rms titanic essay

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 2, 2024 | Original: November 9, 2009

The RMS Titanic, a luxury steamship, sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic after sideswiping an iceberg during its maiden voyage. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,500 lost their lives in the disaster. Titanic has inspired countless books, articles and films (including the 1997 Titanic movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio), and the ship's story has entered the public consciousness as a cautionary tale about the perils of human hubris.

The Building of the RMS Titanic

The Titanic was the product of intense competition among rival shipping lines in the first half of the 20th century. In particular, the White Star Line found itself in a battle for steamship primacy with Cunard, a venerable British firm with two standout ships that ranked among the most sophisticated and luxurious of their time.

Cunard’s Mauretania began service in 1907 and quickly set a speed record for the fastest average speed during a transatlantic crossing (23.69 knots or 27.26 mph), a title that it held for 22 years.

Cunard’s other masterpiece, Lusitania , launched the same year and was lauded for its spectacular interiors. Lusitania met its tragic end on May 7, 1915, when a torpedo fired by a German U-boat sunk the ship, killing nearly 1,200 of the 1,959 people on board and precipitating the United States’ entry into World War I .

Did you know? Passengers traveling first class on Titanic were roughly 44 percent more likely to survive than other passengers.

The same year that Cunard unveiled its two magnificent liners, J. Bruce Ismay, chief executive of White Star, discussed the construction of three large ships with William J. Pirrie, chairman of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff. Part of a new “Olympic” class of liners, each ship would measure 882 feet in length and 92.5 feet at their broadest point, making them the largest of their time.

In March 1909, work began in the massive Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, on the second of these three ocean liners, Titanic, and continued nonstop for two years.

On May 31, 1911, Titanic’s immense hull–the largest movable manmade object in the world at the time–made its way down the slipways and into the River Lagan in Belfast. More than 100,000 people attended the launching, which took just over a minute and went off without a hitch.

The hull was immediately towed to a mammoth fitting-out dock where thousands of workers would spend most of the next year building the ship’s decks, constructing her lavish interiors and installing the 29 giant boilers that would power her two main steam engines.

‘Unsinkable’ Titanic’s Fatal Flaws

According to some hypotheses, Titanic was doomed from the start by a design that many lauded as state-of-the-art. The Olympic-class ships featured a double bottom and 15 watertight bulkhead compartments equipped with electric watertight doors that could be operated individually or simultaneously by a switch on the bridge.

It was these watertight bulkheads that inspired Shipbuilder magazine, in a special issue devoted to the Olympic liners, to deem them “practically unsinkable.”

But the watertight compartment design contained a flaw that was a critical factor in Titanic’s sinking: While the individual bulkheads were indeed watertight, the walls separating the bulkheads extended only a few feet above the water line, so water could pour from one compartment into another, especially if the ship began to list or pitch forward.

The second critical safety lapse that contributed to the loss of so many lives was the inadequate number of lifeboats carried on Titanic. A mere 16 boats, plus four Engelhardt “collapsibles,” could accommodate just 1,178 people. Titanic could carry up to 2,435 passengers, and a crew of approximately 900 brought her capacity to more than 3,300 people.

As a result, even if the lifeboats were loaded to full capacity during an emergency evacuation, there were available seats for only one-third of those on board. While unthinkably inadequate by today’s standards, Titanic’s supply of lifeboats actually exceeded the British Board of Trade’s requirements.

Passengers on the Titanic

Titanic created quite a stir when it departed for its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912. After stops in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown (now known as Cobh), Ireland, the ship set sail for New York with 2,240 passengers and crew—or “souls,” the expression then used in the shipping industry, usually in connection with a sinking—on board.

As befitting the first transatlantic crossing of the world’s most celebrated ship, many of these souls were high-ranking officials, wealthy industrialists, dignitaries and celebrities. First and foremost was the White Star Line’s managing director, J. Bruce Ismay, accompanied by Thomas Andrews, the ship’s builder from Harland and Wolff.

Absent was financier J.P. Morgan , whose International Mercantile Marine shipping trust controlled the White Star Line and who had selected Ismay as a company officer. Morgan had planned to join his associates on Titanic but canceled at the last minute when some business matters delayed him.

The wealthiest passenger was John Jacob Astor IV, heir to the Astor family fortune, who had made waves a year earlier by marrying 18-year-old Madeleine Talmadge Force, a young woman 29 years his junior, shortly after divorcing his first wife.

Other notable passengers included the elderly owner of Macy’s, Isidor Straus, and his wife Ida; industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, accompanied by his mistress, valet and chauffeur; and widow and heiress Margaret “Molly” Brown, who would earn her nickname “ The Unsinkable Molly Brown ” by helping to maintain calm and order while the lifeboats were being loaded and boosting the spirits of her fellow survivors.

The employees attending to this collection of First Class luminaries were mostly traveling Second Class, along with academics, tourists, journalists and others who would enjoy a level of service and accommodations equivalent to First Class on most other ships.

But by far the largest group of passengers was in Third Class: more than 700, exceeding the other two levels combined. Some had paid less than $20 to make the crossing. It was Third Class that was the major source of profit for shipping lines like White Star, and Titanic was designed to offer these passengers accommodations and amenities superior to those found in Third Class on any other ship of that era.

Titanic by the Numbers: From Construction to Disaster to Discovery

More than just facts and figures, these statistics highlight the massive scale of Titanic's ambition—and of its tragic sinking.

What Was the Titanic’s Captain Doing While the Ship Sank?

Edward Smith's body was never recovered, and his final moments remain a mystery—with no shortage of conflicting accounts.

Titanic Rescue Effort: 5 Ways the World Tried to Help

The sinking of the RMS Titanic on the night of April 14‑15, 1912 is among the most infamous disasters in history. Yet, both factual and fictional accounts of the event often skip from the mayhem and death at the ship following its collision with the iceberg, to the lives of the survivors, once safely back […]

Titanic Sets Sail

Titanic’s departure from Southampton on April 10 was not without some oddities. A small coal fire was discovered in one of her bunkers–an alarming but not uncommon occurrence on steamships of the day. Stokers hosed down the smoldering coal and shoveled it aside to reach the base of the blaze.

After assessing the situation, the captain and chief engineer concluded that it was unlikely it had caused any damage that could affect the hull structure, and the stokers were ordered to continue controlling the fire at sea.

According to a theory put forth by a small number of Titanic experts, the fire became uncontrollable after the ship left Southampton, forcing the crew to attempt a full-speed crossing; moving at such a fast pace, they were unable to avoid the fatal collision with the iceberg.

Another unsettling event took place when Titanic left the Southampton dock. As she got underway, she narrowly escaped a collision with the America Line’s S.S. New York. Superstitious Titanic buffs sometimes point to this as the worst kind of omen for a ship departing on her maiden voyage.

