History of the Titanic: Past and Present. Where did the Titanic sail from and to? Starting point, destination and route of the legendary ship

a ”Frederick Fleet noticed an iceberg right on the course about 650 m from the liner. Striking the bell three times, he reported to the bridge. The first assistant commanded the helmsman: "Left aboard!" - and moved the handles of the machine telegraphs to the "Full back" position. A little later, so that the liner did not hit the iceberg with the stern, he commanded: “Right on board!”. However, the Titanic was too large for a quick maneuver, and continued to move by inertia for another 25-30 seconds, until her nose began to slowly deviate to the left.

At 23:40, the Titanic tangentially collided with an iceberg. On the upper decks, people felt a slight push and a slight trembling of the hull; on the lower decks, the blow was more noticeable. As a result of the collision, six holes were formed in the starboard plating with a total length of about 90 meters. At 00:05, Captain Smith ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats for launch, then went into the radio room and ordered the radio operators to broadcast a distress signal.

Around 0:20 children and women were put into the boats. At 1:20 the water began to flood the forecastle. At this time, the first signs of panic appeared. The evacuation went faster. After 1:30 a.m., panic broke out on board. At about 2:00 the last boat was lowered, at 2:05 the water began to flood the boat deck and the captain's bridge. The remaining 1,500 people on board rushed towards the stern. The trim began to grow before our eyes, at 2:15 the first chimney collapsed. At 2:16 the power went out. At 02:18, with a bow trim of about 23°, the liner broke. The bow, falling off, immediately went to the bottom, and the stern filled with water and sank two minutes later.

At 2:20, the Titanic completely disappeared under the water. Hundreds of people swam to the surface, but almost all of them died from hypothermia. On two collapsible boats that did not have time to launch from the liner, about 45 people were saved. Eight more were rescued by two boats returning to the crash site (No. 4 and No. 14). An hour and a half after the Titanic was completely submerged, the steamer Carpathia arrived at the disaster site and picked up 712 survivors of the crash.

Reasons for the crash

After the tragedy, commissions were held to investigate the causes of this incident, and, according to official documents, the collision with the iceberg was the cause, and not the presence of defects in the ship's structure. The commission based its conclusion on how the ship sank. As noted by some survivors, the ship went to the bottom as a whole, and not in parts.

As the commission concluded, all the blame for the tragic catastrophe was placed on the captain of the ship. In 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard, who had been searching for a sunken ship for many years, was lucky. It was this happy event that helped shed light on the causes of the disaster. Scientists have determined that the Titanic broke in half on the surface of the ocean before it sank. This fact again drew media attention to the reasons for the sinking of the Titanic. New hypotheses arose, and one of the assumptions was based on the fact that low-grade steel was used in the construction of the ship, since it is a well-known fact that the Titanic was built on a tight schedule.

As a result of lengthy studies of the wreckage raised from the bottom, experts came to the conclusion that the cause of the disaster was low-quality rivets - the most important metal pins that tied together the steel plates of the ship's hull. Also, the studied wreckage showed that there were miscalculations in the design of the ship, and this is evidenced by the nature of the sinking of the ship. It was finally established that the stern of the ship did not rise high into the air, as previously believed, and the ship broke into pieces and sank. This indicates clear miscalculations in the design of the ship. However, after the disaster, this data was hidden. And only with the help of modern technology it was found that these circumstances led to one of the most terrible tragedies of mankind.

The Titanic is a British transatlantic steamship, the second Olympic-class liner. Built in Belfast at the shipyard "Harland and Wolf" from 1909 to 1912 by order of the shipping company "White Star Line".

At the time of commissioning, it was the largest ship in the world.

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, during the first flight, it crashed in the North Atlantic, colliding with an iceberg.

Vessel information

The Titanic was equipped with two four-cylinder steam engines and a steam turbine.

The entire power plant had a capacity of 55,000 liters. with.
The ship could reach speeds of up to 23 knots (42 km/h).
Its displacement, which exceeded the twin steamer Olympic by 243 tons, was 52,310 tons.
The ship's hull was made of steel.
The hold and lower decks were divided into 16 compartments by bulkheads with sealed doors.
If the bottom was damaged, the double bottom prevented water from entering the compartments.

Shipbuilder magazine called the Titanic virtually unsinkable, a statement widely circulated in the press and among the public.

In accordance with outdated regulations, the Titanic was equipped with 20 lifeboats, with a total capacity of 1,178 people, which was only a third of the ship's maximum load.

The cabins and public areas of the Titanic were divided into three classes.

First class passengers were offered a swimming pool, a squash court, an A la carte restaurant, two cafes, and a gym. All classes had dining and smoking lounges, open and closed promenades. The most luxurious and refined were the first-class interiors, made in various artistic styles using expensive materials such as mahogany, gilding, stained glass, silk and others. Cabins and salons of the third class were decorated as simply as possible: steel walls were painted white or sheathed with wooden panels.

1 On April 0, 1912, the Titanic left Southampton on her first and only voyage. Having made stops in French Cherbourg and Irish Queenstown, the ship entered the Atlantic Ocean with 1,317 passengers and 908 crew members on board. Captain Edward Smith commanded the ship. On April 14, the Titanic radio station received seven ice warnings, but the liner continued to move almost at top speed. To avoid meeting with floating ice, the captain ordered to go a little south of the usual route.

At 23:39 on April 14, the lookout reported to the captain's bridge about the iceberg directly ahead. Less than a minute later there was a collision. Having received several holes, the ship began to sink. First of all, women and children were put on the boats.
At 2:20 am on April 15, the Titanic sank, breaking in two, killing 1,496 people. 712 survivors were picked up by the steamer "Carpathia".

