Facts about Titanic

Here are a few facts from the movie Titanic.

Titanic was built at Harland and Wolff Ship Building Yard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

• She weighed 48, 328 tons.

• 882 ft 9 inches long.

• The beam was 92.5 ft.

Titanic's sister ship, Olympic was only 9 inches shorter than her.

• She had 9 decks and was 11 stories high.

• The rudder weighed 20, 250 lbs.

• The 3 anchors weighed 31 tons total.

• There were 29 boilers- each weighing 100 tons.

• There were 4 elevators- 3 in first class and 1 in second class. She was the first ship to have an elevator in second class.

• She was the first ocean liner to have a swimming pool and a gym.

• There were 16 "water tight" compartments.

• She could only safely have 2-3 compartments flooded.

• The British Board of Regulations required that any ship over 10,000 tons must carry 16 lifeboats.

Titanic carried 20 lifeboats-16 wooden and 4 collapsible.

• The lifeboats, if filled to maximum capacity, would only hold a total of 1,178 people. There were 2,200 people aboard the ship.

• Captain E.J. Smith was on his last voyage before retirement.

• There was more ice afloat in the North Atlanic in spring of 1912 then any time in the prevous 50 years.

• First Officer Murdoch was in command when at 11:40 pm Sunday night he was warned "Iceburg, dead ahead!"

Titanic hit an underwater iceburg (called a growler). The most damage the iceberg caused was a 5-foot gash only as wide as your finger. The iceberg mainly buckled hull plates and popped rivets allowing water to come in. This "gash" ended up being more like perferations in the steel plates and popped rivets.

• Most lifeboats lowered only half full. The people in charge of them were unsure of their weight capacity even though they had been tested several times.

Titanic never held a full life boat drill.

• All lifeboats were lowered by 2AM.

• At 2:17AM the ship broke apart into two pieces.

• At 2:20AM Titanic was fully submurged.

• It took 2 hours and 40 minutes for the ship to sink.

• The people in the lifeboats were afraid of being capsized by the drowning people, so they didn't go back to help.

• The lifeboats were never found after being picked up by Carpathia. They were most likely repainted and used on another White Star Line ship. After all, they were brand new and only used once.

• The sinking of Titanic caused many new ship regulations-all ships must carry enough lifeboats for all of the passengers and crew.

• The signal "SOS" (Save Our Ship) was adopted because it was easy to send and easy to recognize.

• In August 1985, Robert Ballard discovered Titanic's resting place with the help of sonar and a small submarine.

• There is a 600 meter distance between Titanic's stern and bow.

• E-mail me if you find any problems, typos, wrong information, or any new information that you think needs to be added here.