Dawn Phelps
Columnist
April 15 brings back haunting reminders of what happened on that day 113 years ago in 1912. That is when the Titanic, built in Belfast, Ireland, set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City with 2,224 on board (Wikipedia).
It was the largest, most luxurious ship of its time, and it was believed to be unsinkable. It was 850 feet long, 92 feet wide and 64 feet high—larger than the measurements for Noah’s ark of 450 feet high, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
The ship left England on April 10, carrying some of the very richest and some of the poorest. Many of the passengers in third class were immigrants bound for America, hoping for a better life.
Only four days into the journey, the Titanic struck an iceberg about 375 miles south of Newfoundland on the evening of April 14. It was a dark, calm, moonless night when Frederick Fleet, a watchman on the Titanic spotted an iceberg in the path of the ship—it was too late to avoid it!
But there was a major problem. The Titanic carried 20 lifeboats, space for about one third of those on board the ship.
As the ship began to fill with water, some of the passengers were evacuated into the too-few lifeboats. But some of the lifeboats were not filled to capacity before they were lowered into the Atlantic Ocean. Preference was given to those in the ship’s first-class section, and women and children were boarded first.
After about two and a half hours, the ship sank to the bottom of the ocean after breaking into two pieces. A total of 1,514 people died with most of them freezing in the 28–30-degree water. Only 710 survived.
The survivors on the lifeboats were picked up by the Carpathia, a ship that arrived a few hours too late in response to the Titanic’s distress calls. Over three hundred bodies from the Titanic were retrieved by ships from Canada which were dispatched to the site, carrying embalming supplies, undertakers, and clergy. Embalming was required before the bodies could be taken on land.
The task of embalming so many bodies proved too great, so some of the bodies were buried at sea. Some bodies were returned to America or Europe, and 150 were buried in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Even though the sinking of the Titanic was horrible, the loss of life could have been even greater. Records show that the Titanic could have held up to 2,566 passengers, but only 1,317 passengers were booked on the ship, partially due to a coal strike in the United Kingdom.
For various reasons, about 50 people had cancelled their trips, and one crewman sneaked off the ship when the ship temporarily docked in Queenstown, the last stop before the fateful journey across the Atlantic.
The sinking of the Titanic was such a tragedy, and many died. But something good did come from the sinking of the Titanic.
When U.S. Senator William Alden Smith led an investigation into the disaster, he found the ship had failed to take proper heed of iceberg warnings. There were not enough lifeboats, and the ship had steamed into a dangerous area at too high a speed.
The inquisition into the disaster uncovered some other problems which resulted in the development of regulations to help prevent future maritime disasters. Here are a few more findings:
- The ship was sinkable, and over confidence can be dangerous.
- Speed is not as important as safety.
- The crew did not properly interpret warnings that icebergs were in the water. Binoculars might have been helpful, but the binoculars were locked away on the Titanic, but there was no key.
- Space in the lifeboats was not fully utilized.
- The staff needed more training on how to deal with catastrophes.
After the sinking of the Titanic, safety regulations were initiated, and an International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor icebergs in the North Atlantic. Hopefully, other tragic maritime events have been avoided because of the Titanic’s fateful voyage.
On April 15 we still remember those who died 113 years ago. May they rest in peace.