The Titanic Strikes an Iceberg

On April 14, after four days of uneventful sailing, Titanic received sporadic reports of ice from other ships, but she was sailing on calm seas under a moonless, clear sky.

At about 11:30 p.m., a lookout saw an iceberg coming out of a slight haze dead ahead, then rang the warning bell and telephoned the bridge. The engines were quickly reversed and the ship was turned sharply—instead of making direct impact, Titanic seemed to graze along the side of the berg, sprinkling ice fragments on the forward deck.

Sensing no collision, the lookouts were relieved. They had no idea that the iceberg had a jagged underwater spur, which slashed a 300-foot gash in the hull below the ship’s waterline.

By the time the captain toured the damaged area with Harland and Wolff’s Thomas Andrews, five compartments were already filling with seawater, and the bow of the doomed ship was alarmingly pitched downward, allowing seawater to pour from one bulkhead into the neighboring compartment.

Andrews did a quick calculation and estimated that Titanic might remain afloat for an hour and a half, perhaps slightly more. At that point the captain, who had already instructed his wireless operator to call for help, ordered the lifeboats to be loaded.

Titanic’s Lifeboats

A little more than an hour after contact with the iceberg, a largely disorganized and haphazard evacuation began with the lowering of the first lifeboat. The craft was designed to hold 65 people; it left with only 28 aboard.

Tragically, this was to be the norm: During the confusion and chaos during the precious hours before Titanic plunged into the sea, nearly every lifeboat would be launched woefully under-filled, some with only a handful of passengers.

In compliance with the law of the sea, women and children boarded the boats first; only when there were no women or children nearby were men permitted to board. Yet many of the victims were in fact women and children, the result of disorderly procedures that failed to get them to the boats in the first place.

Exceeding Andrews’ prediction, Titanic stubbornly stayed afloat for close to three hours. Those hours witnessed acts of craven cowardice and extraordinary bravery.

Hundreds of human dramas unfolded between the order to load the lifeboats and the ship’s final plunge: Men saw off wives and children, families were separated in the confusion and selfless individuals gave up their spots to remain with loved ones or allow a more vulnerable passenger to escape. In the end, 706 people survived the sinking of the Titanic.

Titanic: Stewardess Survival

This video clip from ‘What Happened After’ looks at the life of Violet Jessup, a stewardess aboard the Titanic who would ultimately become the only woman to survive the sinking of the Titanic and her sister ship, the Britannic.

Titanic’s Lookout

This video clip from ‘What Happened After’ looks at the life of Fredrick Fleet, the infamous lookout aboard the Titanic who first saw the iceberg that would sink the ship.

Coroner’s Report: Titanic

When the “unsinkable” ocean liner Titanic was lost after hitting an iceberg on April 15, 1912, lifeboats saved only 700 of her passengers. What did the 1,500 people who went down with the ship experience in the icy waters of the North Atlantic?

Titanic Sinks

The ship’s most illustrious passengers each responded to the circumstances with conduct that has become an integral part of the Titanic legend. Ismay, the White Star managing director, helped load some of the boats and later stepped onto a collapsible as it was being lowered. Although no women or children were in the vicinity when he abandoned ship, he would never live down the ignominy of surviving the disaster while so many others perished.

Thomas Andrews, Titanic’s chief designer, was last seen in the First Class smoking room, staring blankly at a painting of a ship on the wall. Astor deposited his wife Madeleine into a lifeboat and, remarking that she was pregnant, asked if he could accompany her; refused entry, he managed to kiss her goodbye just before the boat was lowered away.

Although offered a seat on account of his age, Isidor Straus refused any special consideration, and his wife Ida would not leave her husband behind. The couple retired to their cabin and perished together.

Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet returned to their rooms and changed into formal evening dress; emerging onto the deck, he famously declared, “We are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”

Molly Brown helped load the boats and finally was forced into one of the last to leave. She implored its crewmen to turn back for survivors, but they refused, fearing they would be swamped by desperate people trying to escape the icy seas.

Titanic, nearly perpendicular and with many of her lights still aglow, finally dove beneath the ocean’s surface at about 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912. Throughout the morning, Cunard’s Carpathia , after receiving Titanic’s distress call at midnight and steaming at full speed while dodging ice floes all night, rounded up all of the lifeboats. They contained only 706 survivors.

Aftermath of the Titanic Catastrophe

At least five separate boards of inquiry on both sides of the Atlantic conducted comprehensive hearings on Titanic’s sinking, interviewing dozens of witnesses and consulting with many maritime experts. Every conceivable subject was investigated, from the conduct of the officers and crew to the construction of the ship. Titanic conspiracy theories abounded.

While it has always been assumed that the ship sank as a result of the gash that caused the bulkhead compartments to flood, various other theories have emerged over the decades, including that the ship’s steel plates were too brittle for the near-freezing Atlantic waters, that the impact caused rivets to pop and that the expansion joints failed, among others.

Technological aspects of the catastrophe aside, Titanic’s demise has taken on a deeper, almost mythic, meaning in popular culture. Many view the tragedy as a morality play about the dangers of human hubris: Titanic’s creators believed they had built an unsinkable ship that could not be defeated by the laws of nature.

This same overconfidence explains the electrifying impact Titanic’s sinking had on the public when she was lost. There was widespread disbelief that the ship could not possibly have sunk, and, due to the era’s slow and unreliable means of communication, misinformation abounded. Newspapers initially reported that the ship had collided with an iceberg but remained afloat and was being towed to port with everyone on board.

It took many hours for accurate accounts to become widely available, and even then people had trouble accepting that this paragon of modern technology could sink on her maiden voyage, taking more than 1,500 souls with her.

The ship historian John Maxtone-Graham has compared Titanic’s story to the Challenger space shuttle disaster of 1986. In that case, the world reeled at the notion that one of the most sophisticated inventions ever created could explode into oblivion along with its crew. Both tragedies triggered a sudden collapse in confidence, revealing that we remain subject to human frailties and error, despite our hubris and a belief in technological infallibility.

Titanic Wreck

Efforts to locate the wreck of Titanic began soon after it sank. But technical limitations—as well as the vastness of the North Atlantic search area—made finding it extremely difficult.

Finally, in 1985, a joint U.S.-French expedition located the wreck of the RMS Titanic . The doomed ship was discovered about 400 miles east of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic, some 13,000 feet below the surface.

Subsequent explorations have found that the wreck is in relatively good condition, with many objects on the ship—jewelry, furniture, shoes, machinery and other items—are still intact.

Since its discovery, the wreck has been explored numerous times by manned and unmanned submersibles—including the submersible Titan, which imploded during what would have been its third dive to the wreck in June 2023.

HISTORY Vault: Titanic's Achilles Heel

Did Titanic have a fatal design flaw? John Chatterton and Richie Kohler of "Deep Sea Detectives" dive the wreckage of Titanic's sister ship, Britannic, to investigate the possibility.

