The Great Disasters Podcast Is Written, Researched and Produced by Kari Fay
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The Sinking of the Titanic (Part One) It's a cold, moonless night with calm seas. Below decks, hundreds of passengers have settled in for the night, or are burning the midnight oil and making the most of the ship’s luxurious amenities. Above them all, the lookouts in the crow’s nest strain their eyes against the freezing air, gazing into a far-reaching darkness which makes it difficult even to make out the horizon. Suddenly, something looms out of the gloom. The lookout rings the bridge, his voice urgent. “Iceberg, right ahead!” I'm Kari Fay, and this is Great Disasters. It would be hard to produce a podcast called Great Disasters and not talk about the Titanic; that’s why I’m making it the subject of a two part special. It's one of the best known tragedies in history, boosted by countless films and documentaries on the subject. Even though it happened over a hundred years ago, and even the last survivors have now passed on, it's a name with instant recognition. It seems like a tale crafted to be memorable; the ship everybody knew to be unsinkable, sunk in just a few hours on her maiden voyage with the loss of many on board, from the poorest to the richest. However, not everything you've heard about the Titanic is necessarily true. Firstly, let's address that “unsinkable” thing. Was the Titanic really designed to be unsinkable? Well, yeah, in as much as no ship designer ever designed a ship to sink; but just like any designer they were working with certain limitations; the technology of the day, the time, money and materials available, and all those other practical considerations. They took what they thought would be the worst case scenario - a broadside collision with another ship - and worked to those criteria. The safety systems they gave her included a double bottom and a series of bulkheads which divided the hull into sixteen compartments, with heavy watertight doors between. By shutting the doors, any flooding could be limited, allowing the ship to remain afloat with any two, even up to four compartments flooded. They didn't foresee an accident that would affect more than that, of course. Was the Titanic actually advertised as unsinkable? Not quite. The advertising was mostly focused on her size and luxury. The White Star Line did boast of the safety systems, though. According to their official description, the captain could “by simply moving an electric switch, instantly close the doors throughout - practically making the vessel unsinkable.” Of course, practically unsinkable is not the same as totally unsinkable. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning. The Great Disasters Podcast is written, researched and produced by Kari Fay. © 2017 The Titanic was one of three ships built in Belfast by Harland & Wolff for the White Star Line. Her sister ship, the Olympic, was first to be completed in 1911; as a point of interest, since the Olympic and Titanic were practically identical and the Olympic was considerably longer-lived, a lot of the photographs used to illustrate stories about the Titanic are actually of the Olympic. They, and the third ship the Britannic, were designed at a time of intense competition between the shipping lines who worked the Atlantic crossing. Commercial air flight wouldn't arrive for years, so ships were the only option, and everyone involved was looking for an edge. The Cunard Line had the Mauretania, which had set speed records in both directions - eastbound in 1907 and westbound in 1909 - which it would hold for twenty years. It was also the largest ship ever built at the time - that is, until the Olympic and Titanic came along. They were almost thirty metres longer than the Mauretania, and slightly wider, making them slower vessels but giving them more room for luxuries to impress their guests. And luxuries there were aplenty. First class passengers boarding the ship were first awed by the entrance hall with its grand staircase - if you've seen James Cameron's film of the tragedy, you know exactly which one I mean. They could gather in the elegant, spacious, reading and writing room, or in the huge reception room; they had a choice of places to eat, from the Grand Dining Saloon to the more relaxed Cafe Parisien. The gentlemen could retire to the smoking room, and those of an energetic bent could make use of the swimming pool, Turkish baths, full size squash court and gymnasium - complete with mechanical horses. And, of course, at night they could sleep soundly in large, comfortable cabins with exquisite furnishings, making it seem for all the world like a five-star hotel had taken to the waters. Mrs Mahala Douglas of Minneapolis said, “The boat was so luxurious, so steady, so immense, and such a marvel of mechanism that one could not believe he was on a boat”. Second class passengers were just as pleased with what they got for their money; their smoking room, library and lobby may not have been quite as expansive and expensive as the first class equivalents, but they were still spacious and elegant. Eighteen year old Percy Bailey described the ship in a letter to his parents shortly after boarding: “The Titanic is a marvel, I can tell you. I have never seen such a sight in my life, she is like a floating palace, everything up to date.” Even third class passengers were well taken care of. Where other ships might cram steerage passengers into shared dormitories or cabins, most of the third class accommodation was in twin berth cabins. Their public areas were simple, but spacious, and they still got their meals served by waiters and stewards. The Standard, describing the ship at its launch, said that the amenities in third class “reminded one of the first class accommodation on many liners twenty years ago.” It was pretty fancy, considering. The Great Disasters Podcast is written, researched and produced by Kari Fay. © 2017 Whether you paid two pounds or eight hundred for your ticket, on board the Titanic you were promised a once in a lifetime experience. For many, it had to be; they'd saved hard to make their way to the New World. That two pounds- which was the cheapest one-way ticket sold - would be equivalent to paying between seven hundred and a thousand pounds in today's money. In total, the ship could carry 2,346 passengers. However, Titanic departed Southampton on the 10th of April 1912 with only 922 paying guests on board. This was due to a long-running coal strike which had disrupted travelling schedules for six weeks. Although the strike was resolved just before the Titanic sailed, many people had put off making plans until they were sure they could sail - and thus escaped tragedy. She then made her way first to Cherbourg in France, and then to Queenstown in Ireland, picking up and dropping off passengers at each port, before setting out across the North Atlantic for New York with 1,316 passengers and over 900 crew aboard. All seemed to be going well; the ship gradually increased speed under the command of Captain Edward Smith, and the wireless operators exchanged polite greetings with other passing ships, who offered their congratulations and good wishes for the maiden voyage. By Sunday, the 14th April, all of the ship’s 24 main boilers were running, and preparations were underway to light her auxiliary boilers. This gave rise to speculation that she was going to attempt a speed crossing, challenging the Mauretania’s record, but this is very unlikely. The Titanic wasn't designed for speed, and everybody in charge knew that she couldn't match the power of her smaller Cunard rival. However, they may well have wanted to see if she could beat the Olympic’s best speed, and at the very least run the Titanic through her paces. Those wireless messages they were getting weren't all congratulations, though. They included warnings of ice. Now, ice in the Atlantic is not unusual; mariners were used to it, and the Titanic was following a standard summertime course, which was generally far enough south to avoid danger. Not in 1912, however. It had been a mild winter, and this had caused huge amounts of ice to break off the Arctic icecap and drift south. In addition, the Gulf Stream, which sends warm water up across the Atlantic to Northern Europe, wasn't flowing as far north as usual. That meant colder waters, and allowed the ice to drift even further south. The Titanic didn't slow down. She carried on steaming ahead at a steady 22.5 knots as night fell. It was a moonless but starlit night, with calm seas, and conversation on the bridge is said to have touched on the difficulties of spotting ice in such conditions. The giveaway, you see, is usually the white crest of waves breaking against the ice; in calm seas, that's not available. And without moonlight, even with the glow of a million stars above, they faced a dark sea, a dark sky, and somewhere out there, dark ice. The Captain seemed unflustered; after dining with a party in the Cafe Parisien and checking in with the bridge for an update on conditions, he The Great Disasters Podcast is written, researched and produced by Kari Fay. © 2017 retired to his cabin at around 9.20pm, leaving orders that he should be roused if anything became “at all doubtful”.