 people perished in the accident.
Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean Louis Michel, an oceanographer and marine biologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found the remains of the Titanic on Sept.1, 1985. Titanic’s wreck site is located 963 miles northeast of New York and 453 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coastline.