The wreckage of the Titanic rests at a depth of 3750 m. They were first discovered by the expedition of Robert Ballard in 1985. Subsequent expeditions recovered thousands of artifacts from the bottom. The bow and stern parts have sunk deep into the bottom silt and are in a deplorable state; it is not possible to bring them to the surface intact.

The wreck of the Titanic

The disaster claimed the lives of, according to various sources, from 1495 to 1635 people. Until December 20, 1987, when the Philippine ferry Dona Paz sank, killing more than 4,000 people, the death of the Titanic remained the largest in terms of the number of deaths at sea in peacetime. Informally, it is the most famous disaster of the 20th century.

Alternative versions of the death of the ship

And now - alternative versions, each of which has its adherents in the world club of mystery lovers.

Fire

A fire in the coal compartment that arose even before sailing and provoked an explosion first, and then a collision with an iceberg. The owners of the ship knew about the fire and tried to hide it from the passengers. This version was put forward by the British journalist Shenan Moloney, writes The Independent. Moloney has been investigating the causes of the sinking of the Titanic for over 30 years.

In particular, he studied photographs taken before the ship left the shipyard in Belfast. The journalist saw black marks along the right side of the ship's hull - just where the iceberg had pierced it. Subsequently, experts confirmed that the traces were probably caused by the fire that had started in the fuel storage. “We looked at exactly where the iceberg got stuck, and it seems that this part of the hull was very vulnerable in this place, and this happened even before it left the shipyard in Belfast,” says Moloney. A team of 12 tried to put out the flames, but they were too big to quickly bring under control. It could reach temperatures up to 1000 degrees Celsius, which made the Titanic's hull very vulnerable in this place. And when he hit the ice, experts say, he immediately broke. The publication also added that the management of the liner forbade passengers to talk about the fire. “This is a perfect match of unusual factors: fire, ice and malpractice. No one has investigated these marks before. It completely changes history,” says Moloney.

CONSPIRACY

Conspiracy theory: this is not the Titanic at all! This version was put forward by Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Watt, experts in the study of the reasons for the death of the ship, published in the book “The Titanic Mystery”. According to this theory, the wreck is not the Titanic at all, but its twin brother, the Olympic. These boats were virtually indistinguishable from each other. On September 20, 1911, the Olympic collided with the British Navy cruiser Hawke, resulting in severe damage to both ships. The owners of Olimpik suffered heavy losses, since the damage that was inflicted on Olimpik was not enough to cover the insurance payment.

The theory is based on the assumption of a possible fraud in order to obtain insurance payments by the owners of the Titanic. According to this version, the owners of the Titanic intended to send the Olympic to the area of possible ice formation and at the same time convinced the captain not to slow down so that the ship would be seriously damaged when it collided with an ice block. This version was initially supported by the fact that a sufficiently large number of objects were raised from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where the Titanic lies, but nothing was found that would carry the name Titanic. This theory was refuted after parts were raised to the surface, on which the Titanic's tail (building) number was stamped - 401. The Olympic had a tail number of 400. In addition, the Titanic's minted tail number was discovered and on the propeller of a sunken ship. And even despite this, the conspiracy theory still has a number of followers.

German attack

1912 The First World War is two years away, and the prospect of an armed conflict between Germany and Great Britain is becoming more and more likely. Germany is the owner of several dozen submarines, which during the war will unleash a ruthless hunt for enemy ships trying to cross the ocean. For example, the reason for America's entry into the war will be that the U-20 submarine will sink the Lusitania in 1915 - the twin of the same Mauritania that set the speed record and won the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic - remember?

Based on these facts, in the mid-nineties, some Western publications offered their own version of the death of the Titanic: a torpedo attack by a German submarine that secretly accompanied the liner. The purpose of the attack was to discredit the British fleet, famous for its power throughout the world. In accordance with this theory, the Titanic either did not collide with the iceberg at all, or received very minor damage in the collision and would have remained afloat if the Germans had not finished off the ship with a torpedo.

What speaks in favor of this version? Honestly, nothing.

There was a collision with an iceberg - this is beyond doubt. The deck of the ship was even covered with snow and ice chips. Cheerful passengers started playing football with ice cubes - that the ship is doomed, it will become clear later. The collision itself was surprisingly quiet - almost none of the passengers felt it. A torpedo, you see, could hardly have exploded completely silently (especially since some claim that the submarine fired as many as six torpedoes at the ship!).

Supporters of the theory of the German attack claim, however, that people in the boats heard a terrible roar just before the Titanic sank - well, that was two and a half hours later, when only the stern lifted up into the sky remained above the water and the death of the ship did not raise any doubts. It is unlikely that the Germans would have fired a torpedo at an almost sunken ship, would they? And the roar that the survivors heard was due to the fact that the stern of the Titanic rose almost vertically and huge steam boilers fell from their places. Also, do not forget that at about the same minutes, the Titanic broke in half - the keel could not withstand the weight of the rising stern (although they only find out about this after finding the liner at the bottom: the break occurred below the water level), and this is also unlikely to have happened silently . And why would the Germans suddenly begin to sink a passenger liner two years before the start of the war? This seems, to put it mildly, doubtful. And to put it bluntly, it's absurd.