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RMS Titanic

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The RMS Titanic was a White Star Line ocean liner, which sank after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 15 April 1912. Over 1,500 men, women , and children lost their lives. There were 705 survivors. In 1985, the Titanic wreck was found several miles deep on the Atlantic seafloor by Robert D. Ballard.

The largest ship built at the time, Titanic was considered of such a prodigious size and so well-built that it was ‘unsinkable’. Nevertheless, the ship hit an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic, which ripped a gash in the hull below the waterline that allowed tons of seawater to sink it in a matter of hours . Although carrying more lifeboats than the regulations stipulated, these were not enough to remove all passengers and crew from the stricken vessel. The Titanic disaster, still the worst peacetime sinking ever, shocked the world and led to a major overhaul of ship-building regulations and innovations for safety at sea.

The Royal Mail Ship Titanic was an Olympic-Class passenger liner, its sister ships being the RMS Olympic and RMS Britannic . Titanic was launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 31 May 1911. The ship was built using 300 frames covered with 2,000 plates of steel attached using 3 million rivets. To make it practically unsinkable if damaged in any part of the hull, the interior was divided into 16 watertight compartments, which could be sealed off using electric doors. These doors could be closed independently of each other and were operated either from the bridge or manually. Even if two compartments were hit and flooded, the ship would remain afloat. It certainly seemed that it would take an extraordinary event to ever put Titanic ’s passengers in danger at sea. Just in case the worst did happen, the ship was appointed lifeboats. With 20 lifeboats (capacity 1,178 persons), these were more numerous than the regulations stipulated (minimum 16). Although not enough for a full complement of passengers and crew, it was thought at the time that if ever needed, they would function only as a means to ferry people from the ship to a nearby rescue vessel.

Titanic was 269.1 metres (882 ft 9 in) in length and lived up to its name with a displacement of 66,000 tons. The main anchor alone weighed 15.5 tons. Equivalent to an 11-story building, the ship was the largest moving object made in history up to that time and so big a new dock had to be built at its homeport of Southampton. The tremendous power needed to propel such a giant came from two reciprocating steam engines and a low-pressure turbine. Combined, these gave the three screw propellors a massive 55,000 horsepower and a speed of 24-5 knots.

Interior Appointments

The size of Titanic gave the ship’s designers plenty of space to work with as they appointed the vessel in luxurious style. The facilities for passengers were unheard of and breathtaking in their scope and workmanship. Titanic boasted Turkish baths, a gymnasium , squash courts, two covered promenade decks, and even a swimming pool. The opulence of the first-class dining rooms, lounges, and reading room outdid any of the grandest hotels on land. A typical first-class menu included oysters, filet mignons, sirloin steak, pate de foie gras, and freshly made cream cakes. The double-stairway and glass cupola of the main dining room gave the illusion passengers were entering a palace . This staircase was a marvel of engineering in itself and descends seven decks into the bowels of the ship.

Cabins for first- and second-class passengers were unprecedented in their appointments and decoration. The better cabins had such wonders as electric heaters, extra-wide beds, marble washstands, and adjoining rooms for servants. Third-class passengers never saw any of these facilities down in steerage, but they did at least benefit from cabins and more comfort than their peers on other liners who had to make do with dormitories.

Passengers & Crew

Titanic 's captain was Edward J. Smith, the most experienced captain of the White Star Line and a very popular figure with everyone on his ships. Smith, the company’s number one choice for maiden voyages, was to retire after this trip. Keeping a careful eye on their ship were the chairman of the White Star Line himself, J. Bruce Ismay, and the managing director of Harland and Wolff, Thomas Andrews, who knew the ship inside out. All three must have been totally unprepared for the disaster to come, Smith had once stated: "I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder…Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that" (Lord, 55).

Famous passengers included billionaire businessman John Jacob Astor, one of the richest men in the world, the mining magnate Benjamin Guggenheim, and Congressman Isidor Straus, owner of Macy’s in New York, the world’s largest department store. There was the publisher Henry Sleeper Harper, cinema star Dorthy Gibson, tennis player Karl H. Behr, and Margaret Brown, the wealthy philanthropist known forever after the disaster as the ‘Unsinkable Molly Brown’. There were some near misses, too. Financier J.P. Morgan had cancelled his ticket due to illness, as had two members of the immensely rich Vanderbilt family, but they were too late to reclaim their luggage and a servant from the ship. Amongst the ordinary folk, there were 13 honeymooning couples and many people who had left their homeland, hopeful for a new start and a better life in the Americas.

The Greenland Iceberg

Titanic set off from Southampton on 10 April 1912, stopping at Cherbourg in France and then Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland on the 11th to pick up more passengers and the latest mail. The ship now had over 2,200 people on board, all eager to see the Americas, many for the first time in their lives.

All went splendidly well for the first four days. Then the ship’s radio officers received the first of six warnings that ice was in the Atlantic on 14 April. In response to these sightings by other ships, Captain Smith ordered Titanic to take a more southerly route. As an extra precaution, six lookouts were posted to scan the forward horizon. Crucially, though, the ship’s speed was not reduced, but this was usual for a liner when no actual ice had been spotted. The great liners promised their passengers luxury and speed. Titanic was steaming at around 22.5 knots across an unusually calm Atlantic. This tranquillity of the sea made it, along with a moonless night, very difficult for the lookouts to spot ice when there would be no telltale breaking waters against the bergs to give away their position. It was also a bitterly cold night.

Then, at 11.40 pm, lookout Fred Fleet, perched high up in the crow’s nest, saw an iceberg. Fleet telephoned the bridge with his fateful message: "Iceberg right ahead." The bridge, then commanded by First Officer William M. Murdoch, responded by signalling to the engine room to reverse the ship’s engines, turning hard to port and closing all watertight doors. One can imagine the horrified fascination on the bridge in the final seconds before impact. Even after contact, the ship’s officers and those passengers who had seen the iceberg, likely remained hopeful that disaster had been averted. Unfortunately, this was not to be. Murdoch signalled for the engines to come to a full stop.

Titanic hit the iceberg a glancing blow, which many passengers never felt at all. In retrospect, it may well have been better if the ship had maintained its course and hit the berg head-on, damaging only the front part of the hull. As it was, when the berg slid down the length of the steel ship, it ripped a 250-foot (76-metre) gash below the waterline. Some of the more experienced crew down below felt the shudder and surmised it might have been a break in a propellor blade. The silverware rattled in the upper dining rooms, below in the kitchens a tray of bread rolls was shaken to the floor. The first to be aware of the scale of the problem were those even deeper in the ship, the men working in boiler room six. There, torrents of seawater were quickly flooding the compartment. The men escaped to what they thought would be the safety of boiler room 5, but that, too, was letting in torrents of water.

