On the night of September 1, 1985, an American-French expedition led by oceanologist Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic steam boiler at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Soon the remains of the ship itself were discovered. Thus ended the long-term saga of the search for the sunken ship, which was carried out by several independent researchers, but for a long time was unsuccessful due to incorrect coordinates of the death of the ship, broadcast on the fateful night of 1912. The discovery of the remains of the Titanic opened a new page in its history: the answers to many controversial issues; a number of facts that were considered proven and irrefutable turned out to be erroneous.
The first intentions to find and raise the Titanic appeared immediately after the disaster. The families of several millionaires wanted to find the bodies of their dead relatives in order to properly bury them, and discussed the issue of raising the Titanic with one of the companies that specialized in underwater rescue work. But at that time there was no technical possibility to carry out such an operation. A plan was also discussed to drop charges of dynamite on the ocean floor so that some bodies would rise to the surface from the explosions, but these intentions were eventually abandoned.
Later, a number of crazy projects were developed to raise the Titanic. For example, it was proposed to fill the ship's hull with ping-pong balls or attach helium tanks to it, which would lift it to the surface. There were many other projects, mostly fantastic. In addition, before trying to raise the Titanic, it had to be found first, and this was not so simple.
One of the controversial issues in the history of the Titanic for a long time remained the coordinates broadcast along with the distress signal. They were determined by the fourth assistant captain, Joseph Boxhall, based on the coordinates that were calculated a few hours before the collision, the speed and course of the vessel. There was no time to check them in detail in that situation, and Carpathia, who came to the rescue a few hours later, successfully went to the boats, however, the first doubts about the correctness of the coordinates arose already during the investigation of 1912. At that time, the question remained open and When the first serious attempts to search for the Titanic began in the 80s, the researchers faced a problem: the Titanic was neither at the indicated coordinates, nor near them. The situation was also complicated by the local conditions of the disaster - after all, the Titanic was at a depth of almost 4 km and the search required appropriate equipment.
In the end, luck smiled at Robert Ballard, who, step by step, was preparing for the expedition for almost 13 years. After almost two months of searching, when only 5 days were left before the end of the expedition and Ballard had already begun to doubt the success of the event, some strange shadows appeared on the monitor connected to the video camera on the descent vehicle. This happened at almost one in the morning on September 1, 1985. It soon became clear that this was nothing more than the wreckage of a ship. After some time, one of the steam boilers was discovered and there was no doubt that the wreckage belonged to the Titanic. The next day, the front of the ship's hull was discovered. The lack of a stern turned out to be a big surprise: after an investigation in 1912, it was officially considered that the ship sank entirely.
Ballard's first expedition gave answers to many questions and gave the world a number of modern photographs of the Titanic, but much remained unexplained. A year later, Ballard again went to the Titanic, and this expedition already used a deep-sea descent vehicle that could deliver three people to the ocean floor. There was also a small robot that allowed research inside the ship. This expedition clarified many questions that had remained open since 1912, and after it Ballard no longer planned to return to the Titanic. But what Ballard did not do, others did, and new expeditions soon reached the Titanic. Some of them were purely research in nature, some pursued the goal of lifting various objects from the bottom, incl. and for sale at auctions, which caused many scandals about the moral and ethical side of the issue. James Cameron also descended to the Titanic several times; not only for the filming of his 1997 film, but also for research using robotics inside the ship (see the documentary "Ghosts of the Abyss: Titanic"), which revealed a lot of new facts about the condition of the ship and its once magnificent finish.
As for the issue of raising the Titanic, it became clear after Ballard's expeditions that this operation would not only be daunting and expensive; the ship's hull has long been in such a state that it will simply crumble into pieces, if not during lifting, then on the surface.
1. Let's see how the Titanic looks now and how it looked before. The Titanic sank in the Atlantic at a depth of almost 4 km. During the dive, the ship broke into two parts, which now lie on the bottom about six hundred meters apart. A lot of debris and objects are scattered around them, incl. and a pretty big piece of the Titanic's hull. 
2. Model of the bow. When the ship fell to the bottom, the nose was very well buried in the silt, which greatly disappointed the first researchers, because it turned out to be impossible to inspect the place of impact on the iceberg without special equipment. The ragged hole in the body, which is visible on the layout, was formed from hitting the bottom. 
3. Panorama of the bow, assembled from several hundred photographs. From right to left: the winch of the spare anchor sticks out directly above the edge of the bow, behind it there is a mooring device, immediately behind it is an open hatch into hold No. 1, from which the breakwater lines diverge to the sides. A fallen mast lies on the deck between the superstructures, under it there are two more hatches into the holds and winches for handling cargo. In front of the main superstructure, there used to be a captain's bridge, which collapsed during the fall to the bottom and is now guessed now only in separate details. Behind the bridge, a superstructure with cabins for officers, a captain, a radio room, etc., has been preserved, which is crossed by a crack formed at the site of the expansion joint. A gaping hole in the superstructure - a place for the first chimney. Immediately behind the superstructure, another hole is visible - this is a well in which the main staircase was located. To the left is something very torn - there was a second pipe. 
4. The nose of the Titanic. The most button accordion object of underwater photographs of the vessel. At the end, you can see a loop on which a cable was put on that held the mast. 
5. The photo on the left shows the winch of the spare anchor towering over the bow. 
6. The main anchor of the port side. It's amazing how he didn't fly down when he hit the bottom. 
7. Spare anchor: 
8. Behind the spare anchor is a mooring device: 
9. Open hatch to hold No. 1. The lid flew off to the side, apparently when it hit the bottom. 
10. There used to be the remains of a "crow's nest" on the mast, where the lookouts were, but ten or twenty years ago they fell off and now only a hole in the mast reminds of the "crow's nest", through which the lookouts got to the spiral staircase. The protruding tail behind the hole is the fastening of the ship's bell. 
11. Board of the ship: 
12. Only one of the steering wheels remained from the captain's bridge. 
13. Boat deck. The superstructure on it in some places is either uprooted or torn. 
14. The preserved part of the superstructure in front of the deck. Below on the right is the entrance to the front staircase of the 1st class. 
15. Surviving davits, a bath in Captain Smith's cabin and the remains of a steamship whistle that was installed on one of the pipes. 
