Table of Contents

Introduction.2The Unsinkable Ship...3The sink of the Titanic4Passengers...5The Captain went down with the ship6Wreckage.....7Survivors..8Lifeboat Capacity on the Titanic..10Conclusion....11 Bibliography..12

1. Introduction

On the fateful night of April 14, 1912 there were 2,235 souls crowded aboard theR.M.S. Titanic. There was no wind to speak of. The frigid, dark sea was calm, like a plate glass mirror beneath the star-spangled heavens.It was an hour before midnight on a starry, moonless night.While the band played on beneath the decks in the first class lounge, and while the night watch paced the Bridge high above, the greatest maritime tragedy in the history of sailing, stealthily, silently awaited them in the ice-strewn midnight waters of the North Atlantic. Survivors recalled a gentle shudder that briefly shook the 900 foot long vessel. It came and went so quickly that nobody gave it much of a second thought. Except for the occupants of the Bridgewho in the split seconds before that collision, saw the towering iceberg ahead, floating in their unlighted pathway. The helmsman swerved to miss the icebergbut they would have been better off to have struck it head on.In narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, they suffered an even worse fate!I have chosen this topic because the Titanic have been representing a major interest for me since I was young. I can say that the movie, Titanic, have played a significant role in my passion of the Titanic ship, as it was the source of where I found out aboutit.

2. The Unsinkable ship

The Titanic was completed in 1912 at a cost of $7.5 million in Belfast, Ireland. It took more than two years to build, and two workers died during itsconstruction. The ship was 270 meters long, or more than four city blocks, and more than 28 meters high. It weighed an incredible 46,000 tons.The Titanic began its journey in Southampton, England, and then sailed to Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland. It sped west toward New York on April 10. It was carrying a total of 1,316 passengers and 885 crew members. The people were a mixture of wealthy individuals as well as immigrants from Ireland, Germany and elsewhere.On April 14, a nearby ship, the Californian, sent a message at 10:55 p.m.: "Ice report: We are stopped and surrounded by ice." But the captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, and First Officer William Murdoch did not heed these warnings, steaming ahead near full-speed.The RMS Titanic was built by the White Star line, which was a competitor to another shipbuilding building the Lusitania and the Mauretania, which set speed records crossing the Atlantic. To compete, White Star Line decided to build several large vessels known for their comfort instead of their speed,according to the Encyclopedia Britannica: the Olympic, the Titanic and the Britannic.

3. The sink of the Titanic At 11:40 p.m. ship's time, watchmen aboard the ship spotted an iceberg, and the ship made a sudden turn to the left, causing it to sideswipe the iceberg. The ice punched holes in the starboard of the boat, along a nearly 90 m stretch and it began filling it with water. Six of the ship's 16 water-tight compartments started filling. But this was enough to make the ship begin to sink into the water, at which point the water flowed of the top of these compartments and begin filling the other compartments. Modern estimates suggest that the boat could have possibly limped to shore with only four breached compartments.With six compartments leaking, however, the Titanic's fate was sealed it had lost too much buoyancy to remain afloat, and the fact that it was a well-built and durable ship at this point made little difference. That said, the ship didn't sink for almost three hours, longer than Titanic's engineer gave it when he heard that six compartments were leaking, he predicted it would only stay afloat for 1 to 1.5 hours, saidTitanic expert Parks Stephenson. Contrary to some studies that say theTitanic had weak rivets, it was actually quite strong for its time, Stephenson said.As the front filled with water and sunk into the ocean, the back of the ship lifted out of the water, according to analysis by James Cameron and eyewitness accounts. This placed tremendous pressure on the middle of the boat. It eventually cracked and the front of the ship crashed back into the ocean; the ship sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15.4. Passengers

Of the 2,224 people on board, 1,514 lost their lives, while 710 survived. First-class passengers fared much better than those in third class. For example, only 3 percent of first-class women died, whereas 54 percent of third class women perished.Some of theTitanic's passengerswere prominent people, including John Jacob Astor IV, one of the wealthiest men in the world at that time. So were Ida and Isidor Straus, who was the co-owner of Macy's department store.

And of course, there was "Unsinkable" Molly Brown, a socialite who became famous when she exhorted her lifeboat to return to look for survivors, and ultimately survived the ordeal herself.

Astor didn't survive, as he didn't take seriously the reports that the ship was sinking, and later wasn't allowed onto a lifeboat due to a "women and children first" policy. Ida Straus initially boarded a lifeboat but returned to her husband. "Where you go, I go," she reportedly said. The couple would die together.5. The Captain went down with the ship

In 1912, Smith became the captain for theTitanic. He was in Belfast on April 2, 1912, for the vessels first sea trials. Two days later, the ship docked in Southampton and was prepared for its maiden voyage across the North Atlantic. It was heralded as one of the biggest and most luxurious ships of the time. Unprepared for such an event, theTitanicdid not have enough lifeboats to carry all of its passengers to safety. Smith tried to manage the situation the best that he could, helping with the loading of the boats and managing the transmission of distress calls. He was last seen headed for the bridge.After 2 a.m. the next morning, theTitanicfully slipped into the dark cold waters of the North Atlantic, taking its captain with it. Several stories emerged about how his life ended. There were reports that he had shot himself on the bridge. Another had him in the water, swimming with an infant in tow and putting the child on a lifeboat before slipping beneath the water. It is commonly held, however, that Smith followed the marine tradition of remaining aboard his doomed vessel.There were several investigations into theTitanicdisaster in the United States and England. With all of the warnings, many wondered why Smith chose not to slow down or turn south in response to the threat of icebergs. He was not found to be responsible for the shipwreck.