The ship’s passengers were mostly blissfully unaware of the gravity of the situation. Those few first-class passengers still up in the lounge areas continued their card games. Others who had been woken by the shudder and the stopped engines, went back to sleep, perhaps after checking with their steward that all was well. A group of steerage passengers were throwing about chunks of ice fallen from the berg onto the starboard well deck. Other than that, for passengers who braved the cold night air, there was nothing untoward to be seen.

Deep within the ship, though, there were sure signs of the scale of the problem. The lower stairwells were filling with water, which had now reached the post office and mailroom. Even the lowest and cheapest cabins began to relentlessly fill with icy seawater. Orders were given to put out the fires of the ship’s boilers. Boiler room number five had received a 2-foot long gash, but pumps kept the water at bay and eventually cleared the compartment. It was a temporary respite. Having together surveyed the damage and assessed the flooded compartments, Thomas Andrews explained to the captain that too much water had entered the ship, weighing it down at the bow. The inclination would eventually allow water to flood over the top of each watertight compartment in turn. However secure the ship looked at that moment, it was a mathematical certainty it would ultimately sink. Titanic could afford to have three of the first five watertight compartments flooded, even the front four together but very soon, all five compartments would be flooded. Titanic ’s terrible fate was sealed, the question now was only how long would it take.

At 12.05 am, less than half an hour after the collision, Captain Smith gave the order to abandon ship. The ship's officers prepared the lifeboats for lowering, passengers and crew were roused if they still slept, and the order for lifejackets to be put on was given. Some put on sensible warm clothing, some grabbed their valuables and mementoes, others left behind fabulous jewels. Finally, the enormity of the situation was clear to everyone, even if some passengers were too stunned to comprehend. Everyone, whether escorted by their servants or smashing locked doors to get there, made their way to the open decks of the ship.

Titanic was two-thirds through the voyage and so surrounded by the icy waters of the Atlantic. Further, the drop from the boat decks to sea level was around 70 feet (21 metres), and there had never been a boat drill. This was not an enticing prospect for many passengers - spending the night in a small lifeboat seemed infinitely worse than staying onboard the ‘unsinkable’ vessel until help arrived. Consequently, not all lifeboats were lowered full.

Women and children were encouraged to step into the lifeboats first, then couples and then single men if there was still space. Some women refused to leave their husbands, others were persuaded to go for the sake of their children, still others were physically pushed into the boats by the crew. Many families were split forever this night. Then, as the ship did indeed begin to sink at the bow and the deck noticeably started to slope both forward and to starboard, passengers gathered in greater numbers at the lifeboats. To reduce panic to a minimum, a number of the ship’s musicians played ragtime music on deck. Fortunately, perhaps, neither the passengers nor most of the crew were aware that the sixteen rigid lifeboats and four collapsibles, even if all filled and lowered successfully, would still leave over a thousand people on board.

At 12.15 am the ship’s wireless operator was ordered to send out distress signals. Several vessels acknowledged the messages. The closest ship, some 21 miles away (33 km), was the 6,000-ton liner Californian, but its wireless was, as usual, shut down for the night. The ship was also at a standstill, blocked by an ice field. Titanic ’s crew could see it and sent a morse code message using a lamp. The Californian did reply with a morse lamp, but the ships were too far apart to discern the message. The Californian ’s crew did see the rockets fired off by Titanic every five minutes but they were not recognised for what they were, a distress signal, then still a new idea in maritime procedure. The Carpathia was 58 miles (93 kilometres) from the scene and did respond at 12.25. The ship made for Titanic ’s position, exceeding its top speed by three knots. Titanic 's wireless room kept sending out signals, and at 12.45, with nothing to lose, operator John George Philips tried the new SOS signal, the first time it was ever used by a liner.

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The rockets at least now convinced everyone on Titanic that the ship was indeed about to sink. As the number of lifeboats left diminished, some of the crew were issued with firearms. The inclination of the ship encouraged people to move towards the stern. Still, there were people below decks as steerage passengers had to find their way around locked gates meant to keep them out of first- and second-class areas under normal circumstances. Some preferred the calm of their cabins and to await their fate there. Down in the engine room, men worked to keep the lights of the ship running, and Philips tirelessly kept sending out signals on his wireless. It was now 1.20 am, and almost all the boats were away, holding station a safe distance from the ship, their passengers looking on in horror at Titanic ’s chaotic final moments, all to the bizarrely jolly soundtrack of ragtime music as still the band played on. None of the musicians would see daylight again.

At 1.40 the passengers were all told to move to the starboard side to help redress the ship’s sloping. By now the rockets had stopped. As passengers scrambled and leapt into the last few boats being lowered, shots were fired into the air to keep the crowd back. At 2.05, the last boat away was a collapsible, in it one Bruce Ismay. The ship’s deck lights were losing their power and glowing red as silence descended on the ship, no more struggling with ropes and boats. At 2.10 the last wireless signal was sent. Captain Smith wandered amongst the remaining crew spreading the word that they were released from their duties and it was now 'every man for himself.' Some jumped into the sea but still the band played on. Some of the crew worked on freeing the last two collapsible boats that were impractically tied to the roof of the officer’s quarters. Ominously, the band switched from ragtime to hymns. At 2.18 the ship’s lights went out.

Around 2.20 am, the ship’s stern rose ever higher, the forward funnel broke off with a crack, and Titanic began its slide into the deep. Those who could tried to swim clear of the suction. Some boats returned to pick up a total of 13 swimmers, but these were soon dangerously filled, and the cries for help that rang out in the night air had to be ignored. In the freezing water, hypothermia eventually brought down a curtain of silence on the disaster.

When the Carpathia arrived on the scene just after dawn at 4.00, Titanic was nowhere in sight, just a mass of debris like deckchairs and lifejackets. 705 survivors were picked up from the lifeboats. Also collected were several hundred floating bodies. 1502 people had died. The survivors and corpses were taken to New York where one third remained unidentified.

Captain Smith went down with his ship, as he had always promised he would. Frederick Fleet, the lookout, survived. Such was chance. Those who survived were haunted by nightmares, guilt, and sometimes, especially men, accusations of having taken the place of a woman or child in the boats. There was also the uncomfortable truth that proportionally, far more men, women, and children from third class had died than from first or second.

Official inquiries into the disaster were organised in America and England . The results of their findings led to the creation of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. Prominent features were regulations for 24-hour radio monitoring, the use of rockets as a distress signal, lifeboat drills for passengers, and the number of lifeboats ships should carry. Another lasting benefit was the creation of the International Ice Patrol to continuously survey the movements of icebergs across the Atlantic.

At the time, the Titanic disaster was more than a terrible loss of life at sea. It was a blow against humanity’s confidence in itself, in the faith that design and intelligence could master the elements. In this sense, the disaster was an end of a long run of engineering successes the world had witnessed. The loss of the ship, and one so well built and appointed, was but the beginning of greater disasters yet to come in the 20th century.