16. A huge well now gapes in place of the front staircase. There are no traces of the stairs. 
17. Staircase in 1912: 
18. And the same perspective in our time. Looking at the previous photo, it's hard to believe that this is the same place. 
19. Behind the stairs there were several elevators for 1st class passengers. Separate elements have been preserved from them. The inscription, depicted at the bottom right, was placed opposite the elevators and denoted the deck. This inscription belonged to deck A; the bronze letter A has already fallen off, but traces of it remain. 
20. 1st class lounge on deck D. This is the bottom of the main staircase. 
21. Although almost all the wooden trim of the ship has long been eaten away by microorganisms, some elements are still preserved here. 
22. The restaurant and the 1st class lounge on deck D were separated from the outside world by large stained glass windows that have survived to this day. 
23. Remains of former beauty: 
24. From the outside, the windows are guessed by the characteristic double portholes. 
25. Chic chandeliers have been hanging in their places for over 100 years. 
26. The once-splendid interiors of 1st class cabins are now littered with debris and debris. In some places you can find preserved elements of furniture and objects. 
27.
28.
29. Some more details. The door to the restaurant on deck D and a sign indicating service doors: 
30. The stokers had their own "front staircase". In order not to meet passengers, a separate staircase led from the boiler rooms to the cabins of the stokers. 
31. Hundreds of items are scattered across the ocean floor, ranging from ship parts to personal belongings of passengers. 
32. Some pairs of shoes lie in a very characteristic position: for some, this place has become a grave. 
33. In addition to personal belongings and items, large parts of the plating are also scattered along the bottom, which they also repeatedly tried to raise to the surface. 
34. If the bow was preserved in a more or less decent condition, then the aft part, after falling down, became a shapeless pile of metal. Starboard: 
35. Left side: 
36. Feed: 
37. On the promenade deck of the 3rd class, individual details of the vessel are hardly guessed. 
38. One of the three huge screws: 
39. After the ship broke into two parts, even steam boilers spilled to the bottom. 
40. The engine room was just at the fault point, and now these giants, the height of a three-story house, are available to the gaze of researchers. Piston device: 
41. Both steam engines together: 
42. Drydock in Belfast, where the final painting of the ship's hull was carried out, still exists in the form of a museum exhibit. 
43. And this is how the Titanic would have looked against the background of the largest passenger liner of our time, Allure of the Seas, commissioned in 2010: 
Comparison in numbers:
- The displacement of "Allure of the Seas" is 4 times greater than that of the "Titanic";
- The length of the modern liner is 360 m (100 m more than the Titanic);
- The greatest width is 60 m against 28 for the Titanic;
- Draft is approximately the same (about 10 m);
- The speed is also almost the same (22-23 knots);
- The number of the team - 2.1 thousand people (there were up to 900 on the Titanic, many of whom were stokers);
- Passenger capacity - up to 6.4 thousand people (up to 2.5 thousand on the Titanic).
The remains of the ship rest in silence and darkness - a giant puzzle of rusty steel fragments scattered across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It is readily eaten by bacteria and fungi, for them expanse is here. Bizarre colorless creatures roam around. Since the wreck was discovered in 1985 by National Geographic Society explorer Robert Ballard and French oceanographer Jean-Louis Michel, deep-sea robots and manned vehicles have periodically visited here. They sent a sonar beam to the Titanic, took a couple of photographs - and sailed away.
In recent years, American director James Cameron, French submariner Paul-Henri Narjolet, and other researchers have brought ever clearer and more detailed photographs of the wreck. And yet we looked at the Titanic as if through a keyhole - we could only see what was illuminated by the spotlights of the underwater vehicle. Never before have we been able to look at thousands of disparate debris as a single whole. Finally, the opportunity presented itself.
A state-of-the-art trailer is parked in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution parking lot. In the trailer, William Lang is hunched over a sonar map of the Titanic wreck. It took months of painstaking work to assemble this mosaic. The ghostly landscape resembles the surface of the moon - the bottom is dotted with crater-like depressions. These are traces of large fragments of melting icebergs that have been falling to the bottom for thousands of years.
“Never before have we been able to look at thousands of disparate debris as a whole. Finally, such an opportunity presented itself.
 The owner of this 925 sterling silver men's pocket watch has set it to New York time in anticipation of a safe arrival. |
 The porthole on the right side of the page is one of 5,000 items salvaged from the wreck of the Titanic. Upon hitting the bottom, the steel sheets of the hull plating bent, and the portholes remained intact, popping out of their "eyes". |
 Most likely, this felt hat belonged to a businessman. In an era when people were "meet by clothes," the bowler hat was a sign of belonging to the class of doctors, lawyers, or entrepreneurs. |
But if you look closely, you begin to distinguish the creations of human hands. On the computer screen, Lang moves the cursor over a fragment of a map created by superimposing photographs on acoustic images - sonar data. He enlarges the picture until the bow of the Titanic appears on the screen in all its "glory": where the first chimney once stood, now a black hole gapes. A hundred meters to the northeast, a torn hatch cover was buried in the muddy mud. All this can be seen in the smallest detail - on one fragment you can even see how a white crab is scratching its claws against the railing.
So, moving the mouse across the screen, you can see everything that remains of the Titanic - every mooring bollard, every davit, every steam boiler. “Now we know exactly where everything is,” says Lang. “One hundred years passed, and finally the light came on.”
Bill Lang runs the Imaging and Visualization Laboratory at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This is something like an ultra-modern photo studio specializing in underwater photography. Inside, the lab is lined with soundproof panels, and the room is chock-full of computers and high-definition TV monitors. Lang was part of the famous Ballard expedition that discovered the remains of the Titanic, and since then he has been testing all the latest deep-sea photography technologies in this underwater cemetery.
Next to the giant propellers of the Olympic liner - an almost exact copy of the Titanic - the workers of the shipyard in Belfast look like midgets. Both twin ships were built in Belfast. The Titanic was photographed little, but we can judge the grandeur of its design from the Olympic. National Museums of Northern Ireland, Harland and Wolf Collection, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
Guide to the sunken wreckage - the result of the work of the expedition, sinking to the bottom in August-September 2010. Millions of dollars have been invested in this ambitious project. The survey was conducted by three underwater robots that moved at different distances from the bottom surface along programmed trajectories. Packed with side-scan sonar, multi-beam sonar, and optical cameras that took hundreds of shots per second, the robots combed the bottom over a 5x8-kilometer stretch. The data obtained were subjected to thorough computer processing, and here is the result: on a huge high-resolution map, sunken objects and features of the bottom relief are reflected in their relative position, indicating the exact geographical coordinates.