A curse

Mystical version: the curse of the pharaohs. It is known for certain that one of the historians, Lord Canterville, transported on the Titanic in a wooden box a perfectly preserved Egyptian mummy of a priestess - soothsayer. Since the mummy had a rather high historical and cultural value, it was not placed in the hold, but placed directly next to the captain's bridge. The essence of the theory is that the mummy influenced the mind of Captain Smith, who, despite numerous warnings about ice in the area where the Titanic sailed, did not slow down and thereby doomed the ship to certain death. This version is supported by well-known cases of mysterious deaths of people who disturbed the peace of ancient burials, especially mummified Egyptian rulers. Moreover, the deaths were associated precisely with a clouding of the mind, as a result of which people committed inappropriate actions, there were often cases of suicide. Pharaohs had a hand in the sinking of the Titanic?

Steering error

One of the latest versions of the death of the Titanic deserves special attention. It appeared after the novel by the granddaughter of the second mate of the captain of the Titanic, Ch. Lightoller, Lady Patten, “Worth its weight in gold”, was published. According to the version put forward by Patten in his book, the ship had enough time to dodge the obstacle, but the helmsman, Robert Hitchens, panicked and turned the helm in the wrong direction.

A catastrophic error caused the iceberg to inflict fatal damage on the ship. The truth about what really happened on that fateful night was kept secret in the family of Lightoller, the oldest surviving officer of the Titanic and the only survivor who knew exactly what caused the sinking of the ship. Lightoller withheld this information for fear that the White Star Line, which owned the ship, would go bankrupt and his colleagues would lose their jobs. The only person to whom Lightoller told the truth was his wife Sylvia, who passed on her husband's words to her granddaughter. In addition, according to Patten, such a large and reliable liner as the Titanic sank so quickly because, after a collision with an ice block, it was not immediately stopped, and the rate of water entering the holds increased hundreds of times. The liner was not immediately stopped because the manager of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, persuaded the captain to continue sailing. He feared that the incident could cause considerable material damage to the company he leads.

Chasing the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic

There were and still are many supporters of this theory, especially among writers, since it appeared precisely in writers' circles. The Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic is a prestigious shipping award given to ocean liners for the fastest crossing of the North Atlantic.

At the time of the Titanic, this prize was given to the Mauritania ship of the Cunard company, which, by the way, was the founder of this award, as well as the main competitor of the White Star Line. In defense of this theory, the opinion is put forward that the president of the company that owned the Titanic, Ismay, encouraged the captain of the Titanic, Smith, to arrive in New York a day ahead of schedule and receive an honorary prize. This allegedly explains the high speed of the ship in the dangerous area of the Atlantic. But this theory can easily be refuted, because the Titanic simply physically could not reach the speed of 26 knots at which the Mauritania of the Cunard company set a record, which, by the way, lasted more than 10 years after the disaster in the Atlantic.

But how was it really?

Regrettably, but, studying the history of the most famous maritime disaster, one has to admit that the Titanic owes its death to a long chain of fatal accidents. If at least one link of the sinister chain had been destroyed, the tragedy could have been avoided.

Perhaps the first link was the successful start of the journey - yes, yes, that's right. On the morning of April 10, during the departure of the Titanic from the quay wall of Southampton port, the superliner passed too close to the American ship New York, and a phenomenon known in navigation as the suction of ships arose: the New York began to be attracted to the moving nearby "Titanic". However, thanks to the skill of Captain Edward Smith, a collision was avoided.

Ironically, if an accident had happened, it would have saved one and a half thousand lives: if the Titanic had lingered in the port, the ill-fated encounter with the iceberg would not have happened.

This time. It should also be mentioned that the radio operators who received the message from the Mesaba ship about the ice fields of icebergs did not pass it on to Edward Smith: the telegram was not marked with a special prefix “personally to the captain”, and was lost in a pile of papers. This is two.

However, this message was not the only one, and the captain knew about the ice danger. Why didn't he slow down the ship? Chasing the Blue Ribbon is, of course, a matter of honor (and, more importantly, of big business), but why did he risk the lives of passengers? Not that much of a risk, really. In those years, the captains of ocean liners often passed through areas dangerous by ice without slowing down: it was like crossing the road at a red light: it seems that you can’t do that, but it always works out. Almost always.

To the credit of Captain Smith, it must be said that he remained true to maritime traditions and remained on the dying ship to the very end.

But why was the bulk of the iceberg not seen? Here everything turned out one to one: a moonless, dark night, windless weather. If there were at least small waves on the water surface, the lookouts could see white lambs at the foot of the iceberg. Calm and moonless night are two more links in the fatal chain.

As it turned out later, the chain was continued by the fact that the iceberg, shortly before the collision with the Titanic, turned its underwater dark part upside down, saturated with water, due to which it was practically invisible from a distance at night (an ordinary, white iceberg would be distinguishable for a mile ). The sentinel saw him only 450 meters away, and there was almost no time for maneuver. Perhaps the iceberg would have been seen earlier, but another link in the fatal chain played a role here - there were no binoculars in the "crow's nest". The box where they were stored turned out to be locked, and the second assistant to the captain, taken from the ship just before departure, hastily took the key to it with him.

After the lookout nevertheless saw the danger and reported the iceberg to the captain's bridge, a little more than half a minute remained before the collision. The officer of the watch, Murdoch, who was on watch, gave the helmsman the order to turn left, at the same time transmitting the command "full astern" to the engine room. Thus, he made a gross mistake by adding another link in the chain that led the liner to death: even if the Titanic had crashed into the iceberg head-on, the tragedy would have been less. The bow of the ship would have been crushed, part of the crew and those passengers whose cabins were located in front would have died. But only two watertight compartments would be flooded. With such damage, the liner would have remained afloat and could wait for the help of other ships.

