Things were a bit cheaper back then. Boneless rib roast, 24 cents a pound, a Model T Ford – $275, and silver 47 cents an ounce. But that’s not all that made 1912 noteworthy. A few minutes before midnight, on April 14th, the world’s largest, most up-to-date, modern, luxurious, steamship Titanic, struck a huge iceberg, and its fate was then sealed. We all know the tragic story of that event, but maybe a few details of that magnificent ship, may be of interest. From a book, titled “Unsinkable,” and I learned a lot about that ship. This has nothing to do with silver or gold, but it is interesting.
Her keel was laid March 31st, 1909, and she was one of three huge ships authorized to be built by the White Star Line. Interestingly, all of the White Star’s ships’ names, ended with the two letters “I C.” The three, were the “Olympic,” Gigantic,” and “Titanic,” which were scheduled to go into service in three consecutive years. Their builder was the Harland & Wolf shipyard. The shipyard, went back to 1840, and smaller ships it built for White Star, included “Oceanic,” ”Atlantic,” “Baltic,” ”Republic,” “Adriatic,” “Britannic,” “Majestic,” and “Celtic.” All were tiny, compared to Titanic, which displaced (weighed) 45,000 tons, very similar to today’s smaller cruise ships, and WW II carriers. At its peak, Harland & Wolf had 14,000 on its payroll.
Remember, in 1912, there were no airplanes, radio, TV, or any of the things to communicate with, we now enjoy. Travel between the U.S. and Britain, were common, and the Atlantic ship traffic, was enormous. There was no other way to cross the ocean. Steamships, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were a source of endless pride for the owners, and the shipyards which built them. Marine engineering, had come to be regarded as the pinnacle of human achievement.
There was a Blue Ribbon awarded each year, to the line and ship which crossed the Atlantic the fastest, and White Star’s owner, who had become J.P. Morgan, wanted that ribbon, which he never obtained. Six years earlier, Cunard, built ”Lusitania,” and “Mauretania,” which competed with White Star, when its ships were launched. The Lusitania, you may remember, was sunk by the Nazis in WW I. Titanic, was 882 feet long, with a beam (width) of 98 feet, and from keel to the top of her four funnels (stacks), was 175 feet. In spite of her size, she was incredibly beautiful, and the three, were 120 feet longer than the Lusitania and Mauritania.
Titanic, was advertised as being “unsinkable,” and it made every possible effort to make that true. She had 16 watertight bulkheads, and she was built to be literally, ‘watertight.’ Connecting the watertight compartments, were a series of watertight doors, normally left open, but could be rapidly closed with a master switch on the bridge. The Titanic, had 29 boilers, 25 of which were double ended, meaning that they were fired from two ends. Each end, had three fireboxes, making a total of 162 furnaces, and at full speed, Titanic burned 650 tons of coal a day. 200 sweating, grimy firemen, stokers, and trimmers, would move the coal from the bunkers, shovel into the fireboxes, and keep the fires burning evenly in the boilers, which were two stories tall, and 21 feet in diameter.
Titanic and her sisters, had two, four-cylinder, reciprocating, triple expansion engines, forty feet tall, with the largest of its cylinders, being nine feet in diameter, and ran at a top speed of 80 RPMs. The size of these engines, their components and parts, to me, is simply incredible. One engine for each side of the ship, connected directly to the prop shaft. The exhaust of these two engines, were fed into a center prop, run by a turbine, thereby using the steam twice.
The British Board of Trade, said that the Titanic was in line with the list of cubic footage required for each lifeboat, which gave the Titanic lifeboats for 1,178 passengers. The rules had not been re-written for ships the size of Titanic, so she was very short of the necessary lifeboats, when she sank.
When she left port, Titanic had loaded 75,000 pounds of fresh meat, 11,000 pounds of fresh fish, 25,000 pounds of poultry and game, 11,900 pounds of salt, bacon and ham, 40,000 fresh eggs, 200 barrels of flour, 10,000 pounds of sugar, and on it went. There was no frozen food then. She had a full orchestra, the finest in décor, tapestries, furnishings, bedding, linens and employees, trained to give her passengers the utmost in superb service. She was luxury travel, which seems to bankrupt the English language, as far as superlatives can be used. Her staterooms had hot and cold running water, toilet, shower and tub.
The end, of course, we all know, but there are a few things needing to be mentioned. There were several telegraph warnings about icebergs in the immediate vicinity, and were recorded and received by operators, but they were sent to several of the wrong places on the ship, and as a result were never acted upon. There was no radio speech communication in 1912; only telegraph. When the helmsman on the bridge, saw the iceberg dead ahead, he immediately shut the waterproof doors, ordered full astern, and hard left. Captain Smith was asleep, but awoke immediately, and acted as he should have. He went down with the ship. Many rockets were launched, and the telegraph operator, (sparks) continuously broadcast SOS calls, but talking radio was unknown then. Cunard’s “Carpathia,” was 58 miles away, and instantly headed toward the disaster, but it took four hours to get there, even at full speed. It did the best it could to pick up survivors. The “California,” under Captain Lord, did little, and was severely reprimanded for his lack of action. Molly Brown was in one of the lifeboats, captained by a worthless seaman. She took over, and saved many lives. She became known as the ‘Unsinkable Molly Brown,” as in stage and film fame. I saw a live stage show of it with Tammy Grimes as Molly, at New York’s Winter Garden Theatre, in the mid-fifties, and of course have seen the film many times and have it in my library.
The list of lost, is as follows:
First Class. Men-118. Women and children -5
Second Class. Men – 154. Women and children -15
Third Class. Men – 674. Women -3
Total lost – 1502
Survivors as follows:
First Class. Men – 57. Women and children -144
Second Class. Men -14. Women and children -102
Third Class. Men – 75. Women and children – 112
Total saved – 705.
I now have a totally different opinion of the Titanic; how beautiful and luxurious she was she was, her superb engineering and design, and how, but three misplaced telegraph warning messages, she might have never gone down. I read a lot, and love books!
Don Stott- don@coloradogold.com, or 1-970-249-4646 for conversation