The Boat

The Titanic was the largest ship (882ft 9in long) the world had ever seen when she set sail in April 1912. The British Oceanliner was designed for luxury and built by the hard work of poor Irish laborers in Southampton, Ireland. Learn about the White Star Line, the designs of the Titanic, the builders of the ship, and the wreck by scrolling through.

The White Star Line

Harland and Wolff is a British shipbuilding company that was formed in 1861 by Edward James Harland and Gustav Wilhelm Wolff. The duo bought a small shipyard, beginning to make ships for the Bibby Line. Harland implemented several innovations including replacing wooden upper decks with iron (increasing the strength of the ships) and giving the hulls a flatter bottom to increase capacity.

The company would begin a long-time partnership with the White Star Line when Wolff’s uncle, a merchant, approached Thomas Ismay. When Harland died in 1895, William James Pirrie became the chairman of the company until 1924. Pirrie’s nephew, Thomas Andrews, became the general manager and head of the draughting (drafting) in 1907. During this period the company built the Olympic-class ships for the White Star Line.

The White Star Line introduced the Olympic class of ships in the heat of competition with German ship companies and the British Cunard Line. They knew that their Big Four class of ships (Celtic, Cedric, Baltic, and Adriatic), which were famous for size and luxury, were no match in speed. Bruce Ismay alongside the architect Thomas Andrews and the shipbuilders at Harland and Wolff got to work on what would be the largest, most luxurious, and fastest ships afloat.

Each boat had 9 decks, 7 of which were accessible by passengers. Outfitted with the best accommodations available. The Olympic set sail in 1911 and the Titanic in 1912. While Olympic was in service for a great run of 24 years, the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage. Construction on Britannic did not begin until after both ship’s maiden voyage allowing for the boat to take into account new learnings from the other ships. Britannic would be in service only for a few years, until 1916 when she was sank operating as a hospital ship during WWI.

The Titanic had watertight bulkheads which was a fairly new innovation on large passenger ships of the day. These are the main reason the ship was regarded as “unsinkable”. The hull was separated into sixteen watertight compartments using heavy-duty, centrally controlled watertight doors. Had only 3-4 of them been filled with water the boat would have stayed afloat. Unfortunately, the damage to the boat was taken on the side causing six bulkheads to fill. Most of the bulkheads extended up to the E-deck and some to the D-Deck but they were sadly not tall enough to prevent the sinking.

The boat also had an impressive power and propulsion system of 29 boilers and propellers driven by steam turbines. These were innovative new technologies in the maritime industry, which would allow for an impressive maximum speed of 23 knots (about 26mph). The ship also had a top-of-the-line radio system, the Marconi wireless system. Unfortunately, that did not stop many ice warnings from being ignored and a nearby ship from being unresponsive during the sinking.

The Builders

Construction of the ship took a little over two years, involving thousands of workers, and about 150 million dollars in todays money. The workforce was paid £2 for a 49 hour work week (in todays money and USD this would be approx. $360/week (7ish/hr)). Most of the men who worked on the ship were in the protestant working class and relied on industrial jobs. Some catholic men worked on the ship but at the time most were segregated out of the workforce, without guaranteed jobs, the minority building the ship likely were in unkilled roles.

As the boat left the shipyard in Belfast headed for Southhampton where she would begin her official maiden voyage, many executives and well-off members of the public celebrated having dinner and drinks. Meanwhile, almost all of the Harland & Wolff workers (likely thousands) sat on their own, free, “grandstands” of coal and timber to watch the boat they painstakingly built sail off.

The ship primarily flew three flags on the journey. The White Star house glad, US Mail flag indicating their mail contract with the U.S. Gov./destination port, and the Blue Ensign representing the ship’s British ownership. While the British may have owned it, the Irish men who built the ship should not be ignored. Despite the tragedy, the ship is remembered in those communities today with a sense of pride and nostalgia. The ship was built in the height of Belfast’s industrial fame

The Guarantee Group

This nine-person group was given passenger accommodation on the ship but was regarded as members of the crew. The team was headed by Thomas Andrews and their responsabilites included fixing any problems that might arise during the voyage and keeping an eye out for improvements that could be added in future ships.

