Titanic set its sail to New York City from England on 10th April 1912. White Star Line shipping company had produced three Olympic-class ocean liners, among which, Titanic was termed to be most luxurious ship to operate on the Atlantic. The ship had all the facilities like gym, library, electric lifts, restaurants and cafe. On April 14th, 1912 at 11.40 p.m., RMS Titanic had a terrible accident that lead to its ultimate death three hours later. In the morning of 15TH April the biggest ship of its time had completely disappeared under the ice-cold surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The Titanic took more than 1500 lives with it as it sank to its watery grave that’s quite a fraction of all the individuals on board.
The cause of this accident was an ice-berg. Its construction required a budget of 7.5 million dollar in the year 1911. The ship was 268 meters long, 28 meter wide and 53 meters tall, with a usable volume of 46,328 tons. The Titanic had four huge smokestacks, each of them weighing 60 tons. Harland and Wolff shipyard took 3000 men to build the ship, it was difficult work as there were no safety precautions for the workers. Unfortunately 8 people died and 246 were injured during the ship building.
- According to some survivors, Titanic’s Captain, Edward J Smith, was pressured into traveling as fast as he can by White Star Line’s managing director, J. Ismay, who was keen to arrive in New York well before scheduled time, to encourage positive press about Titanic. Journalist Senam Molony has been studying the Titanic for more than 30 years. He investigated that the Titanic had just 37 seconds to avoid the ice berg after it was first sighted by the lookouts, if the ship had been traveling at lower speed the ice-berg could have been avoided.
- Senam Molony also discovered the real reason for break-down of the ship. He discovered a large 9-metre long black spot on the hull of the ship which was caused by burning fire. This spot was not seen by passengers because the ship was turned in such a way that the marks were faced away from the dock towards the sea. According to some metallurgist, this high temperature caused by the fire could have easily weakened the ship metal. That’s why ice berg could easily tear holes in the side of the ship. It is reported that the management of the project knew about the fire and its consequences, but canceling the trip would have meant bankruptcy for ship’s owner. Hence, the allowed the trip even after knowing its dangers.
- In 1912, sonar technology was not available for the mankind, instead binoculars were used by assigned person for lookouts. All the binoculars in the Titanic were locked away in the special compartment on the ship. The only person with the key to this special compartment was replaced at the last moment. He was in such a hurry that he forgot to give the key to his replacement. If the crew had access to binoculars then they would have enough time to avoid the crash as the ice berg would be noticed early.
- The most important reason for loss of life was the lack of lifeboat provision, as majority of deaths were caused by hypothermia. In order to occupy all the people on the ship, Titanic needed 60 lifeboats, but only 20 were provided by the management, because the number of lifeboats depended on tonnage of the ship during that time. There was no training given to the crew members to operate the lifeboats, because of lack of training, some boats were not completely filled with number of seats and it took half an hour to start deploying lifeboats, whereas it takes only 10 standard minutes.
If all these safety precautions were taken, many lives would be saved.
Reference
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/titanic-fascinating-facts/