Finding the Titanic

The fate of Titanic has captured public imagination ever since that terrible April night. Commemorated in poems, songs and films, there was still one unanswered question: Where was the ship now? The Titanic story was not finished. Robert D. Ballard began his search for Titanic on the seabed using the latest in robotic submersibles. He was not the first to try, but nobody had yet been successful. Ballard’s budget and U.S. Navy backers gave him just 12 days to find the legendary ship over a massive search area which was 3.8 km (12,460 ft) below the surface. It was on 1 September 1985, day 10 of the search, that Titanic was found. The liner had snapped in two pieces just below the surface and then sank to the seafloor. The wreckage and debris were spread over a wide area with items ranging from porcelain cups to an empty pair of shoes. Subsequent expeditions by others began the controversial process of collecting over 5,000 items before they finally succumbed to the ravages of time and to extensively photograph the wreck before it disappears forever.

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Bibliography

• Graham, Ian. Fifty Ships That Changed the Course of History. Firefly Books, 2016.
• Lord, Walter. Night to Remember . Griffin, 2005.
• Moore LaRoe, Lisa. Titanic. National Geographic Society, 1999
• Robert D. Ballard & Ken Marschall. Discovery Of The Titanic . Warner/Madison Press, 1988.

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Titanic summary

Learn about the titanic, the circumstances of its sinking, and the discovery of its wreckage.

Titanic , British luxury passenger liner that sank on April 15, 1912, en route to New York from Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage.

The largest and most luxurious ship afloat, the Titanic had a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 watertight compartments. Because four of these could be flooded without endangering its buoyancy, it was considered unsinkable. Shortly before midnight on April 14, it collided with an iceberg southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland; five compartments ruptured and the ship sank. Some 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers died.

After the disaster, new rules were drawn up requiring that the number of places in lifeboats equal the number of passengers (the Titanic had only 1,178 lifeboat places for 2,224 passengers) and that all ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch for distress signals (a ship less than 20 mi [32 km] away had not heard the Titanic ’s distress signal because no one had been on duty). The International Ice Patrol was established to monitor icebergs in shipping lanes.

In 1985 Robert Ballard found the wreck of the Titanic lying upright in two pieces at a depth of 13,000 ft (4,000 m). American and French scientists explored it using an uncrewed submersible.

April 4, 2012

Titanic : Resonance and Reality

A century ago a great ship struck an iceberg and sank, earning a permanent place among the stories we tell—and lessons we should learn

By Daniel C. Schlenoff

The tragedy One hundred years ago, during the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg, and in the small hours of the next day went down into the cold Atlantic Ocean with the loss of 1,517 lives.

There have been worse tragedies in history. Some were more violently spectacular, some still govern the daily routines of the survivors. Yet the Titanic disaster has strongly resonated with us for a century. Why? Because it is a tale of humanity as classic as a Greek tragedy. The story has been told and retold for the past century in movies , books , songs and magazine articles. Even James Cameron made a film using the Titanic saga as a backdrop.

Hubris—an excess of pride and confidence—is central to any classical tragedy. The Titanic set out from Queenstown, Ireland, on April 11, 1912, as a grand symbol of modernity and comfort. As she steamed at high speed through the dark of night her captain ignored the Cassandra-like warnings that icebergs lurked nearby, and through hubris the ship collided with one.

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Within the tale of the sinking are interwoven many ( mostly true ) vignettes of human suffering—and also some cathartic scenesof triumph. Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet shucked off their life belts and donned their formal wear, saying, "We've dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen." Thomas Andrews , the designer of the flawed ship, sat forlornly in the opulent smoking lounge awaiting death, perhaps contemplating this awful reversal of fortune. J. Bruce Ismay , chairman of the White Star Line (which owned the Titanic ), quietly slunk into a lifeboat and was later widely excoriated by the public for taking up a place when so many women and children were left to die on his ship. Charles John Joughin , the kitchen staff's chief baker, provides the comic relief in our retelling: He was the last person to step off the sinking ship into the ice-cold water, but was so well-fortified with liquor he survived to be picked up, his hair still dry. The " Unsinkable Molly Brown " was arguably the ship's most famous survivor: she defied convention and in an act of compassion commandeered her lifeboat to go back and look for survivors in the frigid water.

Heroes and villains. The quick and the dead. And all of this pathos communicated to the world by radio and by newspaper within hours of the tragedy.

The reality Over the past century, a more prosaic reality has appeared in our path and the mythic tale has collided with it. Every detail mentioned here has been endlessly disputed (or fabricated) since April 15, 1912. With the growth of the Internet, a host of Titanic experts have become newly obsessed with the details down to the nanoscopic level. Google shows there are now 11 million sites with "Titanic" in the URL. (There are only 1.9 million for "gigantic.")

With every assertion and counterclaim, a pattern emerges, one that is not far different from the one that Scientific American reported  two weeks after the ship went down . Despite some wonderfully creative conspiracy theories that have been floated in the past 100 years, the building and sinking of the ship is a study in failure: of engineering systems, of law, of design, of private profit versus public safety.

Unsinkable The ship was never touted by the White Star Line as unsinkable—the term " practically unsinkable " appeared in a couple of admiring reviews of the ship beforehand and was played up for ironic effect afterward. The perception in the public mind was that the ship exuded modernity and comfort, giving a great impression of solidity and safety—the same way a bank built of solid masonry does even as it founders from unstable finances. The article "Wreck of the White Star Liner Titanic " from Scientific American from April 27, 1912, shows how the ship was designed with safety in mind. Unfortunately the ship was not designed with safety as the first priority . There were watertight doors and bulkheads, but even in 1912 engineers recognized that the bulkheads did not rise high enough—some were only three meters above the waterline. But such barriers cut up the interior space and made it harder to accommodate the easy flow of fare-paying passengers, and so they were discouraged. The ship had a double bottom for safety, but the company decided to save money and interior space and not build double sides. After the sinking, engineers immediately retrofitted the Titanic ’s sister ship Olympic with a double hull.

Lifeboats These days we believe there must have been a special kind of Dionysian madness to send a ship into the ocean without enough lifeboats to carry every soul on board. Early designs for the Titanic did in fact call for 64 lifeboats, but by the time the ship was launched, the company had whittled that complement down to 20.

Astonishingly, the number of boats carried was actually above and beyond what was legally required by the British Board of Trade for seagoing ocean liners. One argument said that a full complement of lifeboats would have made the ship too top-heavy, perhaps risking capsize. Another argument was that in an emergency the lifeboats would not have time to be loaded and launched, especially if the ship was heeling over. But the main reason for dispensing with lifeboats may have been to provide plenty of room for luxurious sundecks and sumptuous parlors for the pleasure of the well-to-do passengers. There were certainly plenty of technical fixes available: the front cover of Scientific American from April 27, 2012 , shows one possible solution of stacking all the boats on the top deck.

