BY SAMANTHA AVER.
The Titanic disaster was one of the worst maritime
disasters in history. The British luxury liner of the white Star Line, on its
maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, struck an iceberg about 153 km
(about 95 mi) south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland just before midnight on
April 14, 1912. Of the more than 2220 persons aboard, about 1513 died,
including the American millionaires John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and
Isadora Straus.
The
history of the ship can be traced back as far as 1907 when J. Bruce Ismay and
Lord James Pirrie, a partner in the firm Harland and Wolff, met at a dinner
party. Plans were made to build two luxury ships, the Olympic and the Titanic
each costing one and a half million pounds. Between 1908 and 1909, construction
of both ships began in Belfast at Harland and Wolff Shipyards. By May 31st
1911 the hull of the Titanic was successfully completed. Then ten months of
fitting was to follow. The boat was completed by March 31st and was
due to set for her maiden voyage on April 10th 1912.The ship was one
of the largest and most luxurious ships in the world. It had a gross registered
tonnage of 46,329 tons and when fully laden the ship displaced weighted 66,000
tons, the Titanic was 882.5 feet long and 92.5 feet wide at its widest
point. It had a double-bottomed hull
divided into 16 compartments that were presumed to be water tight, because four
of these could be flooded without endangering the liners buoyancy, it was
considered unsinkable.
During
the first day of the Atlantic crossing “the Titanic sailed 386 miles, the
second day 519 and the third day over 546 miles”. All the passengers were eager
to get to New York as early as possible and the Captain increased the speed
even more on the fourth day, which was the 14th of April 1912. Ice
reports had been received by the Titanic from as early in the voyage as Friday
12th and by Sunday evening the liner had already received seven
additional warnings including some from the Noordamm, Caronia, Baltic, Amerika,
California and the Mesaba.
At,
10 p.m. Mr. Lightroller the ships second
officer turned over the ship to Mr. Murdoch, the first officer telling him that
“the ship was in the region of reported ice”. At this point the temperature was
32*F, the sky cloudless and the air clear which meant spotting any iceberg
would be extremely difficult. In addition “the necessary vigilance crows nest”.
At 10:50 p.m. the Californian sent a wireless message directly to the Titanic
telling them that they were stopped and surrounded by ice. Jack Phillips the
wireless operator on the Titanic irritated by the interruption in his work
replied “2shut up, shut up, I am busy”.
At
11:39 the ship was moving at a speed of 20.5 knots when lookouts, Fredrick
Fleet and Reginald Lee, spotted an iceberg dead ahead about 500 yards away
towering some 55-60 feet above the water. They immediately sounded the warning
bell with three sharp rings and telephoned the bridge: iceberg right ahead”.
Sixth officer Moody on the bridge acknowledged the warning and relayed the
message to Murdoch who instinctively called “hard-a-starboard” to helmsman and
ordered the engine room to stop engines and then ordered full astern. Murdoch
then activated the lever to close all watertight doors below the waterline. The
helmsman spun the wheel as far as it would go. After several seconds, the
Titanic begins to veer to port, but the iceberg struck the starboard bow side
and brushed along the side of the ship and passed by into the night.
At
11:50pm Captain Smith asked designer Thomas Andrews to conduct a visual
inspection of the damage. Water at this stage had poured in and risen fourteen
feet in the front part of the ship and Andrews warned that the ship could only
stay afloat for “an hour or an hour and a half”. Smith ordered radio operators,
Harold Bride and Jack Phillips to send out the distress call. By 12:05am orders
were given to uncover the lifeboats and to get all the passengers and crew
ready on deck. But there was only enough room in the lifeboats for about half
of the estimated 2,228 people on board. Twenty minutes later crew members began
loading the lifeboats with women and children. By 12:45 the first of the
lifeboats was safely lowered away. It could have carried 65 people but pulled
away from the Titanic only carrying 28 people.
By
1:15am water began to reach the Titanics name on the bow and the tilt of the
deck grew increasingly steeper. Lifeboats now began to leave more fully loaded.
Within half an hour most of the forward lifeboats had been lowered. Passengers
now moved towards the stern of the ship. At 2:05am the last lifeboat departed.
There was now over 1,500 people left on board the sinking ship with the tilt of
the deck growing steeper by the minute. At this stage Phillip sent the last
radio message and Capt.Smith told crew members that it was “every man for
himself”. He returned to the bridge to await the end. Thomas Andrews, the
ships builder, was even alone in the first
class smoking room staring into space.