"This is a breakthrough," said expedition leader, archaeologist James Delgado of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. - In the past, studying the remains of the Titanic was like exploring downtown New York at night in heavy rain with a flashlight. Now we have a certain area with clear boundaries, where everything can be viewed and measured. Perhaps, over time, thanks to this map, people who, as it seemed to us, were silent for all eternity, when the icy waters of the ocean closed over them, will find a voice.
What is the magnet that draws us to the remains of the Titanic? Why, even 100 years later, this pile of metal at a four-kilometer depth does not give people peace of mind? Some are fascinated by the scale of the catastrophe. Others are haunted by the thought of those who could not leave the ship. The Titanic sank for 2 hours and 40 minutes, and this time was enough for 2208 epic tragedies to unfold on its stage. Cowardice (they talked about a gentleman who tried to get into the boat, dressed in a woman's dress) side by side with courage and self-sacrifice. Many are real heroes. The captain remained on the captain's bridge, the orchestra continued to play, the radio operators gave distress calls until the very end. And the passengers - almost all - behaved in strict accordance with the hierarchy of Edwardian society: social barriers were stronger than watertight partitions.
But the Titanic did not only take human lives with it. Together with the giant ship, the illusion of order, faith in scientific and technological progress, the desire to live, to go towards the future went to the bottom. “Imagine that you inflated a soap bubble, and it burst - here is the wreck of the Titanic,” says James Cameron. - In the first decade of the 20th century, it seemed that an era of prosperity had begun on Earth. Elevators! Cars! Airplanes! Radio! People believed that nothing is impossible, that progress is endless, and life is like a fairy tale. But everything collapsed in an instant.”
It is hard to imagine a more surreal picture: on the Las Vegas Strip, on one of the upper floors of the Luxor Hotel, next to the strip show, an exhibition of relics from the Titanic settled for a long time. They were retrieved from the depths of the sea by the RMS Titanic, Inc. corporation, which since 1994 has the exclusive right to raise items from the sunken giant. Similar exhibitions were arranged in 20 other countries of the world, and in total they were visited by more than 25 million people.
In mid-October last year, I spent a day at the Luxor wandering among the artifacts: a chef's hat, a razor set, lumps of coal, several excellently preserved dishes from the service, countless boots and shoes, perfume bottles, a leather bag, a bottle of champagne with so and untouched cork. These ordinary objects became unique, making a long and terrible journey to sparkling glass display cases. I walked through a dark, cold room - it has an "iceberg" with a freon cooling system, which you can touch. From the speakers comes the rattle of torn metal, forcing a sense of unease. And here is the pearl of the collection - a huge, weighing 15 tons, fragment of the Titanic hull. In 1998, he was taken from the bottom of the ocean using a crane.
The Titanic's rudder is buried in the sand, propeller blades are visible on the sides. The badly mutilated stern rests on the ocean floor 600 meters south of the bow, which has been photographed much more frequently. This image is a mosaic photo collage of 300 high-resolution photographs taken during the 2010 expedition.
The exhibition in Las Vegas was done with dignity, but over the past years, submarine archaeologists have more than once spoken impartially about the RMS Titanic and its leaders. Robbers, defilers of graves, treasure hunters - they didn’t find any nicknames for them! “You don’t go to the Louvre and point your finger at the Mona Lisa,” Robert Ballard, the uncompromising fighter for the integrity of the Titanic, told me. “These people are driven by greed – look how much they have done!”
The open stern exposes the two engines of the Titanic. They are covered with orange growths - a waste product of bacteria that eat rusty iron. Once upon a time, these giants, the size of a four-story house, set in motion the most grandiose creation of human hands.
However, in recent years, the RMS Titanic has undergone changes in leadership - and in the approach to business. The new leaders do not seek to raise as many objects as possible from the bottom - on the contrary, in the future it is planned to conduct archaeological research at the crash site. The corporation began to cooperate with research and government organizations. The very expedition of 2010, during which scientists first surveyed the entire complex of sunken wreckage, was organized, led and financed by RMS Titanic. The company has sided with those who are calling for the Titanic wreck to be turned into a maritime memorial. In late 2011, RMS Titanic announced plans to auction off its entire collection and associated intellectual property worth $189 million - but only if a buyer can be found who agrees to abide by strict conditions set by a federal court. One of these conditions: the collection cannot be sold in parts.
RMS Titanic President Chris Davino invited me to the exhibit store. This treasure trove lurks next door to a dog groomer in an unremarkable neighborhood in Atlanta. The brick building is equipped with a climate control system, a forklift maneuvers between long rows of racks - everything is like in a regular warehouse. The racks are lined from top to bottom with boxes and crates with detailed descriptions of the contents. What is not here: dishes, clothes, letters, bottles, fragments of water pipes, portholes - everything that has been raised from the bottom of the ocean for three decades. Davino took over RMS Titanic in 2009, taking on the arduous mission of helping the ill-fated enterprise start a new life. “There are many stakeholders in the Titanic case, and there are many disagreements between them, but for many years they were all united by contempt for us. It's time for a reassessment of values. We realized that you can't just pick up artifacts and do nothing else. We should not fight with scientists, but cooperate,” says Davino.
Titanic: crash site
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And it is not just words. Not so long ago, government organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did nothing but sue the RMS Titanic. Now yesterday's opponents are working together on long-term research projects, the purpose of which is to create a protected protected area at the crash site. “It's not easy to find a compromise between protecting the memorial and making a profit,” admits marine archaeologist Dave Conlin. - These businessmen had something to condemn. But now they deserve respect.”
The scientists also liked the corporation's decision to involve one of the world's leading experts in the analysis of the 2010 images. Bill Sauder is a walking encyclopedia of the Titanic-class ocean liners. Bill's position is project manager, but he himself prefers to call himself "the keeper of knowledge about all sorts of things."