Speed in ice fields The Titanic was never designed to be as fast as more powerful competitor ships. A fast first crossing, though, made for good media image and better business for the White Star Line in the highly competitive transatlantic steamer business. Therefore, quite possibly, the chairman of the company, J. Bruce Ismay, pushed the venerable Capt. Edward John Smith to steam ahead with all possible speed. Other ships in the area had radioed that they had seen icebergs, and Smith may have altered course slightly to avoid possible locations of these known hazards, but in the balance between speed and risk, the company line won out. Yet there was no shortage of knowledge about the perils of ice, as you can see from this April 27, 1912, Scientific American article . Sonar was developed within the next two years as a way to avoid icebergs.

The blow For many years it was widely believed that only a giant ripping gash torn by the iceberg could have doomed such a magnificent ship. A " 300-foot gash in the hull " was often mentioned—just like the image we show in our issue from two weeks after the tragedy:

Later calculations looked at the rate with which water flooded the ship during the two hours and 40 minutes it stayed afloat after the collision and showed that "the gash" in reality would have resulted in only slight damage to the hull, perhaps amounting a dozen square meters in total. This deduction was confirmed in 1985 when submersibles imaged the hull of the Titanic resting on the ocean floor four kilometers down. The images revealed several small gashes, or perhaps several hull plates had popped apart giving the illusion of gashes. (Historians have suggested that the wrought iron rivets holding the plates together were not as strong as they should have been.)

Conclusion As the complexity of engineering projects increases exponentially, so does the focus on safety. Within any system there is no danger more potent, more capable of causing harm, than human frailty. In January of 2012 the Costa Concordia, the largest luxury liner built in Italy, manufactured at the Fincantieri shipyards in the ancient seafaring city of Genoa to the highest standards of safety specified by law, struck a reef in the Mediterranean, and partially capsized, killing dozens of people. The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, seems to have steered his ship onto the rocks in a moment of weakness : The courts and the tabloids as well as armchair experts of the Internet are still disputing whether that weakness had anything to do with a comely 25-year-old Moldovan ex-dancer —and a Roman god called Cupid.

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History Resources

Eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic, 1912

A spotlight on a primary source by washington dodge.

Dodge, a prominent doctor, banker, and politician from San Francisco, boarded the Titanic at Southampton on April 10 with his wife Ruth and son Washington Dodge Jr. His description of the sinking was written within days after the disaster, as the Carpathia ferried the Titanic survivors to New York. Carpathia passenger Doctor Frank H. Blackmarr began soliciting narratives from various passengers, including Dr. Dodge. He assembled a scrapbook of firsthand accounts and used them to lecture about the sinking.

Dodge’s tale begins at 11:40 p.m. when he and his wife were awakened by the ship’s impact with the iceberg. Twice Dodge went on deck and was told there was no danger. "Having been told that there was no danger, and believing such to be the fact from the general conduct of the passengers & such officers as I saw I insisted that my family remain in bed and await developments — Once more returning to the companion way I asked our steward who was standing in there was he had heard — He replied the order has just come down for all passengers to put on life preservers."

Dodge and his family quickly ascended to the starboard boat deck. His wife and son boarded life boat three, the second boat launched from that side of the ship. Dodge remained on the starboard side of the ship, a decision which undoubtedly saved his life, as the majority of passengers congregated on the port side of the ship. As Fifth Officer Lowe started filling lifeboats on the starboard side of the ship, Dodge was able to secure a spot.

Public outrage at the extreme loss of life was immediate. Just over 700 people, or 32 percent of the passengers and crew, survived. The US Senate and British Board of Trade held special hearings into the causes of the disaster, the lack of life boats, why most life boats left the ship less than full, the conduct of the officers and crew, and the treatment of the third-class passengers. The total number of people who died on the Titanic is unclear. The figures released were quickly revised to between 1490 and 1,500. The statistics have been adjusted so many times since 1912 that most historians agree that they will never know how many people died on the Titanic .

As a result of the disaster, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea was called in London in 1913. The convention drew up rules requiring that every ship have lifeboat space for each person embarked; that lifeboat drills be held during each voyage; and, because the Californian had not heard the distress signals of the Titanic , that ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch. The International Ice Patrol was established to warn ships of icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Washington Dodge returned to San Francisco and in 1917 took controlling interest in Poulsen Wireless Corporation, a telegraph company. He committed suicide two years later in June of 1919.

A full transcript is available.

The officers in charge of loading the boats were cool and masterful, preventing as far as possible all disorder and enforcing the command to load [ inserted : care for] women and children first. When boat 13 was lowered to A deck to be loaded I went to this deck - After 8 or 10 women had been placed aboard, no furt other women or children resp were within hearing to respond to the officers call. A number of men then climbed over the rail into the boat when some one pushed me from behind and shouted get in doctor. I climed in and in a few moments the boat was filled & orders given to lower - As we were lowered boat 15 which had been loaded from the boat deck, was also being lowered - By this we were for a few minutes placed in a perilous position - which threated our destruction - We observed as we neared the water that our boat was being lowered directly into the immense volume of water thrown out from the ships side by the condenser pump - On the Titanic this was a stream from 3 to about 3 feet in diameter, which was thrown with great force 6 or 8 feet form the ship s . It would instantly have swamped our boat - To add to our anxiety boat 15 had swung directly over our heads owing to the fact that the steamer was had settled several feet [inserted: into the water] at her bow - Both boats were being lowered when our loud cries of warning were heard above & the lowering of both boats arrested - As We had no officer or seaman in our boat to direct us but fortunately were able to disengage an oar, and with it we push the bow of our boat, which overhung the threatening waters from the pump, 8 or 10 feet from the ships side when releasing the trigger we dropped into the water & were at once swept away from the steamers side by great force of [inserted: the] water - The ocean being as calm as the waters of a smooth flowing river we rowed off to overtake a boat having a lantern aboard, we being unable to find one in our boat - As the Having rowed about 1/4 mile we found ourselves in close proximity to five boats - We observed the closing incidents the gradual submergence of the ship forward - The final extinguishment suddenly of all her lights - The final plunge downward [inserted: as a shooting star full from the Zenith visable nearly to the horizon] - From this time until shortly after 4 in a sea gradually growing rougher & in a [ inserted " with] a temperature of extremely cold we rowed about -

Questions for Discussion

Read the document introduction and transcript excerpt and apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer the questions that follow.

• Why does the loss of the Titanic continue to interest people one hundred years after the event?
• How might we question the accuracy of the Washington Dodge letter? How can his description be verified?
• How closely does the Dodge description come to any version of the sinking that has appeared in print or film?

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RMS Titanic facts

It's one of the most infamous ships of all time, but what do we actually know about the RMS  Titanic ?

The Titanic was never actually described as ‘unsinkable’

The  Titanic  was claimed by its builders to be ‘practically unsinkable’. It was a bold claim, but slightly less bold than the ‘unsinkable’ claims that movies have added to the story.

