THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC (part 1)
On April 15th it will
be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Years ago, I
wrote three lengthy articles about the sinking of that great passenger liner.
Thousands of my readers read those articles. I had an advantage in my research
because in the years, 1947 and 1948, I was fortunate enough to have lived with
the late Captain Radley Liversidge; the man who was offered the job to be the
captain of the Titanic and he turned the offer down. I learned much from him as
to why the ship sank.
Today, my first article that I will publish is titled; THE SINKING OF
THE TITANIC: A DESCRIPTION OF THE SHIP AND LIFE ON BOARD
On Friday, April 15th,
my second article that I will publish is titled; THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC:
WHO WAS TO BLAME?
On Monday, April 18th, the article I will publish is titled;
THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC: FINAL MOMENTS OF THE TITANIC.
And now my dear readers, I
am presenting to you my first article.
The Sinking
of the Titanic: A description ofthe of the ship and life on board
The
largest ship in the world at that time, R.M.S.
Titanic sank on April 15, 1912. Probably no
other ship in history has been written about more than the Titanic despite the fact that other ships sank with a greater loss
of life than the Titanic.
For
example, in the Philippines
on the 20th of December 1987, the passenger ferry Doña Paz
collided with the oil tanker Vector. The resulting fire and sinking left
an estimated 4,341 dead.
In China on the 4th of December 1948,
the Kiangya was a passenger steamship
that blew up and sank in the mouth of the Huangpu River
50 mi (80 km) south of Shanghai. The suspected cause of the explosion was the Kiangya
hitting a mine
left behind by the Japanese Navy during World War II. The
exact death toll is unknown, however, it is thought that between 2,750 and
3,920 died with 700-1,000 survivors being picked up by other vessels.
The greatest
loss of life at sea took place on April 16th 1945 when the Goya which was a German
transport ship sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea . It was carrying wounded Wehrmacht
troops and civilians who were fleeing the advance of Soviet forces. The sinking
of the Goya was the largest maritime losses of life in history, in which
only 183 passengers and crew survived while the remaining 6,817 passengers and
crew died.
Measurements of the Titanic
The
length of the Titanic was 882 feet, 9 inches (269.06 metres) The width of the
ship was 92 feet, 6 inches (28.19 meters) The weight was 46,329 tons. It had 9
decks in which 7were passenger decks. The height from the keel to the top of
the funnels was 175 feet (53.3 meters)
Engines and Boilers
The ship’s two reciprocating engines were the largest
that had ever been built, standing 40 feet (12 m) high—as high as a
three-story building and with cylinders 9 feet (2.7 m) in diameter, and
she could generate more steam than any previous ship which required the burning
of 600 long tons (610 tons) of coal per day.
With
three massive screws propelling her, (the three weighing in total 98 tons) they
could push the Titanic through the
water at speeds up to 25 knots which is equivalent to roughly 45 kilometres (22.8
miles) per hour. Its power was generated by 29 gigantic boilers in 6 boiler
rooms which were driven by 162 coal furnaces in which coal was shoveled into
them 24 hours a day by teams totaling 175 stokers. Only
three of the four 62 feet (19 metres) funnels were functional: the fourth,
which served only as a vent, was added to make the ship look more impressive.
The Titanic’s
main generating plant consisted of four 400 kilowatt, steam-powered
generators which powered 150 electric motors and also serviced 10,000
incandescent lamps, 1,500 bells used to call stewards. 520 heaters, a telephone
exchange of 50 lines, passengers signs, cranes, elevators, winches fans,
navigational aids and workshop and kitchen utilities.
I should point out there
was initially an uncontrollable fire in one of the Titanic’s coal bunkers when the ship headed out to sea and the fire
weakened the hull where the fire was located but ship’s demise was not a direct
result of the fire.
Building
the ship took three years and involved 15,000 workmen in which thousands of
them were building the fixtures and walls inside of the ship. The gantry that was specifically built to
raise various sections of the ship was twice the height of the Washington Monument
Passengers and Crew
The
full compliment of the ship was 1,310 passengers and 913 crew members including
the captain and his officers. Those figures apparently have varied over the
years so I don’t think anyone knows the right numbers.
