"Greetings,
friends! This is the incident of 10th April, 1912" RMS Titanic: world's largest and most luxurious ship in its time It set out on its first voyage "It was traveling from Southampton,
England to New York" "All
kinds of people were aboard- renowned industrialists and actors as well as immigrants," who were on their way to America in search of a better life It was being commanded by the 62 year old Senior captain Edward John Smith "There was a lot of excitement regarding
this ship in the passengers, public and
the media" It was not only the
world's largest ship- around 269 meters
in length and more than 53 meters high- the luxury on this ship was awe inspiring! "In those times, it cost 7.5
million dollars to build the ship,
which,"
"if you take inflation into account, is equal to 400 million dollars today!" The facilities and decorations inside the
ship could even leave a 5 star hotel
behind "Stained glass mirrors,
ornate wood paneling, two grand
staircases" " heated swimming
pool, a Turkish bath, an electric
bath" "a gym, a squash court,
4 restaurants, 2 barber shops and a
library as well!" "Moreover,
the kind of safety features that were
used to build the Titanic," "
this ship was believed to be ""unsinkable""" It was a ship that could never sink- it was
that safe! White Star Line was the name
of the company that built this ship "The Vice President of this company was so confident regarding that," he had come out in front of the public and said that this ship is unsinkable! "But two days later after setting out
on its first voyage, on 12th April,
1912," Titanic began to get its
first ice warnings The Atlantic ocean
that Titanic was crossing in order to
get to America was replete with ice "There
were mountains of ice- icebergs, that
were a danger to this ship"
These warnings are not an unusual thing The ships that sail the oceans often
communicate through radio and signal the
nearby ships about ice being present in
their vicinity and seek caution in their
path "After getting these warnings,
Titanic changed its course twice to
avoid danger" but it did not reduce
its speed "It continued its journey
towards its destination at a speed of 21.5
knots, which is equal 40 km/hr," "Two
days later, on 14th April, 1912, there
were 7 more ice warnings" but
captain Smith and his crew ignored these warnings. They did not slow the speed of Titanic "Slowly, the day draws to a close, the
sun sets and the temperature sinks" The notable thing about the night of
14th April was that the moon was not
visible "Without the moon, there
was no moonlight and the visibility was
low on this night" There was a
crow's nest on the ship- a small
platform at a height which could be
called a lookout point. Someone is
made to sit atop it so that they can
keep watch on the track of the ship to
lookout for traffic or obstructions The
person sitting here has to face very low temperatures The cold winds were blowing at a very fast
pace "Moreover it was nighttime.
The cold winds make
the eyes tear up, which makes it difficult to see" "At 11:39 PM, a man named Fredrick
Fleet was atop the crow's nest" "Suddenly, he saw before himself, a huge
iceberg" He rang the bell thrice
quickly so that the people below could
be alerted then picked up the phone
and called the officers on the bridge He screams that there was an iceberg infront
of them and that the ship should be
steered immediately "First officer,
William, heard this message and signalled the engine room" that the ship should be steered in the left
direction "But unfortunately, it
was too late" "Just one minute
later, at 11:40 PM, the ship crashed
into the iceberg" *The Titanic was
a new breed of luxury life* "*Titanic
left port of Southampton, England...*"
*Among the passengers were many
of the wealthy and influential- "the
band plays, the gay tunes and American red time dancers""" The time was 11:40* *The iceberg grazed the right side of the
ship...* "*...and all of a sudden,
she lifted up quickly" This iceberg
was not a small one- It was 200x400 feet
in length- as big as a football field and
was so high that it was matching the crow's nest in height Scientists estimate that the iceberg weighed
as much 1.5 million tons Titanic's front
right side collided with the iceberg "Specifically,
near the bow" "Now, what is
the bow?" You can see in this
picture that the part right at the front
is the bow The part above the bow is
called the stern and the protruded part
below is called the keel "For
around 10 seconds, the ship grazed against the iceberg" and a huge dent was formed
"Due to this, small holes formed in the main body of
the ship" You might wonder how that
is possible? How can a piece of ice tear
through metal? "If you use the ice
in your fridge, then yes, it won't cut
through metal" But keep in mind the
weight of a mountain of ice It is true
that even wood cannot cut through metal but
even then your metal car can crash into
a tree and get deformed completely "Similarly,
since the iceberg was so big and heavy,
it caused massive damage to Titanic" "A few seconds after collision, the
ship's captain, Smith and architect
Thomas Andrews" arrived at the site
to see how much damage had the ship
incurred due to the impact "When
they saw, they realized that the ship would sink" They were completely shocked upon seeing
this! They thought that this ship was
unsinkable! "At the beginning of