It was at launch the largest object ever to move on the water but she was not designed to be the fastest (Cunard’s  Lusitania  and  Mauretania  were always going to be faster). Stories of the captain trying to make a speed record are without substance.

The Titanic had a swimming pool on board

The accommodation on  Titanic  was luxurious and spacious. In first class there were many new attractions such as squash courts, a Turkish bath, a gymnasium, a barber shop and also the first swimming pool on board a ship. Even the cheaper third class cabins were of a better standard than those on other liners. Nevertheless, there were more luxurious and spectacular liners in operation at the time.

The  Titanic  was designed to be a large-capacity workhorse on a commercially lucrative but competitive route.

The Titanic had two sister ships

Olympic  launched 20 October 1910, arrived at Jarrow for scrapping 13 October 1935.

Britannic  launched 26 February 1914, sunk by mine 21 November 1916.

The Titanic carried post

The reason the titanic is often referred to as ‘RMS Titanic’ is because the RMS stands for Royal Mail Ship.  

There were only enough lifeboats for a third of the people on board

There were 20 life boats on board, which would have held a capacity of 1178 people.

Meanwhile the capacity of  Titanic  was 3320 people.

Watch: facts from real life Titanic survivors 

RMS  Titanic  statistics

The  Titanic  was a mighty ship indeed but how did she measure up to the other great liners of her age?

Registered dimensions:

• Length : 852.5 feet
• Length overall : 882.75 feet
• Breadth : 92.5 feet
• Depth : 59.6 feet
• Tonnage : Gross 46,329, Net 21,831

Number of decks

• 2 triple-expansion 8 cylinder engines and 1 low pressure turbine
• Registered horsepower: 6906
• Total horsepower: 46,000
• Service speed: 21 knots
• Estimated top speed: 23/24 knots

Passenger capacity

• First class : 735
• Second class: 674
• Third class : 1026
• Crew:  885

1503 people; 815 passengers and 688 crew

RMS Titanic Timeline

31 March 1909:  Laid down

31 May 1911:  Launched

31 March 1912:  Completed

2 April 1912:  Sea trials (Belfast Lough and the Irish Sea)

12.15, 10 April 1912:  Sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York via Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland

18.35, 10 April 1912:  Arrived Cherbourg

20.10, 10 April 1912:  Sailed from Cherbourg

11.30, 11 April 1912:  Arrived Queenstown

13.30, 11 April 1912:  Sailed from Queenstown

09.00, 14 April 1912:  First ice warning, received from  Caronia

23.40, 14 April 1912:  Collision with iceberg

00.45, 15 April 1912:  Wireless call for assistance, first transmission, using code CQD. Transmission altered to the new code SOS, first use of this code by a passenger liner.

02.10, 15 April 1912:  Last transmission

02.20, 15 April 1912:  Titanic foundered

04.10, 15 April 1912:  First lifeboat picked up by  Carpathia

21.25, 18 April 1912:   Carpathia  docked in New York

1 September 1985:   Titanic  wreck site located, approx 2.5 miles below the Atlantic, by a joint French/USA expedition

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Home > Student Research, Creative Works, and Publications > Honors Theses > 107

Honors Theses

Rms titanic: creating an american obsession.

Judith E. Cathey , University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Follow

Dept. of History

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

The RMS Titanic is perhaps one of the most famous disasters in United States history. Despite being a disaster that was not even on United States’ territory, it impacted the United States like no other disaster had before. The magnificent ship that represented the culmination of Gilded Age and Industrial progress sank, something many believed was impossible. After the sinking, there was a high demand for information about the catastrophe and the passengers who died, and this was when Titanic Mania began. The United States has experienced 3 eras of obsession with the Titanic: 1912 and 1913, the 1950s, and the 1980s and 90s. Each generation told the story in a way suitable for their needs, and each emphasizes different parts of the Titanic narrative. This thesis analyzes why the Titanic was so popular in each era of Titanic Mania and how the story was told to fit each generation's needs. This includes discussions of class divides, gender roles, and other key topics affecting each generation.

B. A.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

Titanic (Steamship)

Titanic; Historical memory; Class disparity; Gender roles; Disaster; Profit

Document Type

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Recommended Citation

Cathey, Judith E., "RMS Titanic: creating an American obsession" (2017). Honors Theses. https://scholar.utc.edu/honors-theses/107

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R.m.s titanic - history and significance.

History, Culture and Iconic Interests in the United States and Abroad The R.M.S.  Titanic  is perhaps the most famous shipwreck in our current popular culture.  Titanic  was a British-registered ship in the White Star line that was owned by a U.S. company in which famed American financier John Pierpont "JP" Morgan was a major stockholder.  Titanic  was built in Belfast, Northern Ireland by Harland & Wolff for transatlantic passage between Southampton, England and New York City. It was the largest and most luxurious passenger ship of its time and was reported to be unsinkable.  Titanic,   launched on May 31, 1911 , and set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton on April 10, 1912, with 2,240 passengers and crew on board. On April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg,  Titanic  broke apart and sank to the bottom of the ocean, taking with it the lives of more than 1,500 passengers and crew. While there has been some  salvage  outside of the major hull portions, most of the ship remains in its final resting place, 12,000 feet below sea level and over 350 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Its famous story of disaster and human drama has been and continues to be recounted in numerous books, articles, and movies.  Titanic  has been recognized by the United States Congress for its national and international significance and, in many ways, has become a cultural icon.  The disaster also resulted in a number of memorials around the world. In the United States, there are major memorials in  Washington D.C . offsite link  and  New York offsite link ; the  Widener Library  offsite link at Harvard University is another major memorial commemorating Henry Elkins Widener, a victim of the sinking. Investigation and the Development of Measures for Safety in Navigation The sinking of  Titanic  was one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history and quickly became a catalyst for change. The United States Congress held  hearings offsite link  on the casualty that resulted in a  report offsite link  and measures to improve  safety of navigation offsite link . Similar investigations were held in the United Kingdom. The international community readily came together for the purpose of establishing global maritime standards and regulations to promote safety of navigation, the most important of which was the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), widely regarded as the most important of all international agreements on the safety of merchant ships.

• Frequently Asked Questions  on History and Significance
• Titanic’s 100th Birthday May 31, 2012 NOAA
• One hundred years after the sinking of  Titanic  is the  IMO World Maritime Day theme for 2012 offsite link
• R.M.S. Titanic Maritime Memorial Act of 1986  (1986 Act)
• International Agreement Concerning the Shipwrecked Vessel RMS Titanic
• NOAA Guidelines  for Research, Exploration and Salvage of RMS Titanic
• IMO, the Titanic, and the Safety of Life at Sea Convention (SOLAS) offsite link

Last Updated July 18, 2024

Loss of RMS Titanic (1912): Significant Events of the 20th Century Analytical Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
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Introduction

What are the causes of loss of rms titanic, who are key players in the loss of rms titanic, what are the effects and repercussions of the loss of rms titanic, current repercussions of the loss of mrs titanic, works cited.