6. Wreckage

Thewreck of theRMSTitanicis located about 600km south-southeast of the coast ofNewfoundland, lying at a depth of about 3,800m.Until 1985, the location of the wreck was unknown. Numerous expeditions tried usingsonarto map the sea bed in the hope of spotting the wreck, but failed due to a combination of bad weather, technological difficulties and poor search strategy. The wreck was finally located, 21.2km from the inaccurate position transmitted byTitanic's crew while the ship was sinking, by a joint French-American expedition led byJean-Louis MichelofIFREMERandRobert Ballardof theWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The key to its discovery was an innovative remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle calledArgo, which could be towed above the sea bed while its cameras transmitted pictures back to a mother ship.The wreck lies in two main pieces about a third of a mile apart. Thebowis still largely recognizable, in spite of its deterioration and the damage it suffered hitting the sea floor, and has a great deal of preserved interiors. The stern is completely ruined due to the damage it suffered while sinking 3,700m and hitting the ocean floor, and is now just a heap of twisted metal, which may explain why it has barely been explored during expeditions to theTitanicwreck. A substantial section of the middle of the ship broke apart and is scattered in chunks across the sea bed. A debris field covering about 5 by 3 miles around the wreck contains hundreds of thousands of items spilled from ship as she sank, ranging from passengers' personal effects to machinery, furniture, utensils and coal, as well as fragments of the ship herself. The bodies of the passengers and crew once also lay in the debris field, but have since been entirely consumed by sea creatures, leaving only their shoes lying together in the mud.7. Survirvors

In the 50 or 60 years after the sinking, a vast number of theTitanicssurviving passengers died. By September 1973, only 100Titanicsurvivors were still living. Here is a list of a few of the more famous of the last 100 survivors.Edith (Rosenbaum) Russell, died 1975After surviving the sinking of theTitanicat age 34, Edith Russell tried unsuccessfully to find a publisher for her account of the sinking. She served during World War I as perhaps the first female war correspondent. She never married, and her final years were spent as a recluse living in a hotel in London. She was 98 when she died.Frank Prentice, died 1982Frank Prentice was a 22-year-old storekeeper on theTitanicvictualling crew. As the ship was foundering, he talked about jumping overboard and swimming to Lifeboat 4. He ultimately did end up in the freezing water and was rescued by Lifeboat 4. Shortly before he died at the age of 92 in May 1982, Prentice appeared in the documentaryTitanic: A Question of Murderin that same year.Edwina Troutt, died 1984Edwina Troutt, who was 27 years old when she survived theTitanicsinking, was a beloved guest atTitanicconventions and continued to attend even into her late 90s. She died in California at the age of 100. Edwina never let the Titanicsinking spook her: She made several Atlantic crossings throughout her life.

Eva Hart, died 1996Eva Hart was one of the most outspoken of all theTitanicsurvivors. She routinely talked about the negligence of having too few lifeboats, and she went on record as being an avid antisalvage advocate. She felt theTitanicwas a gravesite, and she didnt believe anything should be taken from the ship or the debris field. She died in 1996 at the age of 91. The Eva Hart pub in Essex, England, is named in her honor.

Lillian Asplund, died 2006Lillian Asplund was the lastTitanicsurvivor with actual memories of the sinking. She remembered being passed through a window of the Promenade deck to a lifeboat and looking up and seeing the faces of her father and her three brothers. She was 5 years old at the time. She said that memory haunted her for her entire life. She died in Massachusetts in 2006 at the age of 100.

Elizabeth Gladys Millvina Dean, died 2009Millvina Dean was one of the most belovedTitanicsurvivors to die. She died in 2009 at the age of 97. She was only 10 weeks old when she sailed on the Titanic,and she didnt learn that she had been on the ship until she was 8 years old. She attended manyTitanicsociety conventions until poor health prevented her from traveling.8. Lifeboat Capacity on the Titanic

20 was about the number of lifeboats on the Titanic, or enough to save about 1/3 of the crew and passengers on board the boat. It was originally designed to carry 32 boats, but the number was reduced because designers felt that the deck would be excessively cluttered. The ship actually had enough davits, or lifeboat supports, to carry 64 lifeboats, but most of them remained unfilled.Most of these boats could handle about 65 people each, but there were also a small number of 47-passenger collapsible lifeboats and two emergency cutters capable of carrying 40 people. The UK had not upgraded the lifeboat requirements for passenger ships since 1896, stating that ships were safer and less likely to require lifeboats, making an update to the rules unnecessary. After the disaster, laws regarding safety requirements were changed significantly.Because of this inconsistency in safety precautions, combined with a women and children first policy, most of the ship's men were left to drown or freeze. About 90 percent of these men were second class passengers. Interestingly, Sir Alfred Chalmers stated that if the Titanic had carried fewer lifeboats, more people might have been saved, since the existing boats would have been filled to capacity instead of partially empty when the ship sank.

9. Conclusion

From my point of view, the sinking of the Titanic is still among the many great and tragic accidents to occur at sea in our history. Not only was it the largest and most luxurious liner at the time, it was also the most ill-fated cruise ship as it sailed off on its first and last voyage. Along with its sinking, more than half of its passengers would be buried at sea. Its sinking later introduced a new era of realism where people began to understand even the greatest technology was not perfect, and there was certainly no such thing as an unsinkable ship. Its rediscovery many years later would reawaken the desire to know all that happened on that historic night. I believe that the Titanic will most likely continue to lure people for generations to come, since every generation is able to take something different from its historic tragedy.

Bibliography :

http://www.livescience.com/38102-titanic-facts.html

http://www.biography.com/people/edward-j-smith-283822#death-at-sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_RMS_Titanic

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/some-of-the-last-surviving-titanic-passengers.html

www.bournemouthecho.co.uk

http://www.historyofthetitanic.org/titanic-lifeboats.html

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