And if Murdoch, turning the ship to the left, ordered to increase, and not decrease the speed, the collision might not have happened at all. However, frankly speaking, the order to change the speed is unlikely to play a significant role here: in thirty seconds it was hardly possible to execute it in the engine room.

So the collision happened. The iceberg damaged the ship's fragile hull along the six starboard compartments.

Looking ahead, let's say that only seven hundred and four managed to escape: the next link in the chain of failures was that some sailors took the captain's order to put women and children into the boats too literally, and did not let men go there, even if there were empty seats. However, at first no one was particularly eager to get into the boats. The passengers did not understand what was the matter, and did not want to leave the huge, comfortably lit, such a reliable liner and it was not clear why they would go down in a small unstable boat down to the icy water. However, pretty soon, anyone could notice that the deck was tilting forward more and more, and panic began.

But why was there such a monstrous discrepancy in the places on the lifeboats? The owners of the Titanic, praising the merits of the new ship, stated that they even overfulfilled the instructions of the code: instead of the required 962 rescue places, there were 1178 on the ship. Unfortunately, they did not attach any importance to the discrepancy between this number and the number of passengers on board.

It is especially bitter that not far from the sinking Titanic, another passenger steamer, the Californian, stood, waiting out the danger of ice. A few hours ago, he notified neighboring ships that he was locked in ice and forced to stop so as not to accidentally run into an ice block. The radio operator from the Titanic, who was almost stunned by the Morse code from the Californian (the ships were very close, and the signal of one was too loud in the headphones of the other), impolitely interrupted the warning: “Go to hell, you are preventing me from working!”. What was the radio operator of the Titanic so busy with?

The fact is that in those years, radio communication on a ship was more of a luxury than an urgent need, and this miracle of technology aroused great interest among the wealthy public. From the very beginning of the voyage, radio operators were literally inundated with messages of a private nature - and no one saw anything reprehensible in the fact that Titanic radio operators paid such attention to wealthy passengers who wished to send a telegram to the ground directly from the ship. So at that moment, when colleagues from other ships reported on floating ice, the radio operator transmitted another message to the continent. Radio communication was more like an expensive toy than a serious tool: the ships of that time did not even have a round-the-clock watch at the radio station.

105 years ago, on April 15, 1912, the "unsinkable ship", "the largest and most luxurious ocean liner" crashed into an iceberg on its very first flight and took more than 1,500 passengers to the bottom of the ocean. It would seem that for many decades there are no more secrets and secrets about this terrible catastrophe. And yet let's remember how it was.

Captain Edward Smith aboard the Titanic. Photo: New York Times

First official version

Two government investigations that were carried out in the wake of the disaster, decided that it was the iceberg, and not the defects of the ship, that caused the death of the liner. Both commissions of inquiry concluded that the Titanic sank not in parts, but in its entirety - there were no major faults.

The blame for this tragedy was completely shifted to the shoulders of the ship's captain, Edward Smith, who died along with his crew and passengers of the Atlantic liner. Experts reproached Smith for the fact that the ship was moving at a speed of 22 knots (41 km) through a dangerous ice field - in dark waters, not far from the coast of Newfoundland.

Discovery of Robert Ballard

In 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard, after a long unsuccessful search, still managed to find the remains of the ship at a depth of about four kilometers at the bottom of the ocean. Then he discovered that in fact the Titanic had split in half before sinking.

A couple of years later, the wreckage of the ship was first brought to the surface and a new hypothesis immediately appeared - low-grade steel was used to build an "unsinkable ship". However, according to experts, it was not steel at all that turned out to be low-grade, but rivets - the most important metal pins that bind together the steel plates of the hull of the liner. And the found wreckage of the Titanic does indicate that the stern of the ship did not rise high into the air, as many believed. It is believed that the "Titanic" was divided into parts, being relatively even on the surface of the ocean - this is a clear sign of miscalculations in the design of the ship, which were hidden after the disaster.

Design miscalculations

"Titanic" was built in a short time - in response to the production of a new generation of high-speed liners by competitors.

The Titanic could keep afloat even if 4 of its 16 watertight compartments were flooded - amazing for a ship of such gigantic size.

However, on the night of April 14-15, 1912, in just a few days of the debut flight of the liner, its Achilles heel was opened. The ship, due to its size, was not nimble enough to be able to avoid the iceberg that the sentinels were screaming about at the last minute. The Titanic did not collide with the fatal iceberg head-on, but drove over it on its right side - the ice punched holes in the steel plates, flooding six "watertight" compartments. And after a couple of hours the ship was completely filled with water and sank.

According to experts studying the Titanic's potential weak spot, the rivets, they found that due to the fact that time was running out, builders began to use low-grade material. When the liner hit the iceberg, the weak steel rods in the ship's bow could not stand it and cracked. It is believed that it is not by chance that the water, having flooded six compartments fastened with low-grade steel rods, stopped exactly where the high-grade steel rivets began.

In 2005, another expedition studying the crash site, using the wreckage of the bottom, managed to establish that during the crash the ship tilted only about 11 degrees, and not at all 45, as was long thought.

Memories of Passengers

Due to the fact that the ship listed quite a bit, the passengers and crew had a false sense of security - many of them did not understand the seriousness of the situation. When the water flooded the bow of the hull sufficiently, the ship, remaining afloat, broke in two and sank in minutes.

Charlie Jugin, the Titanic's chef, was standing close to the stern at the time of the ship's wreck and noticed no sign of the hull breaking. neither did he notice the suction funnel or the colossal splash. According to his information, he calmly sailed away from the ship, without even getting his hair wet.