When we met in Atlanta, he was sitting staring at a computer, wearing thick glasses and looking like a dwarf with a half-faced shaggy beard. On the screen were the wreckage of the stern of the Titanic. On previous expeditions, the focus has almost always been on the more photogenic prow, which lies to the north of the bulk of the remains. But Sauder suspects research will shift aft in the future. “The nose looks cool, no doubt, but we have been there a hundred times already,” the scientist admits. “I’m much more interested in this junk on the south side.”
Bill is trying to identify anything in the scrap heap. “Many people think that the wreck looks like some kind of picturesque ruins of an ancient temple on a hill,” he says. - No matter how! They are much more like an industrial dump: mountains of sheet metal, all kinds of rivets, spacers. Who will figure it out? Is that a fan of Picasso.
Sauder zooms in on the first image he sees, and within minutes, one of a thousand mysteries has been solved. At the very top of the pile of rubble lies the mangled copper frame of a revolving door, apparently from the first-class cabin. In general, you can sit on the “what is what” puzzle for more than one year. This is an incredibly time-consuming job that only someone who knows every inch of the ship can handle.
At the end of October 2011, I attended a round table where James Cameron invited the most authoritative experts in the field of marine research. Bill Souder, RMS Titanic researcher Paul-Henri Narjolet, historian Don Lynch, and marine painter Ken gathered in a movie studio the size of an airplane hangar in Manhattan Beach, California, among props left over from the filming of Titanic. Marshall, who has been involved in the Titanic for 40 years. They were joined by a naval engineer, an oceanographer from the Woods Hole Institute, and two US Navy architects.
For the first time: a complete portrait of the legendary wreckage
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Cameron, by his own admission, "is so obsessed with the Titanic that he knows every rivet there." Behind the director's shoulders are three expeditions to the crash site. He pioneered the development of a new class of small-sized remote-controlled robots that can survey by separating from an underwater base and maneuvering through the wreckage. This was the first time we were able to photograph the interior of the Titanic, with its luxurious Turkish bath and magnificent suites (see “Walking on the Titanic”)
10 years ago, Cameron filmed a documentary about the remains of the German battleship Bismarck sunk in 1941, and at the time of our meeting, he was preparing to go down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench alone, armed with a 3D camera. But the spell of the Titanic is not weakening. “There, at the bottom, we see a strange mixture of biology and architecture - I would call it a biomechanical environment,” says Cameron. - I think it's fantastic. Feeling as if the ship plunged into Tartarus - into the realm of shadows.
With two days at his disposal, Cameron decided to arrange something like a forensic examination. Why did the Titanic break in half? Where exactly did the hull crack? At what angle did the debris hit the bottom? “This is a crime scene,” Cameron says. - Once you realize this, you want to get to the bottom of the truth: how did this happen? Why is the knife here and the gun there?
As expected, the experts immediately begin to speak the language of birds. Without being an engineer, from all these "angles of incidence", "shear forces" and "turbidity of the environment", one thing can be understood: the last moments of the life of the Titanic were cruel, excruciating agony. One often hears that the waves “closed” over the liner, and it “sank to the bottom of the ocean”, as if quietly and peacefully plunged into eternal sleep. Nothing like this! Based on the experience of many years of research, the experts produced computer simulations based on the finite element method. Now we have a detailed understanding of the death throes of the Titanic.
Late in the evening, at 23:40, the ship ripped open the starboard side on the edge of the iceberg. As a result, a 90-meter “lacerated wound” formed on the hull, six front waterproof compartments received holes and began to fill with water. From that moment on, the Titanic was doomed. But it is quite possible that his death was accelerated by an unsuccessful attempt to put passengers into boats from a lower deck: the crew members opened the door to lower the gangway on the left side. As the ship began to list to port, it was no longer possible to overcome the force of gravity and close the massive door again. The bow part gradually descended, by 1:50 the water reached the open door and rushed in.
By 2:18 a.m., the bow of the Titanic had filled with water, and the stern had risen so high in the air that the propellers were exposed. Unable to withstand the monstrous pressure, the hull broke in half in the central part - just 13 minutes after the last boat left the Titanic.
Here Cameron stands up and demonstrates how it all looked. Picking up a banana, the director begins to break it open: "Look how it bends and swells in the middle before breaking - see?" The last to give in was the peel at the bottom - the double bottom of the vessel.
Breaking away from the stern, the bow went to the bottom at a rather sharp angle. As it dived, it picked up speed, losing various parts: chimneys fell off, the wheelhouse collapsed. Five minutes later, the bow hit the bottom with such force that clods of silty mud fanned out in all directions, traces of which are still visible today.
The stern lost the bow in hydrodynamics. Going to the bottom, she tumbled and rotated in a spiral. Near the fault line, the hull gave another crack, and soon a large fragment of the hull broke off from the stern and completely collapsed, all its contents spilled out. The compartments ruptured under air pressure. The decks were falling on top of each other. The steel plating of the hull came apart at the seams. The poop deck was bent by a propeller. Heavier objects like steam boilers went down like a stone, and everything else was scattered in different directions. Before reaching the bottom, the stern turned into a pile of scrap.
Mark on history
Cameron sits up and pops a banana slice into his mouth. “We are all sorry that the Titanic fell apart in such an unworthy way,” he sums up. “I would like it to rest at the bottom safe and sound, like a ghost ship.”
"Hundreds of living people could have remained inside. 100 years have passed since then, but it is still unbearable to imagine this picture in the imagination."
I listened to all these discussions, and the question swirled in my head: what was the fate of the people who were still on board when the Titanic began to sink? Most of the 1,496 victims of the disaster died of hypothermia while swimming in icy water in cork life jackets. But hundreds of living people could remain inside - for the most part they were third-class passengers, immigrant families traveling to America in search of a better life. What happened to them in this metal hell? What did they hear and feel? It's been 100 years since then, but it's still unbearable to imagine this picture.
St. John's, Newfoundland. On June 8, 1912, a rescue ship returned here, picking up the last body of a passenger from the Titanic. For many months after the tragedy, waves washed deck chairs, pieces of wood paneling and other items from the ship to the shores of the island.
I hoped that from here I would be able to fly to the crash site on the plane of the International Ice Patrol. This organization was created after the sinking of the Titanic to track icebergs along the routes of ships in the Atlantic Ocean. But, alas, due to the storm, all flights were canceled, and instead I went to the pub, where they began to regale me with local vodka, which is made on water from a melted iceberg. To heighten the effect, the bartender threw a piece of ice into my glass, saying that it was from the same Greenland glacier that gave rise to the ice block that sank the Titanic.