the , I'd mentioned that this ship
was considered unsinkable, owing to
impressive safety features" There
were two main safety features which led to this belief First- this ship had a double bottom hull The main body of the ship is called a hull A double bottomed hull would mean two layers: "even if the layer below got
damaged, the second layer could save the
ship" Second- the hull of the ship
was divided into 16 separate water tight
compartments "Even if 4 out of 16
compartments were filled with water, the
ship would still sail" It would
make no difference to the ship But the
impact created by the iceberg was on the side of the ship
The double bottom hull proved to be of no use The sides only had one single layer Second- the impact was so large that 6 out
16 water tight compartments were
breached Water was filling in all of
them The limit was 4. The inundation of
6 compartments meant that the ship
couldn't be saved from sinking The
unsinkable ship would sink! "20
mins after collision, at 12:00 AM, captain Smith ordered his crew to send a distress call over
radio" The nearby ships would maybe
detect it and come to save them Senior
radio Jack Phillips turns out to be the hero of our story "One after the another, he began
sending distress signals- there was no
response" "He sent another,
and another... there must be some ship
out there that would pick up their distress call" "20 mins later, at 12:20 AM, there was a
ship called RMS Carpathia that was present
near the Titanic" It detected the
signal He spoke to the operator of
Titanic over radio and directed his ship
to move towards Titanic and go save them "The problem was that despite its
closeness, this ship was 107 kms
away" "Even if it moved
towards the Titanic at its top speed, it
would take 3.5 hours to reach the Titanic"
Would the Titanic ship stay put for 3.5 hours?
The rest of the crew members lit up flares and rockets in the sky in the hope that a ship nearby would notice
them "But unfortunately, apart from
the ship Carpathia, there was no
response from any other ship" "Meanwhile,
Captain Smith ordered the evacuation of
passengers using the lifeboats on the ship" "As per protocol, women and children
would be given preference to board the
lifeboats" "As for the
passengers on the ship, they were not that scared" "Most of the passengers believed that
Titanic was an unsinkable ship, there is
no need for worry" "After all,
the company that put out ads, claimed this again and again!" "So, yes, they might have hit an
iceberg, but the ship wouldn't sink!"
"For this reason, the first life boat that went down had a capacity of 65 people, but only 28
went" Half the lifeboat remained
empty as it was lowered! "With the
passage of time, compartments began to
be filled with water one after the other"
The ship began to tilt "Gradually,
the passengers realised that the ship could indeed sink" "When this realization dawned, there was
chaos and people began to run around in
panic" "By 1 in the night, so
much water had filled the compartments
in the front" that the bow of the
ship had gone underwater "Due to
this, the rear part of Titanic surfaced out of the water"
The propellers at the back surfaced out of the water "When the ship tilted to this degree,
pandemonium reigned" People began
to fight with one another for a seat in the lifeboat The problem was there was a scarcity of
lifeboats on the ship- there were only
20 lifeboats "which could
accommodate only 1,200 people approximately" "But there were around 2,200 aboard the
ship" "At 2:05 AM, the last
lifeboat was lowered from the Titanic"
"But 1,500 people were still onboard" "In this chaos, some people tried
snatching their place in the lifeboats"
But some people had accepted their fate
and stayed back in the ship "*The
end was chaotic. Everybody was crying, praying, " trying to get into the few lifeboats that
were left. "Oh... it was, um,
pretty sad at the end.*" "As
per eyewitnesses, the ship broke into two halves at around 2:20" and then slowly began to sink It did not take even three hours for the
unsinkable ship to sink Of 1500 people
aboard the ship either drowned with the ship
"or the ones that knew how to swim, were killed by
hypothermia" The temperature of the
water was -2 degrees Celsius "If
you fall into the water at this temperature,
you'd die within minutes due to hypothermia" "It is said that the captain of Titanic,
Edward Smith stayed at the wheel until
the end and drowned with the ship" Some
even believe that he committed suicide by killing himself "The ship RMS Carpathia, that had set
out to save the Titanic" reached
this location around 3:30-4:00 AM to
save the people on the ship -but it was one hour late But the ship successfully saved the 705
people that had set out on lifeboats
After the disaster of the Titanic, questions were raised, many controversies took birth" investigations were conducted and some
unknown facts surfaced that shocked
everyone "How would it feel if I
say that there was another ship 37 kms
away from Titanic that night, " which
could make it in time to save the passengers of the Titanic It is true- the ship was S S Californian "One hour before the Titanic hit the
iceberg, the last iceberg warning was
issued by S S Californian" They had
warned- Watch out! There are a lot of
icebergs in the ocean here "After
that at 11:15, the radio operator on the