However, some passengers in the lifeboats claimed to have seen the Titanic's stern high in the air. However, this could only be an optical illusion. With an 11-degree tilt, propellers sticking out in the air, the 20-story building Titanic seemed even higher, and its roll into the water even more.

How the Titanic sank: a real-time model

In New York, they sold the menu of the last dinner on the wrecked liner Titanic in 1912. They got 88 thousand dollars (about 1.9 million hryvnias) for it.

The company "Blue Star Line" announced the construction of "Titanic-2". According to the designers, the ship will be an exact copy of the famous liner that sank in 1912. However, the liner will be equipped with modern security features. Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer came to finance the project.

Now this 105-year-old cracker is considered the most expensive in the world.

It turns out that a Spillers and Bakers cracker called "Pilot" was included in the survival kit that was placed on every lifeboat. Later, one of these products went to a man who kept it as a souvenir. It was James Fenwick, a passenger on the Carpathia, which was raising shipwrecked survivors.

REFERENCE

On the night of April 15, 1912, the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank. He sailed in the Atlantic Ocean on his way from Southampton (England) to New York. Then about 1.5 thousand people died, mostly third-class passengers. In total, it was more than 2.2 thousand people.

You have already read and heard about the Titanic many times. The history of the creation and crash of the liner is overgrown with rumors and myths. For more than 100 years, the British steamship has been haunting the minds of people trying to find the answer - why did the Titanic sink?

The history of the legendary liner is interesting for three reasons:

it was the largest ship for 1912;
the number of victims turned the catastrophe into a global failure;
finally, James Cameron, with his film, singled out the history of the liner from the general list of maritime disasters, and there were quite a few of them.

We will tell you everything about the Titanic, as it was in reality. About how long the Titanic is in meters, how much the Titanic sank, and who was really behind the massive disaster.

Where did the Titanic sail from and to?

We know from Cameron's film that the liner was bound for New York. The American up-and-coming city was to be the final stop. But far from everyone knows for sure where the Titanic sailed from, considering that London was the starting point. The capital of Great Britain was not in the ranks of seaports, and therefore the steamer could not leave from there.

The fateful flight began from Southampton, a major English port, from where transatlantic flights ran. The path of the Titanic on the map clearly shows the movement. Southampton is both a port and a city located in the southern part of England (Hampshire).

See how the route of the Titanic ran on the map:

Dimensions of the Titanic in meters

To understand more about the Titanic, the causes of the disaster must be disclosed, starting with the dimensions of the ship.

How many meters is the Titanic in length and in other dimensions:

exact length - 299.1 m;

width - 28.19 m;

height from the keel - 53.3 m.

There is also such a question - how many decks did the Titanic have? Only 8. Boats were located on the top, therefore the upper deck was called the boat deck. The rest were distributed according to the letter designation.

A - deck I class. Its peculiarity is limited in size - it did not lie down the entire length of the vessel;

B - anchors were located in the front of the deck and its dimensions were also shorter - by 37 meters of deck C;

C - deck with a galley, a mess for the crew and a promenade for class III.

D - walking area;

E - cabins I, II classes;

F - cabins II and III classes;

G - deck with boiler rooms in the middle.

Finally, how much does the Titanic weigh? The displacement of the largest ship of the early 20th century is 52,310 tons.

Titanic: the story of the crash

What year did the Titanic sink? The famous disaster occurred on the night of April 14, 1912. It was the fifth day of the trip. Chronicles indicate that at 23:40 the liner survived a collision with an iceberg and after 2 hours 40 minutes (2:20 a.m.) it went under water.

Things from the Titanic: photo

Further investigations showed that the crew received 7 weather warnings, but this did not prevent the ship from reducing its speed limit. The iceberg was sighted directly ahead of us too late to take precautions. As a result - holes in the starboard side. Ice damaged 90 m of hull and 5 bow compartments. This was enough to sink the liner.

Tickets for the new liner were more expensive than for other ships. If a person was used to traveling in first class, then on the Titanic he would have to transfer to second class.

Edward Smith, the captain of the ship, began the evacuation after midnight: a distress call was sent, the attention of other ships was attracted by flares, lifeboats went to the water. But the rescue was slow and uncoordinated - there was an empty place in the boats while the Titanic was sinking, the water temperature did not rise above two degrees below zero, and the first steamer arrived in time only half an hour after the disaster.

Titanic: how many people died and survived

How many people survived on the Titanic? No one will say the exact data, as they could not say this on the fateful night. The list of Titanic passengers initially changed in practice, but not on paper: some canceled the trip at the time of departure and were not crossed out, others traveled anonymously under assumed names, and others were listed as dead on the Titanic several times.

Photos of the sinking of the Titanic

It is only approximately possible to say how many people drowned on the Titanic - about 1500 (minimum 1490 - maximum 1635). Among them was Edward Smith with some assistants, 8 musicians from the famous orchestra, large investors and businessmen.

Classiness was felt even after death - the bodies of the dead from the first class were embalmed and placed in coffins, the second and third classes were given bags and boxes. When the embalming agents ran out, the bodies of unknown third-class passengers were simply thrown into the water (according to the rules, unembalmed corpses could not be brought to the port).

The bodies were found within a radius of 80 km from the crash site, and due to the current of the Gulf Stream, many were dispersed even further.

Photos of dead people

Initially, it was known how many passengers were on the Titanic, although not completely:

crew of 900 people;

195 first class;

255 second class;

493 people of the third class.