South of St. John's, a desert rock cuts into the sea - Cape Race. A few years before the Titanic disaster, Guglielmo Marconi built a radio station here. According to local legend, Jim Myrick, a 14-year-old assistant radio operator, was the first to receive the distress call from the sinking ship. At first, there was a generally accepted call for help at that time - CQD. After some time, Cape Race received a new signal, which had hardly been used before - SOS.
I came to Cape Race to talk to David Myrick, Jim's great-nephew, among the remains of Marconi's old apparatus and detector radios. David is a marine radio operator, the last representative of a glorious dynasty. According to him, grandfather did not like to talk about that tragic night, and only in extreme old age did he begin to reminisce. By that time, Jim was deaf, so family members had to communicate with him using Morse code.
"Titanic" inside and out: a virtual tour of the famous liner
We went out to wander near the lighthouse and, stopping at the edge of the cliff, looked down for a long time at the icy waves breaking on the rocks. A tanker was in the distance. Even further, on the Great Newfoundland Bank, according to ice reconnaissance, new icebergs appeared. And already quite far, beyond the horizon, rested the remains of the most famous ship in history. I thought about the thousands of signals that had cut through the ether over the past 100 years. In this silent ocean of radio waves, innumerable voices merged into one long cry. I imagined that I could hear the voice of the Titanic itself. The crown of the creation of human hands, bearing such a proud name, he rushed at full speed towards a brave new world. But the ancient element stood in the way of the ship to inflict a mortal blow on it.
The Titanic is a British steamship operated by the White Star Line, one of three Olympic-class twin ships. The largest passenger liner in the world at the time of its construction. During the first voyage on April 14, 1912, she collided with an iceberg and sank after 2 hours and 40 minutes. There were 1,316 passengers and 892 crew members on board, for a total of 2,208 people. Of these, 704 people survived, more than 1,500 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary and was one of the largest shipwrecks in history. Several feature films have been shot on its plot.
Statistics
Common data:
- Port of registry - Liverpool.
- Board number - 401.
- The call sign is MGY.
- Ship dimensions:
- Length - 259.83 meters.
- Width - 28.19 meters.
- Weight - 46328 tons.
- Displacement - 52310 tons.
- The height from the waterline to the boat deck is 19 meters.
- From the keel to the top of the pipe - 55 meters.
- Draft - 10.54 meters.
Technical details:
- Steam boilers - 29.
- Waterproof compartments - 16.
- Maximum speed - 23 knots.
Rescue equipment:
- Standard boats - 14 (65 places).
- Collapsible boats - 4 (47 seats).
Passengers:
- I class: 180 men and 145 women (including 6 children).
- II class: 179 men and 106 women (including 24 children).
- III class: 510 men and 196 women (including 79 children).
Team members:
- Officers - 8 people (including the captain).
- Deck crew - 66 people.
- Engine room - 325 people.
- Service staff - 494 people (including 23 women).
- In total, there were 2201 people on board.
officers
- Captain - Edward J. Smith
- Chief Officer – Henry F. Wild
- First Mate – William M. Murdoch
- Second Officer – Charles G. Lightoller
- Third Mate - Herbert J. Pitman
- Fourth Mate - Joseph G. Boxhall
- Fifth Mate – Harold P. Lowe
- 6th Mate – James P. Moody
It was laid down on March 31, 1909 at the shipyards of the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company in Queens Island (Belfast, Northern Ireland), launched on May 31, 1911, and passed sea trials on April 2, 1912.
Specifications
height from the keel to the tops of the pipes - 53.3 m;
engine room - 29 boilers, 159 coal furnaces;
The unsinkability of the ship was ensured by 15 watertight bulkheads in the hold, creating 16 conditionally "watertight" compartments; the space between the bottom and the flooring of the second bottom was divided by transverse and longitudinal partitions into 46 watertight compartments.
Bulkheads
Watertight bulkheads, marked from bow to stern with the letters "A" to "P", rose from the second bottom and passed through 4 or 5 decks: the first two and the last five reached deck "D", eight bulkheads in the center of the liner reached only the deck "E". All bulkheads were so strong that they had to withstand significant pressure when getting a hole.
The Titanic was built to stay afloat if any two of its 16 watertight compartments, any three of the first five compartments, or all of the first four compartments were flooded.
The first two bulkheads in the bow and the last in the stern were solid, all the rest had sealed doors that allowed the crew and passengers to move between compartments. On the deck of the second bottom, in the bulkhead "K", there were the only doors that led to the cold store. On decks "F" and "E" in almost all bulkheads there were airtight doors connecting the rooms used by passengers, all of them could be battened down both remotely and manually, using a device located directly on the door and from the deck to which it reached bulkhead. To batten down such doors on the passenger decks, a special key was required, which was available only to the senior stewards. But on deck "G" there were no doors in the bulkheads.
In the bulkheads "D" - "O", directly above the second bottom in the compartments where the machines and boilers were located, there were 12 vertically closing doors, they were controlled by an electric drive from the navigation bridge. In case of danger or accident, or when the captain or watch officer deemed it necessary, electromagnets released the latches on a signal from the bridge and all 12 doors fell under their own gravity and the space behind them turned out to be hermetically closed. If the doors were closed by an electric signal from the bridge, then it was possible to open them only after removing the voltage from the electric drive.
In the ceiling of each compartment was a spare hatch, usually leading to the boat deck. Those who did not have time to leave the room before the doors closed could climb its iron ladder.
boats
In formal accordance with the current requirements of the British Merchant Shipping Code, the ship had 20 lifeboats, which were enough to board 1178 people, that is, for 50% of the people on board at that moment and 30% of the planned load. This was taken into account with the expectation of increasing the walking space on the deck of the passengers of the ship.
Decks
On the Titanic there were 8 steel decks located one above the other at a distance of 2.5-3.2 m. The uppermost one was a boat deck, under it there were seven others, indicated from top to bottom with letters from “A” to “G”. Only decks "C", "D", "E" and "F" stretched along the entire length of the vessel. The boat deck and the "A" deck did not reach either the bow or the stern, and the "G" deck was located only in the front of the liner - from the boiler rooms to the bow and in the aft - from the engine room to the stern cut. On the open boat deck there were 20 lifeboats, along the sides there were promenade decks.