The group included Thomas Andrews, the master shipbuilder, as well as multiple engineers, a joiner, a draftsman, a plumber, and electricians. Unfortunately, none of the team survived and none of their bodies were recovered.

Deck Plans

Click here for a long Titanic walkthrough

Click here for a closer look at the deck plans

For PC Gamers, click here for a Titanic game with free demos

Click here for artificats from The Titanic Museum

Click here for artificats from The Smithsonian

The Wreck

The wreck of the Titanic lies about 12.5k ft in the ocean not too far from the coast of Newfoundland. It lies in two main pieces about 2k ft apart with the bow being mostly still recognizable with some preserved interiors and the stern heavily damaged. There is also a large debris field around the wreck.

The wreck was discovered in 1985 by a joint French-American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who were originally on a mission to find two nuclear Cold War submarines. Since then the ship has been visited by numerous tourist and scientific expeditions. Controversial salvage operations have recovered thousands of items for conservation and display. Some have proposed methods to raise the wreck but it is much too fragile and is protected by a UNESCO convention.

Immediately after the sinking some wealthier families of victims attempted to have the boat raised or bodies dislodged for identification but neither of these were suitable plans as they could not reach the boat anyways. Many would attempt to find the ship after that but it would not be until 73 years later that it would be discovered. Finding the wreck in 1985 launched the world into a sort of Titanic revival, with much of the media regarding the disaster including the 1997 movie being made after that.

There is a newly discovered species of rust-eating bacteria called Halomonas titanicae that creates rusty, icicle-like formations called rusticles on the boat. Due to the bacteria, ocean currents, and other marine life, the Titanic is slowly deteriorating and that process is only speeding up as it has gone on. Different estimates have been made about when the boat will collapse, speculating about 10-30 years. Some think the boat could entirely disappear by that time or could still be around for hundreds of years.

Extra Facts!

Click here to learn about the man who launched the boat

Click here to learn about the chairman of Harland & Wolff

The boat had no rooms labeled 13 (no A-13 on Deck A, no B-13 on Deck B, etc.) for superstition
The Titanic had a swimming pool, Turkish baths, a gymnasium with state-of-the-art equipment, and a barber shop aboard.
Even the cheaper third-class cabins were better standard than those on other liners.
Each ship in the Olympic class could accommodate a maximum of 64 lifeboats but only 20 boats were installed on the Olympic and Titanic to avoid cluttering the deck. Despite the low number, both ships exceeded the Board of Trade safety regulations of the time. After the sinking of the Titanic, both the Olympic and Britannic had more lifeboats added.
Many of the photos we have from the Titanic while it was actually afloat are thanks to passenger Francis Patrick Mary Browne, a priest from Ireland, who traveled from Southhampton to Queenstown. During the trip he took pictures on his own camera and after realizing the boat he sailed on had sunk, Browne got the images developed and the album eventually became quite famous.
It took more money to make the movie Titanic than to build the ship (the movie was 200 million)
The Titanic was not christened, a ceremony that introduces a new boat to the water and marks the beginning of its service. Traditionally, a bottle of champagne is broken against the bow of the boat, symbolizing good fortune for the boat and its crew. The White Star Line’s company policy was not to perform any christening.
Another shipbuilder worked on some of the plans for Titanic before Thomas Andrews became the primary master shipbuilder. Alexander Carlisle retired before the Olympic-class ships were finished, possibly because of disputes he was having with Pirrie, the chairman of Harland and Wolff. Carlisle recommended having more lifeboats on such a large vessel while Pirrie was satisfied that the number of lifeboats more than met the board of trade regulations.
Another man, a painter/decorator named Joseph Thompson, would have been a part of the guarantee group but finished his job on the ship early. Thomas Andrews instructed him to get off at Queenstown, which would end up saving his life.
Ironically, a lifeboat drill was scheduled on the morning of April 14th and was canceled to allow passengers and crew the opportunity to attend mass