As
the Titanics bow plunged under, Father Thomas Byles heard confession and gave
absolution to over one hundred second and third class passengers gathered at
the aft end of the boat deck. The ships band stopped playing and many passengers and crew jumped
overboard. However the Titanics forward funnel
collapsed at this point crushing a number of swimming passengers. At 2:18am items in the
ship were heard crashing through walls and falling towards the sinking bow. The
ships lights blinked once and then went out. Several survivors saw the ship
break in two with the bow section sinking first. Two minutes later the Titanics
broken off stern section settled back
into the water , becoming level for a few moments. Slowly it filled with water,
tilting its end high into the air, before
sinking vertically into the sea. Those struggling in the icy water
slowly froze to death with over 1,500 people perishing.
Many
series of tests were taking out to see what actually happened to the Titanic.
One series was performed in 1998 on some rivets brought back from the site
found excess amounts of slag, a metal waste product added in small amounts to
give iron strength. However, too much slag's make iron brittle, and there is
evidence that weak rivets may have also contributed to the ruptures. Great
forces conspired to sink the Titanic, but scientists found that tiny ones will
cause it to collapse and eventually disappear. In the 85 years since the
Titanic sank, iron-eating microbes have slowly sapped the strength from the Titanic
structure. Eventually the wreck will no longer be able to support its own
weight.
On September 1st, 1985,the wreck of the
Titanic was found lying upright in two pieces on the ocean floor at a depth of
about 4,000m (about 13,000 feet). The ship, located at about 41*46”N 50*14”W,
was subsequently explored several times by manned and unmanned submersibles
under the direction of American and French scientists. The expeditions found no
sign of the long gash previously thought to have been ripped in the ship hull
by an iceberg. The scientists posited instead that the collision impact had
produced a series of thin gashes as well as brittle fracturing and separations
of seams in the adjacent hull plates, thus allowing water to flood in and sink
the ship. In subsequent years marine salvagers raised small artefacts and even
a 20-ton piece of the hull from the wreckage.
According to the 1996 expedition's experts, the
bow portion of the Titanic had struck the seabed at an angle and slid across
it, plowing up sediments that covered the damaged area of the hull. To overcome
this obstacle, the 1996 expedition used sophisticated sonar equipment, known as
a sub-bottom profiler, to determine the extent and nature of the damage. Sonar
uses reflected sound waves instead of light waves to "see" objects.
Because sound waves can both penetrate material and reflect off material of
differing density in different waves, the sonar was able to provide an image of
what lay behind the sediments. The ship was considered practically unsinkable
because its hull was divided into 16 watertight compartments. The ship was
designed to stay afloat with any two adjacent compartments (which were smaller
in volume) flooded. However, many people did not believe that so large a ship
could be undone by so little damage and so the myth of the huge gash began.
Previous expeditions found no sign of a gash, however, and the latest sonar
findings confirmed Wilding's belief that the damage was slight: six thin
breaches spread out along a 35m (110 ft) section of the hull with a total
surface area of about 1 sq. m (about 12 sq. ft). The ruptures punctured six
watertight compartments and were spread strategically along riveted seams. At
the time of the Titanic's sinking there were conflicting reports as to whether
the ship broke up at the surface or sank intact. All of the ship's surviving
officers said the Titanic sank intact. A number of passengers said the ship
broke up at the surface. Expeditions established that the ship was in two
pieces on the ocean floor, but some experts had theorised that the ship broke
up on its way to the bottom. There was even a claim that there might be a third
piece of the Titanic beneath the ocean floor.
Based on new findings about the nature of the damage sustained by the
Titanic and the quality of steel used in the hull naval architects set out to
determine the stresses that might have prevailed as the ship sank. The
architects used a computer simulation of stresses in the hull. The simulation
showed that the weight of the waterlogged bow would have generated enough
stress to cause failures in the Titanic steel plates as the ship sank and also
confirmed reports that the ship broke apart before sinking.
TIMELINE
OF THE TITANIC:
1907:Plans for the Titanic to be built are drawn.
1908-1909:Titanic was built at the Harland and
Wolff Shipyards.
April 10:Sailed from Cherbourg, France to
Queenstown, Ireland.
April 11:Titanic leaves Queenstown.
April 12-13:Titanic sails through clear and calm
waters.
April 14:Iceberg and Icefield warnings were sent
to Titanic.
9.30pm:Wireless room becomes very busy
11pm:Californian broke in on the wireless room to
report they had been stopped by ice. Operators replied with “keep out, your
jamming my signals”. Californian Wireless operator then went to sleep.
11.30pm:Lookout spots iceberg dead ahead, first
officer reverses port and orders hard rudder right.
11.40pm:Titanic hits iceberg on its starboard
side.
11.50pm:Water has poured into the ship and has
risen 14 feet in the bow of the ship.
April 15 Midnight: Captain E.J. Smith has been
advised that the ship only has an hour and a half, maybe 2. Radio Distress
Signals are sent.
12.05am:Orders are given for passengers and crew
to be ready on deck; lifeboats should also be uncovered.