Deck "A" with a length of 150 m was almost entirely intended for first-class passengers. B Deck was interrupted at the bow to form an open space above C Deck, and then continued as a 37-meter bow superstructure with anchor handling equipment and mooring arrangements. In front of deck "C" there were anchor winches for the two main side anchors, there was also a galley and a dining room for sailors and stokers. Behind the bow superstructure there was a promenade (the so-called inter-superstructure) deck for third-class passengers 15 m long. On deck “D” there was another, isolated, third-class promenade deck. Along the entire length of deck "E" were the cabins of passengers of the first and second classes, as well as the cabins of the stewards and mechanics. In the first part of deck "F" there were 64 cabins for passengers of the second class and the main living quarters for passengers of the third, stretching for 45 m and occupying the entire width of the liner.
There were two large salons, a dining room for third-class passengers, ship's laundries, a swimming pool and Turkish baths. Deck "G" captured only the bow and stern, between which the boiler rooms were located. The forward part of the deck, 58 m long, was 2 m above the waterline, gradually lowered towards the center of the liner and at the opposite end was already at the level of the waterline. There were 26 cabins for 106 third class passengers, the rest of the area was occupied by the luggage compartment for first class passengers, the ship's mail and the ball room. Behind the bow of the deck there were coal bunkers, which occupied 6 watertight compartments around the chimneys, followed by 2 compartments with steam pipes for reciprocating steam engines and a turbine compartment. This was followed by the aft part of the deck 64 m long with warehouses, pantries and 60 cabins for 186 third-class passengers, which was already below the waterline.
Masts
One was aft, the other was on the forecastle, each was steel with a teak top. On the front, at a height of 29 m from the waterline, there was a mars platform (“crow's nest”), which could be reached by an internal metal ladder.
Service premises
In front of the boat deck there was a navigation bridge, 58 m away from the bow. On the bridge there was a wheelhouse with a steering wheel and a compass, immediately behind it was a room where navigation charts were stored. To the right of the wheelhouse were the navigational cabin, the captain's cabin and part of the officers' cabins, to the left - the rest of the officers' cabins. Behind them, behind the front funnel, was the cabin of the radiotelegraph and the cabin of the radio operator. In front of deck "D" there were living quarters for 108 stokers, a special spiral ladder connected this deck directly to the boiler rooms, so that the stokers could leave for work and return without passing by the cabins or saloons for passengers. In front of deck "E" there were living quarters for 72 loaders and 44 sailors. In the first part of the "F" deck there were quarters of 53 stokers of the third shift. Deck G contained quarters for 45 stokers and oilers.
Size comparison of the Titanic with the modern cruise ship Queen Mary 2, A-380 aircraft, bus, car and person
Second bottom
The second bottom was located about one and a half meters above the keel and occupied 9/10 of the ship's length, not capturing only small areas in the bow and stern. On the second day, boilers, reciprocating steam engines, a steam turbine and electric generators were installed, all firmly fixed on steel plates, the remaining space was used for cargo, coal and drinking water tanks. In the engine room section, the second bottom rose 2.1 m above the keel, which increased the protection of the liner in case of damage to the outer skin.
Power point
The registered power of steam engines and turbines was 50 thousand liters. With. (actually 55 thousand hp). The turbine was located in the fifth watertight compartment in the stern of the liner, in the next compartment, closer to the bow, steam engines were located, the other 6 compartments were occupied by twenty-four double-flow and five single-flow boilers that produced steam for the main machines, turbines, generators and auxiliary mechanisms. The diameter of each boiler was 4.79 m, the length of the double-flow boiler was 6.08 m, the single-flow boiler was 3.57 m. Each double-flow boiler had 6 fireboxes, and the single-flow boiler had 3. In addition, the Titanic was equipped with four auxiliary machines with generators, each with a capacity of 400 kilowatts, producing a current of 100 volts. Next to them were two more 30-kilowatt generators.
Pipes
The liner had 4 tubes. The diameter of each was 7.3 m, height - 18.5 m. The first three removed smoke from the boiler furnaces, the fourth, located above the turbine compartment, served as an exhaust fan, a chimney for ship kitchens was connected to it. A longitudinal section of the vessel is presented on its model exhibited at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it is clearly seen that the last pipe was not connected to the fireboxes. There is an opinion that when designing the vessel, the widespread opinion of the public was taken into account that the solidity and reliability of the vessel directly depends on the number of its pipes. It also follows from the literature that in the last moments of the ship leaving the water almost vertically, its fake pipe fell off its place and, falling into the water, killed a large number of passengers and crew members in the water.
Electrical supply
10 thousand light bulbs, 562 electric heaters were connected to the distribution network, mainly in first-class cabins, 153 electric motors, including electric drives for eight cranes with a total capacity of 18 tons, 4 cargo winches with a capacity of 750 kg, 4 elevators, each for 12 people, and lots of phones. In addition, electricity was consumed by fans in the boiler and engine rooms, apparatus in the gym, dozens of machines and appliances in the kitchens, including refrigerators.
Connection
The telephone exchange serviced 50 lines. The radio equipment on the liner was the most modern, the power of the main transmitter was 5 kilowatts, the power came from an electric generator. The second, an emergency transmitter, was powered by batteries. 4 antennas were strung between the two masts, some up to 75 m high. The guaranteed range of the radio signal was 250 miles. During the day, under favorable conditions, communication was possible at a distance of up to 400 miles, and at night - up to 2000.