Some passengers left at intermediate ports, some called. It is believed that the liner went to the fatal route with a staff of 1317 people, of which 124 are children.

Titanic: scuttling depth - 3750 m

The English steamer could accommodate 2,566 people, of which 1,034 seats were for first-class passengers. The half-load of the liner is due to the fact that transatlantic flights were not popular in April. At that time, a coal strike broke out, this disrupted coal supplies, schedules and changes in plans.

The question of how many people escaped the Titanic was difficult to answer, because the rescue operations took place from different ships, and the slow connection did not provide fast data.

After the crash, only 2/3 of the delivered bodies were identified. Some were buried locally, the rest were sent home. In the disaster area, bodies in white vests were found for a long time. Of the 1,500 people who died, only 333 bodies were found.

How deep is the Titanic

When answering the question about the depth at which the Titanic sank, one must remember about the pieces carried by the currents (by the way, they learned about this only in the 80s, before that it was believed that the liner sank to the bottom entirely). The wreckage of the liner on the night of the crash went at a depth of 3750 m. The bow was thrown 600 m from the stern.

The place where the Titanic sank, on the map:

In which ocean did the Titanic sink? - in the Atlantic.

Titanic lifted from the bottom of the ocean

They wanted to raise the ship from the moment of the crash. Initiative plans were put forward by relatives of the dead from the first class. But 1912 did not yet know the necessary technologies. The war, lack of knowledge and funds delayed the search for the sunken ship for a hundred years. Since 1985, 17 expeditions have been carried out, during which 5,000 items and large plating have been raised to the surface, but the ship itself has remained at the bottom of the ocean.

What does the Titanic look like now?

In the time since the crash, the ship has become covered in marine life. Rust, painstaking work of invertebrates and natural decomposition processes have changed the structures beyond recognition. By this time, the bodies had already completely decomposed, and by the 22nd century, only anchors and boilers would remain from the Titanic - the most massive metal structures.

Even now the interiors of the decks have been destroyed, the cabins and halls have collapsed.

Titanic, Britannic and Olympic

All three ships were manufactured by the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company. Before the Titanic, the Olympic saw the world. It is easy to see a fatal predisposition in the fate of the three ships. The first liner was wrecked as a result of a collision with a cruiser. Not such a large-scale disaster, but still an impressive failure.

Then the story of the Titanic, which received a wide response in the world, and, finally, the Gigantic. They tried to make this ship especially durable, given the mistakes of previous liners. He was even launched into the water, but the First World War disrupted the plans. The giant became a hospital ship called the Britannic.

He then just managed to carry out 5 quiet flights, and on the sixth there was a disaster. Having been blown up by a German mine, the Britannic rapidly sank. The mistakes of the past and the preparedness of the captain made it possible to save the maximum number of people - 1036 out of 1066.

Is it possible to talk about evil fate, remembering the Titanic? The history of the creation and crash of the liner were studied in detail, the facts were revealed, even through time. And yet the truth is only now being revealed. The reason the Titanic is attracting attention is to hide its true motive - to create a currency system and destroy opponents.

The Titanic is a British steamer of the White Star Line, one of three twin ships of the Olympic class. The largest passenger liner in the world at the time of its construction. On its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, it collided with an iceberg.

and sank after 2 hours and 40 minutes.

There were 1,316 passengers and 892 crew members on board, for a total of 2,208 people. Of these, 704 people survived, more than 1,500 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary and was one of the largest shipwrecks in history. Several feature films have been shot on its plot.

Building

It was laid down on March 31, 1909 at the shipyards of the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company in Queens Island (Belfast, Northern Ireland), launched on May 31, 1911, and passed sea trials on April 2, 1912.

Specifications

height from the keel to the tops of the pipes - 53.3 m;

engine room - 29 boilers, 159 coal furnaces;

The unsinkability of the ship was ensured by 15 watertight bulkheads in the hold, creating 16 conditionally "watertight" compartments; the space between the bottom and the flooring of the second bottom was divided by transverse and longitudinal partitions into 46 watertight compartments.

Bulkheads

Watertight bulkheads, marked from bow to stern with the letters "A" to "P", rose from the second bottom and passed through 4 or 5 decks: the first two and the last five reached deck "D", eight bulkheads in the center of the liner reached only the deck "E". All bulkheads were so strong that they had to withstand significant pressure when getting a hole. The Titanic was built to stay afloat if any two of its 16 watertight compartments, any three of the first five compartments, or all of the first four compartments were flooded.

The first two bulkheads in the bow and the last in the stern were solid, all the rest had sealed doors that allowed the crew and passengers to move between compartments. On the flooring of the second bottom, in the bulkhead "K", there were the only doors that led to the cooling chamber.
On decks "F" and "E" in almost all bulkheads there were airtight doors connecting the rooms used by passengers, all of them could be battened down both remotely and manually, using a device located directly on the door and from the deck to which it reached bulkhead. To batten down such doors on the passenger decks, a special key was required, which was available only to the senior stewards. But on deck "G" there were no doors in the bulkheads.

In the bulkheads "D" - "O", directly above the second bottom in the compartments where the machines and boilers were located, there were 12 vertically closing doors, they were controlled by an electric drive from the navigation bridge.
In case of danger or accident, or when the captain or watch officer deemed it necessary, electromagnets released the latches on a signal from the bridge and all 12 doors fell under their own gravity and the space behind them turned out to be hermetically closed. If the doors were closed by an electric signal from the bridge, then it was possible to open them only after removing the voltage from the electric drive.

