Construction of the Titanic

Construction of the Titanic began on March 31, 1909 and ended on March 31, 1912. The ship’s construction cost $7.5 million. The ship measured over 882 feet at the end of construction, and was 175 feet high.

Construction took three years, over 3 million rivets and 46,000 tons. Workers installed the ship’s large boilers. It was intended for around 2,300 passengers, however 900 crew members bumped up the numbers.

Titanic was launched on May 31, 1911, and was watched by over 100,000 onlookers. The ship’s maiden voyage began April 10, 1912, before sinking in the early hours of April 15. It has since become one of the most famous sinkings in history.

After the sinking, misinformation about the ship’s sinking spread across the country. Despite the sinking, the ship travelled over 2,000 miles before its demise. The wreckage was discovered in 1985.

Development

State of White Star Line and early history of Titanic

The drawing rooms of Harland and Wolff, where the plans for Titanic were most likely drawn up.

The history of the Titanic began with the rivalry between many shipping lines in the 20th century. Cunard And White Star Line went into competition. Cunard’s Mauritania ship set a record for the fastest average speed in a transatlantic crossing. White Star Line discussed a new line of “Olympic” ships to compete with Cunard, these three ships were Olympic (1911), Titanic (1912), and Britannic (1915). In Downshire House in Autumn 1907, Lord Pirrie of Harland and Wolff had a conversation at dinner with J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of White Star Line, where the first ideas for the Titanic and Olympic were brought up.

Ships

Main article: Olympic-class ocean liner

RMS Olympic, first of the Olympic liners.

Titanic, second of the ships.

The RMS Olympic made its first voyage on June 11, 1911. Titanic made its first voyage on April 10, 1912. While the HMHS Britannic made its first voyage on December 23, 1915.

Construction

Design

Titanic was designed to carry up to 2,345 passengers, and an additional 900 crew people. While it was originally equipped to carry 64 lifeboats, it only carried 20 during its voyage. Due to the shortage of lifeboats, only 700 people made it on, killing 1,517 people during the sinking who did not make it off or froze. The number of boats needed to hold all the passengers was 48.

Titanic had 16 compartments connected to doors that could be closed from the bridge. However, the bulkheads weren’t capped at the top. Builder’s claimed that four compartments could be filled without endangering the ship.

Construction of the ship

Construction of the Titanic in 1911.

Construction began on 31 March 1909 after the ship's keel was laid down. The Olympic and Titanic were built side by side, although the Olympic’s construction had started earlier.

The ship's 3 million rivets were formed at a factory. They were then incandescently heated. The tail of the ship was then locked down to firm the parts together.

Both ships took about 26 months to build and followed much the same construction process. They were designed essentially as an enormous floating box girder, with the keel acting as a backbone and the frames of the hull forming the ribs. At the base of the ships, a double bottom 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m) deep supported 300 frames, each between 24 inches (61 cm) and 36 inches (91 cm) apart and measuring up to about 66 feet (20 m) long. They terminated at the bridge deck (B Deck) and were covered with steel plates which formed the outer skin of the ships. Out of the many injuries during construction, 28 were severe. It is reported there were six deaths on the ship itself. Among them was a man named Robert Murphy, who was reported on by The Belfast News Letter in 1911.

The 2,000 hull plates were single pieces of rolled steel plate, mostly up to 6 feet (1.8 m) wide and 30 feet (9.1 m) long and weighing between 2.5 and 3 tons. According to a 1911 article by Asheville Citizen-Times, the largest plates in the hull 36 feet long and 4½ tons riveted by hydraulic power. Installing rivets was a hard job, according to a historian “there were no hard hats...no heat-resistant overalls [and] no protective goggles." Workers were forced to learn from experience.

Workers were fined for various reasons such as smoking, playing football, cards, and making tea.

Construction ended in 1911 and was followed by the fitting-out process which began on May 31, 1911.

Launch

Titanic launching.

Titanic fitting out (1911-1912)

Titanic was launched at 12:15 or 12:13 p.m. on 31 May 1911 in the presence of Lord Pirrie, J. Pierpont Morgan, J. Bruce Ismay and 100,000 onlookers. The launch took 62 seconds. The launch weight was around 24,000 to 25,000 tons while Olympic had a launch weight of 27,000 tons.

After the launch, fitting out the ship began. Workers began loading machinery onto the ship and working on the interior. After the Olympic’s maiden voyage, the builders chose to make slight changes to the ship. The ship’s sea trials began in April 1912.

Titanic’s maiden voyage officially begun on April 10, 1912 after leaving Southampton, England. On April 15, 1912, just five days after the ship’s maiden voyage begun, the ship hit an iceberg and sunk, creating one of the most famous disasters in history.

Aftermath

A boy selling newspapers relating to the ship’s destruction.

After the sinking of the Titanic, reactions differed in many ways. Many theories have emerged. Many different scenarios were investigated. Immediately after the survivors arrived on land, around 80 people were interviewed. The ships sinking led to many new safety measures for ships, including the requirement for ships to maintain a twenty-four hour radio watch.

Research

In 2017, James Cameron hosted the documentary, "Titanic: 20 Years Later With James Cameron," during the documentary, James Cameron studied the number of Lifeboats onboard, and determined that with all 18 lifeboats set out, 60 lifeboats would not help more people survive, as the time to set out a lifeboat was too long compared to the time the ship sank.

In 1998, a theory emerged that the ship's sinking was a result of faulty rivets set down during construction. During the study, two rivets were brought up and found to have abnormal amounts of slag. Harland & Wolfe gave no comment on the findings. Explorer Robert D. Ballard reportedly saw plates that were "knocked apart at their riveted seams."