Radio equipment came on board on April 2 from Marconi, which by that time had monopolized the radio industry in Italy and England. Two young radio officer officers assembled and installed the station all day, for verification, a test connection was immediately made with the coast station at Malin Head, on the north coast of Ireland, and with Liverpool. On April 3, the radio equipment worked like clockwork, on this day a connection was established with the island of Tenerife at a distance of 2000 miles and with Port Said in Egypt (3000 miles). In January 1912, the Titanic was assigned radio call signs "MUC", then they were replaced by "MGY", previously owned by the American ship Yale. As the dominant radio company, Marconi introduced its own radio call signs, most of which began with the letter "M", regardless of its location and the country of home of the vessel on which it was installed.
clash
The iceberg believed to have hit the Titanic
Recognizing an iceberg in a light haze, the forward looking Fleet warned “there is ice in front of us” and struck the bell three times, which meant an obstacle straight ahead, after which he rushed to the telephone connecting the “crow’s nest” with the bridge. Moody's sixth mate, who was on the bridge, responded almost instantly and heard a cry of "ice right ahead". With a polite thank you, Moody turned to the officer of the watch, Murdoch, and repeated the warning. He rushed to the telegraph, put his handle on "stop" and shouted "rudder right", at the same time transmitting the order "full back" to the engine room. According to the terminology of 1912, "rudder right" meant turning the ship's stern to the right, and the bow to the left. The helmsman, Robert Hitchens, leaned on the handle of the steering wheel and quickly turned it counterclockwise to the stop, after which Murdoch was told "rudder to the right, sir." At that moment, Alfred Oliver, the helmsman of the watch, and Boxhall, who was in the chart house, came running to the bridge when the bells rang out in the "crow's nest". Murdoch pulled the lever, which included the closing of watertight doors in the bulkheads of the boiler rooms and the engine room, and immediately gave the order "left rudder!"
lifeboats
There were 2,208 people on board the Titanic, but the total capacity of the lifeboats was only 1,178 people. The reason was that, according to the rules then in force, the total capacity of lifeboats depended on the tonnage of the ship, and not on the number of passengers and crew members. The rules were drawn up in 1894, when the largest ships had a displacement of about 10,000 tons. The displacement of the Titanic was 46,328 tons.
But even these boats were only partially filled. Captain Smith gave the order or instruction "women and children first". The officers interpreted this order in different ways. Second mate Lightoller, who commanded the launching of the boats on the port side, allowed the men to take places in the boats only if rowers were needed and under no other circumstances. First mate Murdoch, who commanded the launching of the boats on the starboard side, allowed the men to go down if there were no women and children. So, in boat number 1, only 12 seats out of 40 were occupied. In addition, at first, many passengers did not want to take seats in boats, because the Titanic, which had no external damage, seemed safer to them. The last boats filled better, because it was already obvious to the passengers that the Titanic would sink. In the very last boat, 44 seats out of 47 were occupied. But in the sixteenth boat that left the side there were many empty seats, passengers of the 1st class were saved in it.
As a result of the analysis of the operation to rescue people from the Titanic, it is concluded that with adequate actions by the team, there would have been at least 553 fewer victims. The reason for the low survival rate of passengers on the ship is the installation given by the captain to save, first of all, women and children, and not all passengers; the interest of the crew in this order of boarding the boats. By preventing male passengers from accessing the boats, the men from the crew got the opportunity to take places in the half-empty boats themselves, covering their interests with the “noble motives” of caring for women and children. In the event that all passengers, men and women, took their places in the boats, the men from the crew would not get into them and their chances of salvation would be equal to zero, and the crew could not help but understand this. The men from the crew occupied part of the seats in almost all boats during the evacuation from the ship, on average 10 people from the crew per 1 boat. 24% of the crew were saved, about the same as 3rd class passengers were saved (25%). The team had no reason to consider their duty fulfilled - most of the passengers remained on the ship with no hope of salvation, even the order to save women and children in the first place was not fulfilled (several dozen children, and more than a hundred women never got into the boats).
The report of the British Commission on the results of the investigation into the circumstances of the sinking of the Titanic states that "if the boats had been delayed a little longer before launching, or if the doors of the passage had been opened for passengers, more of them could have got on the boats." The reason for the low survival rate of class 3 passengers with a high degree of probability can be considered obstacles placed by the crew for the passage of passengers to the deck, closing the doors of the passage. Comparing the results of the evacuation from the Titanic with the results of the evacuation from the Lusitania (1915) shows that the evacuation operation on ships like the Titanic and the Lusitania can be organized without a disproportion in the percentage of survivors depending on the sex or class of passengers.
People in boats, as a rule, did not save those who were in the water. On the contrary, they tried to sail as far as possible from the wreck, fearing that those in the water would capsize their boats or be sucked into the funnel from a sinking ship. Only 6 people were picked up alive from the water.
| Category | Percentage rescued | Percentage of dead | Number of rescued | Number of dead | How much was |
| Children, first grade | 100.0 | 00.0 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| Children, second grade | 100.0 | 00.0 | 24 | 0 | 24 |
| Women, first class | 97.22 | 02.78 | 140 | 4 | 144 |
| Women, crew | 86.96 | 13.04 | 20 | 3 | 23 |
| Women, second class | 86.02 | 13.98 | 80 | 13 | 93 |
| Women third grade | 46.06 | 53.94 | 76 | 89 | 165 |
| Children, third grade | 34.18 | 65.82 | 27 | 52 | 79 |
| Men, first class | 32.57 | 67.43 | 57 | 118 | 175 |
| men, crew | 21.69 | 78.31 | 192 | 693 | 885 |
| Men, third grade | 16.23 | 83.77 | 75 | 387 | 462 |
| Men, second class | 8.33 | 91.67 | 14 | 154 | 168 |
| Total | 31.97 | 68.03 | 711 | 1513 | 2224 |
The path of the Titanic and the place of its crash.
Chronology
The path of the Titanic and the place of its crash.
April 10, 1912
- 12:00 - "Titanic" departs from the quay wall of the Southampton port and narrowly avoids a collision with the American liner "New York".
-19:00 stop in Cherbourg (France) to pick up passengers and mail.
-21:00 - The Titanic left Cherbourg and headed for Queenstown (Ireland).
April 11, 1912
-12:30 - stop in Queenstown to pick up passengers and mail; one member of the crew deserts from the Titanic.
-14:00 - The Titanic departs Queenstown with 1,316 passengers and 891 crew members on board.
April 14, 1912
-09:00 - "Caronia" reports ice in the region of 42 ° north latitude, 49-51 ° west longitude.
-13:42 - "Baltik" reports the presence of ice in the area of 41°51' north latitude, 49°52' west longitude.
-13:45 - "America" reports ice in the region of 41°27'N, 50°8'W.
-19:00 - air temperature 43 ° Fahrenheit (6 ° C).
-19:30 - air temperature 39 ° Fahrenheit (3.9 ° C).
-19:30 - Californian reports ice at 42°3'N, 49°9'W.
-21:00 - air temperature 33 ° Fahrenheit (0.6 ° C).