There
were three classes of passengers. They were; First Class, Second Class and
Third Class (also referred to as steerage)
First Class
The suites and cabins on
the Titanic cost the passengers no small sum for the time. At
approximately $100,000 a pop in today’s dollars, you can see why the world’s
richest and most elite sailed on the Titanic because only they could
afford the parlor suites. First-class accommodations
were located amidships, where the rocking of the ship was less keenly felt and
passengers were less likely to get seasick. They were decorated opulently in
different period styles: Queen Anne, Louis XVI, and Georgian. The parlor suites
came with wardrobe rooms, private baths, and in some cases, private promenades.
All first-class accommodations were equipped with telephones, heaters, special
gimbal lamps that were designed not to tip over in choppy seas, table fans, and
(of course) call bells for summoning the steward. If the parlor suite didn’t
suffice, a wealthy family could purchase several first-class cabins adjacent to
one another and open the interconnecting doors between the cabins to have a
suite of their own.
Some of the
most prominent people of the day booked a passage aboard the Titanic,
travelling in First Class. Among them were the American millionaire John Jacob Astor IV and his wife Madeleine Force
Astor, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy's
owner Isidor Straus
and his wife Ida, Denver
millionairess Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife, couturière
Lucy (Lady
Duff-Gordon), cricketer and businessman John Borland Thayer with his wife Marian
together with their son Jack, the Countess of Rothes, author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee, journalist and social
reformer William Thomas Stead, author Jacques Futrelle
with his wife May, and silent film actress Dorothy Gibson,
among others. Titanic's owner J. P. Morgan was scheduled to travel on
the maiden voyage, but cancelled at the last minute. Also aboard the ship were
the White Star Line's managing
director J. Bruce Ismay and Titanic's designer Thomas Andrews, who was
on board to observe any problems and assess the general performance of the new
ship.
First class passengers enjoyed a number of amenities including a
gymnasium, a squash court, a salt water swimming pool, electric and Turkish baths,
a barbershop, kennels for first class dogs, elevators and both open and
enclosed promenades. First class passengers also travelled accompanied by
personal staff—valets, maids, nurses for the children, chauffeurs and cooks who
probably slept in Second Class cabins.
For the 324 passengers in
first class, nothing was too opulent for them. To give you some idea of the
splendor they enjoyed on board that ship, consider the following dazzling
things they would encounter. After they descended the grand staircase, guests
would enter the first-class dining saloon through a reception area that had on
one of its walls, a specially commissioned Aubusson
tapestry (a medieval hunting scene) and a grand piano, accompanied by a
small orchestra. The dining saloon itself was massive, which was said to be the
largest room of any ship in that era that was afloat — 92 feet (28 metres) by
114 feet 34.7 metres). The oak
furniture, stained glass windows and tables added to the splendor.
The First Class passengers
fared much better that the other two classes. Their meals were of a standard
one would only find in the finest of restaurants. For example they would have for their main
meal; caviar, lobster, quail, eggs, grapes and peaches along with their tea or
their wine. Another main meal comprised of chicken, grilled mutton chops, with
mashed, chopped or un-pealed baked potatoes and for desert, apple meringue and
pastry. They were also served Surrey capon, ox tongue, oysters and for their
desert, pineapple royal.
Second Class
Second class passengers were primarily leisure tourists,
academics, members of the clergy and middle class English and American
families. Although employed as crew members, the ship's band of eight musicians
also had second class accommodations. The average ticket price for an adult second
class passenger was £13, the equivalent of £927 ($1,455.00 US) in 2010 and for many of these passengers, their travel
experience on the Titanic was akin to travelling first class on smaller
liners. Second class passengers had their own library and the men had access to
a private smoking room. Second class children could read the children's books
provided in the library or play deck quoits and shuffleboard
on the Second Class promenade which was just above the bridge.