Californian ship had switched off the radio" "The Californian ship had stopped for
the night and was not moving ahead,
keeping the danger in mind" "Since
the ship had stopped for the night and the radio was off, it did not receive the distress signal" The ship was so close to the Titanic
that the passengers on the deck of the
Titanic could see the ship on the
horizon "When the officers were
boarding the passengers in the Titanic, "
one officer even remarked that he could see a ship in the distance and that it would come save them soon
and so there was no need to worry. But this Californian ship did not come
even when rockets and flares were lit up "It is reported that after 12 AM, the
crew members on the Californian ship
"
had actually seen the rockets fired from Titanic They had even informed their captain Stanley
Lord but the captain insisted that it
was no distress signal rather the rich
men on Titanic who were partying Had
Captain Lord of the Californian ship taken
the rockets and flares seriously that night so many people aboard the Titanic could have
been saved! "Next morning when they
switched their radio on, they receive
the SOS calls from Titanic" They
reach the site but it was too late by then
They only saw dead bodies floating in the water Both the inquires that were conducted in this
matter put the blame on Captain Lord of
the Californian But one single man
cannot be blamed for such a huge disaster
Other people were responsible as well
"Like the lifeboat example I mentioned, there were not a sufficient number of
lifeboats" because the company that
made the ship thought it was unsinkable
and the lifeboats were unnecessary "Apart
from that, the captain of Titanic had
not even conducted safety drills"
A safety dill was to be conducted on the day
Titanic collided with the iceberg But the captain canceled that because he
thought they were unnecessary since the
ship was unsinkable "The next
mistake was that of steersman Robert Hichens,
who was at the steering wheel"
"That night, when an iceberg alarm was sounded, the officer on the deck instructed that
" the ship should be turned left "But in panic, Robert Hichens
misunderstood the message" and
steered the ship towards the right This
was the opposite direction- towards the iceberg
"By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late." British inquiry also found that Titanic was
issued so many iceberg warnings and to
proceed with caution "but despite
that, the ship was sailing at full speed."
Why was that? Why did the captain
not slow down? There are many theories behind that "A popular theory suggests that Joseph
Bruce, the chairman and managing
director of White Star Line" "the
company that manufactured the Titanic,
influenced captain Smith " and
pressured him that the speed of the ship be maintained There was tremendous pressure from the
company that the ship had to complete
its first voyage in 6 days so that a
record could be broken- "so that
they could show that the Titanic was not
only the biggest, the most expensive ship" but the fastest ship as well! "A specific incident happened on 14th
April, at 2 PM"
when Captain Smith saw the ice warning and showed it to Joseph that they should reduce the speed because there is an ice warning But Joseph stuffed the paper in his pocket so
that the people and the crew members did
not find out He did not want the speed
of the ship to slow down This one
disaster changed this industry worldwide for ever Many new regulations and standards were set up to avoid such disasters in the future "In 1914, an International Ice Patrol
was set up " so that the oncoming
ships could be alerted about the
icebergs in their path A treaty
International Convention for the Safety
of Life at Sea (SOLAS ) was signed which
set new standards regarding ships "For
example, a lifeboat regulation was framed"
mandating that the ships should have a sufficient number of lifeboats for every passenger "When the Titanic sank, it took more
than 70 years to find its wreckage under
sea" "In Sept 1985, an
American ocean explorer, Robert Ballad "
and a French oceanographer managed
to find the Titanic under the sea
"Its wreckage was found 3,800 metres (3.8 kms) under the sea" Two separate pieces of the ship were found-
600 meters apart
"Today, so many years later after the ship sank,
environment has started to erode the
ship lying underwater" "The
actual ship looked like this and today,
this is all that's left of it"
It has been reported that bacteria and other organisms are eating away its metal framework "It is expected that by 2030, this ship
would completely disintegrate underwater"
"Today, even after 110 years, the fascination regarding Titanic still remains in the minds of
people" "In 2012, an
Australian billionaire Clive Palmer
planned that he would make Titanic 2" A copy cat and a copycat model of the
original Titanic He even declared that
it would sail on the same route All the
elements of the ship was to be
constructed in the same way as the original "Originally, the project was set to be
completed in 2016, but it has not been
completed even in 2022 due to delays"
"It is said that people do not have interest in this project because if an exact replica of the Titanic
was made, " because it would not
have either TV or Wifi and nobody would
want to go on it It might be that the
unsinkable Titanic 2 might have already
sunk even before it sailed