The Loss of RMS Titanic occurred on 15 th April 1912 when it sunk within three hours after it struck an iceberg on 14 th April 1912 at 11:40 pm. The loss occurred while the ship was on its Maiden voyage from Southampton, United Kingdom to the New York City in the United States causing one of the deadliest maritime disasters of the 20 th century.

The Titanic started its maiden voyage at Southampton to New York on 10 th April 1912. RMS Titanic was the largest passenger vessel at the time. It was constructed by Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast Ireland from 1909 to 1911 (The Library of Virginia, n. p.). Titanic had 2,223 people on board during the accident causing death of 1178 people (Hill, 1996).

When The Virginia Newspaper examined events of sinking RMS titanic (n. p.), it was founded that it was licensed to carry 2603 passengers. The design of the Titanic was done using the best standards to conform to safety regulations. This made the engineers believe that Titanic was unsinkable and secure. The events that led to loss of RMS Titanic have changed ship design, navigation regulations and affected lives of many who survived to date.

The loss of Titanic was caused by a number of reasons varying from design, regulations to operation. The main reason for the loss was the collision between the Titanic and an iceberg. This destroyed about two hundred and ninety nine feet of the ship’s steel hull allowing sea water to flow to some of its sixteen compartments.

However, its construction and the kind of materials used are believed to have contributed greatly to its rapid loss. The main design of Titanic was done by Lord Pirrie. A team of engineers helped him in the design and construction including Alexander Carlisle who was in charge of decorations, general arrangement and several other duties.

The hull steel which was used to construct the ship was brittle and easily broke due to impact of collision. Test done on the steel retrieved by scientists from wreckage indicates that the metal was brittle rather than ductile as required (Gannon, 1995). This was caused by high content of oxygen and sulfur. The collision with the iceberg caused a great impact due to the speed of the ship and low water temperature.

The rivets used to fasten hull plates broke down too. Being made from wrought iron and exposure to very low temperatures in water, the rivets succumbed to the impact of the collision. The rivets broke because they were brittle and encounter with the cold water increased the chance of breaking (Gannon, 1995).

This opened inlets for water to flow into water tight compartments of the ship through traverse bulkhead which were poorly designed (Broad, 2008). The water tight compartments kept water instead of spreading around making it to pitch. Water in the damaged compartments entered other compartments very fast when the ship pitched forward because they were watertight horizontally only. The topside of all the sixteen watertight compartments was open allowing water to enter easily making the ship to sink faster than anticipated.

The captain of the ship Edward J. Smith ignored warnings about ice received from other ships through wireless operators. His crew was not in a position to change the course of the ship when they spotted a massive iceberg 500 yards ahead due to the size of the ship and its speed which was almost at full steam (Gannon, 1995).

Second officer David Blair left the ship when Charles Lightoller was made second officer. He stored five pairs of lookout binoculars in his cabin and did not inform Lightoller of its where about. Blair’s actions caused enormous repercussions. Lack of the binoculars resulted in watering of their eyes within every few seconds due to low temperatures.

However, it is Captain Smith who initiated these series of activities when he requested that Henry Wilde be made chief officer of MRS Titanic. This resulted in William Murdoch being demoted to first officer and Charles Lightoller to second officer both of who where officers in Titanic. Blair left the ship and resigned without formally handing over (Rogers et al, 1998).

According to Titanic Disaster Historical Documents Archive (1998), during the time of the disaster, British Board of Trade had regulations which were outdated requiring ships with over ten thousand tons to carry sixteen lifeboats only. Although, British Board of Trade regulations required 16 lifeboats for Titanic, White Star Line provided 20 lifeboats which were more than the number required by four lifeboats.

Bruce Ismax manager of White Star Line objected to the number of life boats recommended by Alexander Carlisle after his calculations. Bruce considered the British Board of Trade regulation which required it to have sixteen life boats which were sufficient for about 960 people while the vessel had a capacity of more than 2000 passengers.

Lord Pirrie, Alexander Carlisle, Thomas Andrews and other engineers designed and constructed titanic using assumptions based on their experience. The metals used where tempered with temperatures not suitable use in low temperature situations (Hill, 1996).

The engineers and designers left the topsides of the compartments open and the sides made watertight but walls made up to only a small distance above the highest level of water. The design team was compromised by the White Star Management hence reducing the number of life boats from the initial 64 to 20.

Immediate Repercussions of Loss of RMS Titanic

Massive loss of life occurred due to the sinking of the Titanic. A total of 1178 people lost their lives. Thousands grieved their loved ones while a number of people loosing their entire families.

The company which owned titanic, White Star Line, modified its existing ships to avoid any subsequent loss caused by design problems which contributed to the Titanic disaster.

Together with Harland and Wolff Shipyard the company that constructed Titanic and other shipbuilding companies, White Star Line started to follow all the regulations which had been put in place by United Kingdom and United States governments before the Titanic disaster occurred.

Other safety regulations for the ships at sea were discussed and put in place which included ship design, and regulations for passenger and cargo ships. The number of lifeboats was also increased to fit the number of passengers in each ship.

Safety of Life at Sea convention was organized in 1948 to discuss and come up with regulations which would ensure no such disaster occur in future. The convention was used to establish specifications to be used in designing of ships and their watertight compartments. The design was to be based on size of ships and the compartments were to limit flooding in ships and ensure that they must stay afloat with two water tight compartments flooded (Basset, 1998).

Safety regulations including mandatory increased lifeboat capacity were established and are in use to date. Use of wireless communication and ice patrols regulations were also established to avoid repeat of the Titanic disaster.

Basset, Vicky. “Causes and Effects of the Rapid Sinking of the Titanic”. Undergraduate Engineering Review , 1998. Web.

Broad, William J. “Why did it really sink?” The New York Times . 2008 . Web.

Gannon, Robert. “What Really Sank the Titanic?” Popular Science 246.2 (1995): 49-55. Web.

Hill, Steve. “The Mystery of the Titanic: A Case of Brittle Fracture?” Materials World 4.6 (1996): 334-335. Web.

Rogers, Patrick, Anne-Marie O’Neill, and Sophfronia Gregory, S. “Sunken Dreams,” People 49.10 (1998): 44-51. Web.

The Library of Virginia. “The Virginia Newspaper Project examines the news covering the sinking of R.M.S. Titanic”. R.M.S. Titanic: Ninety nine Years Later . 2009. Web.

“ Titanic Disaster Historical Documents Archive “. Paperlessarchives. 1998. Web.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Titanic — The Sinking of the Titanic: A Convergence of Error and Hubris

The Sinking of The Titanic: a Convergence of Error and Hubris

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Published: Mar 6, 2024

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Introduction, the factors leading to the sinking of the titanic, key decisions and actions by stakeholders, lessons learned: a call for responsibility and reflection.

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