In the ceiling of each compartment was a spare hatch, usually leading to the boat deck. Those who did not have time to leave the room before the doors closed could climb its iron ladder.

boats

In formal accordance with the current requirements of the British Merchant Shipping Code, the ship had 20 lifeboats, which were enough to board 1178 people, that is, for 50% of the people on board at that moment and 30% of the planned load. This was taken into account with the expectation of increasing the walking space on the deck of the passengers of the ship.

Decks

On the Titanic there were 8 steel decks located one above the other at a distance of 2.5 - 3.2 m. The uppermost one was a boat deck, under it there were seven others, indicated from top to bottom with letters from "A" to "G". Only decks "C", "D", "E" and "F" stretched along the entire length of the vessel. The boat deck and the "A" deck did not reach either the bow or the stern, and the "G" deck was located only in the front of the liner - from the boiler rooms to the bow and in the aft - from the engine room to the stern cut. On the open boat deck there were 20 lifeboats, along the sides there were promenade decks.

Deck "A" with a length of 150 m was almost entirely intended for first-class passengers. B Deck was interrupted at the bow to form an open space above C Deck, and then continued as a 37-meter bow superstructure with anchor handling equipment and mooring arrangements.

In front of deck "C" there were anchor winches for the two main side anchors, there was also a galley and a dining room for sailors and stokers. Behind the bow superstructure there was a promenade (the so-called inter-superstructure) deck for third-class passengers 15 m long. On deck “D” there was another, isolated, third-class promenade deck.
Along the entire length of deck "E" were the cabins of passengers of the first and second classes, as well as the cabins of the stewards and mechanics. In the first part of deck "F" there were 64 cabins for passengers of the second class and the main living quarters for passengers of the third, stretching for 45 m and occupying the entire width of the liner.

There were two large salons, a dining room for third-class passengers, ship's laundries, a swimming pool and Turkish baths. Deck "G" captured only the bow and stern, between which the boiler rooms were located.
The forward part of the deck, 58 m long, was 2 m above the waterline, gradually lowered towards the center of the liner and at the opposite end was already at the level of the waterline. There were 26 cabins for 106 third class passengers, the rest of the area was occupied by the luggage compartment for first class passengers, the ship's mail and the ball room.
Behind the bow of the deck there were coal bunkers, which occupied 6 watertight compartments around the chimneys, followed by 2 compartments with steam pipes for reciprocating steam engines and a turbine compartment. This was followed by the aft part of the deck 64 m long with warehouses, pantries and 60 cabins for 186 third-class passengers, which was already below the waterline.

Masts

One was aft, the other was on the forecastle, each was steel with a teak top. On the front, at a height of 29 m from the waterline, there was a mars platform (“crow's nest”), which could be reached by an internal metal ladder.

Service premises

In front of the boat deck there was a navigation bridge, 58 m away from the bow. On the bridge there was a wheelhouse with a steering wheel and a compass, immediately behind it was a room where navigation charts were stored. To the right of the wheelhouse were the navigational cabin, the captain's cabin and part of the officers' cabins, to the left - the rest of the officers' cabins.
Behind them, behind the front funnel, was the cabin of the radiotelegraph and the cabin of the radio operator. In front of deck "D" there were living quarters for 108 stokers, a special spiral ladder connected this deck directly to the boiler rooms, so that the stokers could leave for work and return without passing by the cabins or saloons for passengers.
In front of deck "E" there were living quarters for 72 loaders and 44 sailors. In the first part of the "F" deck there were quarters of 53 stokers of the third shift. Deck G contained quarters for 45 stokers and oilers.

Second bottom

The second bottom was located about one and a half meters above the keel and occupied 9/10 of the ship's length, not capturing only small areas in the bow and stern.

On the second day, boilers, reciprocating steam engines, a steam turbine and electric generators were installed, all firmly fixed on steel plates, the remaining space was used for cargo, coal and drinking water tanks. In the engine room section, the second bottom rose 2.1 m above the keel, which increased the protection of the liner in case of damage to the outer skin.

Power point

The registered power of steam engines and turbines was 50 thousand liters. with. (actually 55 thousand hp). The turbine was located in the fifth watertight compartment in the stern of the liner, in the next compartment, closer to the bow, steam engines were located, the other 6 compartments were occupied by twenty-four double-flow and five single-flow boilers that produced steam for the main machines, turbines, generators and auxiliary mechanisms.
The diameter of each boiler was 4.79 m, the length of the double-flow boiler was 6.08 m, the single-flow boiler was 3.57 m. Each double-flow boiler had 6 fireboxes, and the single-flow boiler had 3.
In addition, the Titanic was equipped with four auxiliary machines with generators, each with a capacity of 400 kilowatts, generating a current of 100 volts. Next to them were two more 30-kilowatt generators.

Pipes

The liner had 4 tubes. The diameter of each was 7.3 m, the height was 18.5 m. The first three removed smoke from the boiler furnaces, the fourth, located above the turbine compartment, served as an exhaust fan, a chimney for ship kitchens was connected to it. A longitudinal section of the vessel is presented on its model exhibited at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it is clearly seen that the last pipe was not connected to the fireboxes.
There is an opinion that when designing the vessel, the widespread opinion of the public was taken into account that the solidity and reliability of the vessel directly depends on the number of its pipes.
It also follows from the literature that in the last moments of the ship leaving the water almost vertically, its fake pipe fell off its place and, falling into the water, killed a large number of passengers and crew members in the water.