Titanic’s second class
dining room was located on ‘D’ deck, could accommodate all 564 second class passengers
at a single seating. It was quite a large elegant room, with
mahogany furniture upholstered in crimson. A piano in the centre of the
room was provided entertainment for the diners. The long tables had white
tablecloths covering them and mahogany swivel chairs which were bolted to the
floors in case of bad weather at sea. The floor had linoleum tiles comprised of
a special design.
The dinner menu on the
evening of 14th of April 1912, the night of the collision, for the
second class passengers was a hearty three-course meal, with a consommé soup to
start, then a choice of four main courses: baked haddock, chicken curry, spring
lamb and roast turkey, followed by ice cream or jelly and coffee. Their meals weren’t as fine as those in First Class but
they were better than those in Third Class.
In second class,
passengers slept in berths built into the walls of the cabins. At two to four
berths per cabin, privacy was hard to come by, although a passenger could close
the curtain around his or her berth. Each cabin also had a chesterfield and a
writing desk. Each cabin had a washbasin and a chamber pot to be used in case
of seasickness. Second-class passengers had to use communal bathrooms for other
purposes.
Third Class
For
the immigrants who traveled in third class, the cost of a berth was no small
sum. The immigrants were poor, and raising that kind of money (approximately
$350 to $900 in today’s dollars) for passage to America
Third class passengers had
their own dining facilities, with chairs instead of benches on other ships and their
meals prepared by the third class kitchen staff. On other liners, the steerage
passengers would have been expected to bring their own food. Their meals were
also vastly different. For example, the first meal of the day for the third
class passengers was around noon and it included rice soup, beef and cabbage,
boiled potatoes, biscuits and bread followed by peaches and more bread. Their
last meal of the day would be in the late afternoon and it comprised of bread,
currant buns, a ragout of beef with potatoes and pickles and apricots and tea.
Rather than
dormitory-style sleeping areas as in the other ships, third class passengers on
the Titanic had their own cabins. The
single men and women were separated, women in the stern in two to six narrow
cabins, men in the bow in up to ten berth cabins in which they often shared
with strangers. Each stateroom was fitted with wood paneling and bunk beds with
mattresses, blankets, pillows, electric lights, heat and a washbasin with
running water, except for the bow cabins which did not have a private
washbasin. The crowded quarters had six passengers to each narrow cabin. Like
second-class passengers, they shared bathrooms, but the number of people
sharing a bathroom was much higher in third class: Only two bathtubs were
available for all 710 third-class passengers, one for the men and one for the
women and both bath tubs were at the stern of the ship which was a long walk
for those sleeping at the bow of the ship. In those days, many of the poor believed
that frequent bathing could cause respiratory disease; therefore, most
third-class passengers likely didn’t complain about the lack of bathtubs or the
distance some had to walk to get to them. The passengers in Third Class were
unusually comfortable by contemporary standards and all those passengers were
supplied with plenty of good food, which gave them better conditions than many
of them ever had experienced at home.
Third class
passengers gathered in the third class common room where they could play chess or cards, or walk
along the top
deck behind the last of the four funnels. Third class children played in the common room
or explored the ship.
The Crew
With
respect to the crew, there were approximately was the captain and his senior
officers such as his Chief officer, (second in command) and 11 deck officers
along with the chief engineer and the 23 officers under his command. The
greatest group of crew members were those working as cooks, stewards and those
keeping the stores. The second largest group of crew members were those working
in the engineering department. The firemen who stoked the furnaces were the third
largest group.
There
were 13 leading firemen (Stoker Foremen) and 163 firemen (Stokers) assigned to the Titanic.
The ship had 29 boilers, each containing three furnaces for a total of 159
furnaces. Each fireman was assigned one boiler and three furnaces. Of the Titanic's
six boiler rooms, each leading fireman was assigned to two of them with 10 to
15 firemen under him. Next to each boiler was a coal chute that deposited coal
from the overhead coal bunkers, and a fireman with a shovel would constantly
feed coal into the three furnaces. Shifts for all the firemen and their foremen
were four hours on and eight hours off. The heat in the boiler rooms usually
exceeded 120F degrees, so a four-hour shift was very demanding. Most of the
firemen worked wearing only their undershirts and shorts. On Friday, I will tell you who was to blame for the sinking of the Titanic.
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