12.25am:Order is given to load all lifeboats,
women and children to be loaded first. Carpathia responds to distress signals.
12.45am:First lifeboat is lowered distress rockets
are fired.
1.15am:Titanics tilt becomes stronger and
lifeboats leave more full.
1.40am:Forward lifeboats have been lowered and
passengers move towards the stern of the ship.
2.05am:Last lifeboat is lowered
2.18am:Last radio distress is sent, Bow plunges
under, many passengers jump, forward funnel collapses, Titanic lights blink,
then go out, ship breaks in two.
2.20am:Stern settles, level for a few moments,
Slowly fills with water, Titanic sinks those who jumped have froze to death.
3.30am:Survivors see rockets from the Carpathia.
4.10am: Carpathia picks up first lifeboat.
8.50am: Carpathia leaves for New York with 705
survivors from the Titanic.
MUSICIANS:
W.Theodore Brailey: Pianist
Roger Bricouy: Cellist
John Fred Clarke: Bass Violist
Wallace Henry Hartley: Bandmaster
John Law Hume: First Violinist
George Krins: Violist
Percy C. Taylor: Cellist
John Wesley Woodward: Cellist
CREW OF THE TITANIC
OFFICERS:
Edward John (E.J.) Smith: Captain
Henry Tingle Wilde : Chief
Officer
William McMaster Murdoch: First O officer
Charles Herbert Lightoller: Second Officer
Herbert John Pitman: Third Officer
Joseph Grove Boxhall: Fourth Officer
Harold Godfrey Lowe: Fifth
Officer
James Pell Moody: Sixth Officer
TITANIC
FACTS:
LENGTH; 882 ft.6 inches
WIDTH at Beam; 92 ft.6 inches
Ship constructed at; Harland and Wolff Shipyard
Titanic Sister Ships; Olympic and Britannic
Apart of what line; White Star Line
White Star Line owned by; J.P. Morgan
Number of people on Board;
2212
Number of Lifeboats; 20
Lifeboat Capacity; 1178
Survivors; 705
Designed top speed; 23-24 Kt.
Top Speed Attained; 22 ˝ Kt.
SHORT QUESTIONS:
Q1 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jessop, Violet. Titanic survivor the Memoirs of, Sutton publishing, Phoenix
Mill-Thrupp-Stroud-Gloucestershire, 1998.
Hyslop, Donald. Forsyth, Alastair. Jemma, Sheila.
Titanic voices memories
from the fateful voyages, Sutton
Publishing, Phoenix Mill-Thrupp-Stroud-Gloucestershire, 1994.
Thresh, Peter. Titanic, Parkgate books LTD, Kiln house 210 New Kings Road London,
1992.
Ballard, R.D. The discovery of the Titanic, Time Warners books, Canada, 1987.
Q2 SKILLS
Two skills that were learned are;
-I learned how to use Microsoft Word in which I
learned some skills. How to format text, use footnotes ETC.
-I learned how to write a Bibliography and how and
when to use footnotes.
Q3 WHY DID THIS TOPIC MERIT STUDY ?
This topic
merited study because:
(i) It was the worst sea disaster in modern times
and
(ii)The boat was built in Ireland
We learned in history class that it is very
difficult to write the history of anything. Most of the time it can only be a
history. The is a definitive statement, and it is very hard to find definitive
history. This is because of bias and subjectivity. While doing my research
topic I became aware that to read one book, would lead to the essay being one
sided. The way I solved this difficulty, was by reading widly, from books, the
internet and encarta.
Q4 REVIEW
One of the books used for this essay was The Discovery Of The Titanic, in this absorbing, profusely illustrated book
about his years-long hunt for the wreck of the Titanic, Ballards scientific
exploration is a tale of triumph against long odds. Hes also obtained some good
historical data on the drama of the sinking. Here are a few eye witness
accounts of the moment of the icebergs impact on the titanic:”A disquieting ripping sound like
a piece of cloth”;”A thousand marbles”;”As though somebody had drawn a giant
finger along the side of the ship”. Ballard quotes the most precise description
of the fatal instant, given by colourful
Second Officer Lighter:”Not that it was by any means a violent concussion, but
just a distinct and unpleasant break in the monotony of her motion”. This book
describes the discovery of the Titanic in a perfect way. Besides telling the
sad story of her maiden voyage, that ended to tragically, Dr. Ballard describes
his own struggle to complete his long time wish to find the Titanic. He talks
about raising funds, the tragedy of almost losing the discovery to another
expedition and the very exhaustive and
mostly boring search. But also about the joy of finding the wreck and his emotions
during all this. The book includes many photographs and two nice full-colour
foldoutd of the wreck. This new edition also includes a chapter in which Dr. Ballard
comments on more recent visits, conducted by others, to the Titanic.