Electrical supply

10 thousand light bulbs, 562 electric heaters were connected to the distribution network, mainly in first-class cabins, 153 electric motors, including electric drives for eight cranes with a total capacity of 18 tons, 4 cargo winches with a capacity of 750 kg, 4 elevators, each for 12 people, and lots of phones. In addition, electricity was consumed by fans in the boiler and engine rooms, apparatus in the gym, dozens of machines and appliances in the kitchens, including refrigerators.

Connection

The telephone exchange serviced 50 lines. The radio equipment on the liner was the most modern, the power of the main transmitter was 5 kilowatts, the power came from an electric generator. The second, an emergency transmitter, was powered by batteries. 4 antennas were strung between two masts, some up to 75 m high.
The guaranteed range of the radio signal was 250 miles. During the day, under favorable conditions, communication was possible at a distance of up to 400 miles, and at night - up to 2000. The radio equipment came on board on April 2 from the Marconi company, which by that time had monopolized the radio industry in Italy and England.
Two young radio officer officers assembled and installed the station all day, for verification, a test connection was immediately made with the coast station at Malin Head, on the north coast of Ireland, and with Liverpool. On April 3, the radio equipment worked like clockwork, on this day a connection was established with the island of Tenerife at a distance of 2000 miles and with Port Said in Egypt (3000 miles).
In January 1912, the Titanic was assigned the radio call sign "MUC", then they were replaced by "MGY", previously owned by the American ship Yale. As the dominant radio company, Marconi introduced its own radio call signs, most of which began with the letter "M", regardless of its location and the country of home of the vessel on which it was installed.

clash

Recognizing an iceberg in a light haze, the forward looking Fleet warned “there is ice in front of us” and struck the bell three times, which meant an obstacle straight ahead, after which he rushed to the telephone connecting the “crow’s nest” with the bridge.
Moody's sixth mate, who was on the bridge, responded almost immediately and heard a cry of "ice right ahead". With a polite thank you, Moody turned to the officer of the watch, Murdoch, and repeated the warning.
He rushed to the telegraph, put his handle on "stop" and shouted "rudder right", at the same time transmitting the order "full back" to the engine room.

According to the terminology of 1912, "rudder right" meant turning the ship's stern to the right and the bow to the left. The steersman, Robert Hitchens, leaned on the handle of the steering wheel and quickly turned it counterclockwise to the stop, after which Murdoch was told "rudder to the right, sir."
At that moment, Alfred Oliver, the helmsman of the watch, and Boxhall, who was in the chart house, came running to the bridge when the bells rang out in the "crow's nest". Murdoch pulled the lever, which included the closing of watertight doors in the bulkheads of the boiler rooms and the engine room, and immediately gave the order "left rudder!" Lifeboats.

There were 2,208 people on board the Titanic, but the total capacity of the lifeboats was only 1,178 people. The reason was that, according to the rules then in force, the total capacity of lifeboats depended on the tonnage of the ship, and not on the number of passengers and crew members. The rules were drawn up in 1894, when the largest ships had a displacement of about 10,000 tons.

The displacement of the Titanic was 46,328 tons.

But even these boats were only partially filled. Captain Smith gave the order or instruction "women and children first". The officers interpreted this order in different ways.
Second mate Lightoller, who commanded the launching of the boats on the port side, allowed the men to take places in the boats only if rowers were needed and under no other circumstances.
First mate Murdoch, who commanded the launching of the boats on the starboard side, allowed the men to go down if there were no women and children.
So, in boat number 1, only 12 seats out of 40 were occupied. In addition, at first, many passengers did not want to take seats in boats, because the Titanic, which had no external damage, seemed safer to them. The last boats filled better, because it was already obvious to the passengers that the Titanic would sink.
In the very last boat, 44 seats out of 47 were occupied. But in the sixteenth boat that left the side there were many empty seats, passengers of the 1st class were saved in it.

As a result of the analysis of the operation to rescue people from the Titanic, it is concluded that with adequate actions by the team of victims, there would have been at least 553 fewer people.
The reason for the low survival rate of passengers on the ship is the installation given by the captain to save, first of all, women and children, and not all passengers; the interest of the crew in this order of boarding the boats. By preventing male passengers from accessing the boats, the men from the crew got the opportunity to take places in the half-empty boats themselves, covering their interests with the “noble motives” of caring for women and children.
In the event that all passengers, men and women, took their places in the boats, the men from the crew would not get into them and their chances of salvation would be equal to zero, and the crew could not help but understand this.
The men from the crew occupied part of the seats in almost all boats during the evacuation from the ship, on average 10 people from the crew per 1 boat.
24% of the crew were saved, about the same as 3rd class passengers were saved (25%). The team had no reason to consider their duty fulfilled - most of the passengers remained on the ship with no hope of salvation, even the order to save women and children in the first place was not fulfilled (several dozen children, and more than a hundred women never got into the boats).

The report of the British Commission on the results of the investigation into the circumstances of the sinking of the Titanic states that "if the boats had been delayed a little longer before launching, or if the doors of the passage had been opened for passengers, more of them could have got on the boats."
The reason for the low survival rate of class 3 passengers with a high degree of probability can be considered the obstacles placed by the crew for the passage of passengers to the deck, the closing of the passage doors.
Comparison of the results of the evacuation from the Titanic with the results of the evacuation from the Lusitania (1915) shows that the evacuation operation on ships like the Titanic and Lusitania can be organized without a disproportion in the percentage of survivors depending on the sex or class of passengers.

People in boats, as a rule, did not save those who were in the water. On the contrary, they tried to sail as far as possible from the wreck, fearing that those in the water would capsize their boats or be sucked into the funnel from a sinking ship. Only 6 people were picked up alive from the water.