The 2015 documentary “Drain the Titanic” inquired that the ship would probably rot over the next few decades and centuries. National Geographic later went back to make another documentary which aired in 2020 titled “Back to the Titanic,” where they discovered that the ship was rotting quicker than originally imagined.

Theories

A common theory related to the ship’s sinking is that part of the ship’s sinking was related to a coal fire happening near the ship’s hull. A British inquiry in 1912 noted on this, however it was likely downturned by the judge. Part of the theory started when a journalist named Senan Molony bought several images of the Titanic, one of the pictures showed a streak on the ship’s hull; although possibly a reflection, Molony claims that it may’ve been an effect of the fire which weakened the hull and made the iceberg rip easier. This was featured in the documentary “Titanic: The New Evidence.”

In 2010 a granddaughter of one of the ship’s survivors claimed that one of the ship’s workers had heard the order to “hard-a-starboard.” As ships at that time relied on two different steering orders, the claim said he turned the wrong way towards the iceberg, resulting in the sinking. This claim came from her grandmother after her grandfather Charles Lightoller, a survivor of the ship had died.

According to some sources, less than an hour before the ship sunk, a nearby ship had sent a message about icebergs nearby, however it was dismissed by the person who got it thinking it wasn’t urgent.

Ship layout

A layout of the Titanic, from back to front.

All three of the Olympic-class ships had ten decks (excluding the top of the officers' quarters), eight of which were for passenger use. From top to bottom, the decks were:

• The Boat Deck, on which the lifeboats were housed. It was from here during the early hours of 15 April 1912 that Titanic's lifeboats were lowered into the North Atlantic. The bridge and wheelhouse were at the forward end, in front of the captain's and officers' quarters. The bridge stood 8 feet (2.4 m) above the deck, extending out to either side so that the ship could be controlled while docking. The wheelhouse stood within the bridge. The entrance to the First Class Grand Staircase and gymnasium were located midships along with the raised roof of the First Class lounge, while at the rear of the deck were the roof of the First Class smoke room and the relatively modest Second Class entrance. The wood-covered deck was divided into four segregated promenades: for officers, First Class passengers, engineers, and Second Class passengers respectively. Lifeboats lined the side of the deck except in the First Class area, where there was a gap so that the view would not be spoiled.
• A Deck, also called the Promenade Deck, extended along the entire 546 feet (166 m) length of the superstructure. It was reserved exclusively for First Class passengers and contained First Class cabins, the First Class lounge, smoke room, reading and writing rooms and Palm Court.
• B Deck, the Bridge Deck, was the top weight-bearing deck and the uppermost level of the hull. More First Class passenger accommodations were located here with six palatial staterooms (cabins) featuring their own private promenades. On Titanic, the À La Carte Restaurant and the Café Parisien provided luxury dining facilities to First Class passengers. Both were run by subcontracted chefs and their staff; all were lost in the disaster. The Second Class smoking room and entrance hall were both located on this deck. The raised forecastle of the ship was forward of the Bridge Deck, accommodating Number 1 hatch (the main hatch through to the cargo holds), numerous pieces of machinery and the anchor housings. Aft of the Bridge Deck was the raised Poop Deck, 106 feet (32 m) long, used as a promenade by Third Class passengers. It was where many of Titanic's passengers and crew made their last stand as the ship sank. The forecastle and Poop Deck were separated from the Bridge Deck by well decks.
• C Deck, the Shelter Deck, was the highest deck to run uninterrupted from stem to stern. It included both well decks; the aft one served as part of the Third Class promenade. Crew cabins were housed below the forecastle and Third Class public rooms were housed below the Poop Deck. In between were the majority of First Class cabins and the Second Class library.
• D Deck, the Saloon Deck, was dominated by three large public rooms—the First Class Reception Room, the First Class Dining Saloon, and the Second Class Dining Saloon. An open space was provided for Third Class passengers. First, Second and Third Class passengers had cabins on this deck, with berths for firemen located in the bow. It was the highest level reached by the ship's watertight bulkheads (though only by eight of the fifteen bulkheads).
• E Deck, the Upper Deck, was predominantly used for passenger accommodation for all three classes plus berths for cooks, seamen, stewards and trimmers. Along its length ran a long passageway nicknamed Scotland Road, in reference to a famous street in Liverpool. Scotland Road was used by Third Class passengers and crew members.
• F Deck, the Middle Deck, was the last complete deck and mainly accommodated Second and Third Class passengers and several departments of the crew. The Third Class dining saloon was located here, as were the swimming pool, Turkish bath and kennels.
• G Deck', the Lower Deck, was the lowest complete deck that carried passengers, and had the lowest portholes, just above the waterline. The squash court was located here along with the traveling post office where letters and parcels were sorted ready for delivery when the ship docked. Food was also stored here. The deck was interrupted at several points by orlop (partial) decks over the boiler, engine, and turbine rooms.
• The Orlop Decks and the Tank Top below that were on the lowest level of the ship, below the waterline. The orlop decks were used as cargo spaces, while the Tank Top—the inner bottom of the ship's hull—provided the platform on which the ship's boilers, engines, turbines, and electrical generators were housed. This area of the ship was occupied by the engine and boiler rooms, areas which passengers would have been prohibited from seeing. They were connected with higher levels of the ship by flights of stairs; twin spiral stairways near the bow provided access up to D Deck.

See also

• Titanic
• Sinking of the Titanic
• Wreck of the Titanic
• Shipbuilding

References

Category:Ships Category:White Star Line Category:1900s in Southampton Category:Construction Category:Architecture

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