-21:30 - the second officer of the captain Lightoller warns the ship's carpenter and watchmen in the engine room that it is necessary to monitor the fresh water system - the water in the pipelines may freeze; he tells the lookout to watch the appearance of ice.
-21:40 - "Mesaba" reports ice in the region of 42°-41°25' north latitude, 49°-50°30' west longitude.
-22:00 - Air temperature 32° Fahrenheit (0 °C).
-22:30 - the sea water temperature dropped to 31 ° Fahrenheit (-0.56 ° C).
-23:00 - The Californian warns of the presence of ice, but the Titanic's radio operator cuts off the radio traffic before the Californian manages to report the coordinates of the area.
-23:40 - At a point with coordinates 41 ° 46' north latitude, 50 ° 14' west longitude (later it turned out that these coordinates were calculated incorrectly), an iceberg was noticed at a distance of about 450 meters straight ahead. Despite the maneuver, after 39 seconds, the underwater part of the ship touched, and the ship's hull received numerous small holes for a length of about 100 meters. Of the 16 watertight compartments of the vessel, 6 were cut through (in the sixth, the leak was extremely insignificant).
April 15, 1912
-00:05 - an order was given to uncover lifeboats and convene crew members and passengers to the muster points.
-00:15 - the first radiotelegraph signal for help was transmitted from the Titanic.
-00:45 - the first flare was fired, and the first lifeboat (No. 7) was launched.
-01:15 - Class 3 passengers are allowed on deck.
-01:40 - the last flare was fired.
-02:05 - the last lifeboat is launched.
-02:10 - the last radiotelegraph signals were transmitted.
-02:17 - Electric lighting goes out.
-02:18 - "Titanic" breaks into three parts
-02:20 - Titanic sank.
-03:30 - flares fired from the Carpathia are noticed in lifeboats.
-04:10 - "Carpathia" picked up the first lifeboat from the "Titanic" (boat number 2).
Lifeboat "Titanic", filmed by one of the passengers of the "Carpathia"
-08:30 - Carpathia picked up the last (No. 12) lifeboat from the Titanic.
-08:50 - Carpathia, taking on board 704 people who escaped from the Titanic, heads for New York.
The Titanic was considered unsinkable, but on its first voyage it hit an iceberg and sank. Approximately 1,500 people died. Since then, the wreckage of the giant ship has been lying at the bottom of the North Atlantic at a depth of 3,800 m.
Scientists have managed to draw up the most accurate map so far of the place of the tragedy that happened on April 14, 1912. Some took about 130,000 photographs and recordings of sound waves. Usually the grave of the famous cruise ship is in absolute darkness.
Computer model of the wreck of the Titanic
The pictures were taken in 2010 from two remote controlled submarines. The Titanic and the seabed were filmed and measured using sound waves. Particular attention was paid to the piles of rubble. Oceanographers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US state of Massachusetts and US weather service NOAA provided support to the researchers. Now the History Channel will present the results to the public.
Pictures of an 8-by-5-kilometer section of the seabed show what happened on a night in April 100 years ago, says Paul-Henry Nargeoleth, the expedition leader. Traces on the bottom, for example, prove that the ship's stern rotated as it dived, like the back of a helicopter.
At the bottom are also five large steam boilers, a hatch, a revolving door, a piece of a ship's hull weighing 49 tons, and other items that apparently sank to the bottom on impact. Now computer simulations, which are based on photographs, should show the exact course of events during this historical disaster. Perhaps new data will be received on defects in the design of this huge ship, which was considered a marvel of technology.
Map of the wreck of the Titanic
The idea of building the largest ship in the world belongs to Bruce Ismay and James Pirrie, who combined the efforts of two companies - the shipbuilding "Harland and Wolf" and the transatlantic trade and passenger "White Star Line". On March 31, 1909, construction began on the Titanic, and by 1912, the cost was $7.5 million, which is 10 times that amount today.
3,000 people worked on the creation of a giant ship. The weight of the Titanic was 66,000 tons, and the length was equal to the length of four city blocks. The liner was equipped with 10 meter lifeboats, with a capacity of 76 people and in the amount of 20 pieces. Since the number of passengers on the Titanic exceeded 2 thousand people, this number of boats was clearly not enough, since they could only save 30% of the planned load of people. The Titanic was equipped with the most modern high-power radio equipment at that time. The cabins were luxurious. Also on board the famous ship were a gym, a library, restaurants and swimming pools.
First voyage and the sinking of the Titanic
May 31, 1911 The largest passenger liner was launched in Belfast (Northern Ireland), which required a record amount of locomotive oil, grease and liquid soap to lubricate the gangways. This process lasted only 62 seconds. April 10, 1912 the ship sails on its first and, unfortunately, last voyage. There were 2207 people on board the Titanic, including 898 crew members and 1309 passengers, among whom were famous personalities, millionaires and industrialists, writers and actors. April 14, 1912 an iceberg was seen from the ship at a distance of about 450 meters. The Titanic made a maneuver, but still collided with an obstacle and received numerous holes 100 meters long. Thus, 16 watertight compartments were damaged, and under the weight of the ship he listed very strongly. Water continued to flood all compartments. 2 hours 40 minutes after the impact, the liner sank completely.
Passenger rescue
The captain of the ship I. Smith was afraid of panic among the passengers. Therefore, the inhabitants of the suites and the two first classes were gently informed by the stewards about the minor damage to the liner and asked to go on deck. Third class passengers were not even aware of the imminent danger. In addition, the exit was blocked for the inhabitants of the lower deck, and many of them, wandering along the corridors of the ship, could not get out of the trap. That is, priority in salvation was given to VIPs and representatives of the upper class. Most of the passengers were confident that the Titanic was unsinkable and refused to board the boats. The captain did his best to persuade them to leave the ship.
By order of I. Smith, women and children were the first to be saved, but among them there were many men. The first boats, which were already in short supply, left half full. So the boat number 1 was called "millionaire" and was filled with only 12 people out of the required 40. Realizing the dramatic nature of the situation and in order to divert the attention of passengers, the captain of the Titanic asked the leader of the orchestra to start playing. Eight professional musicians, realizing that they were playing for the last time in their lives, gave out clear rhythmic sounds of jazz that drowned out the sounds of screams coming from the third deck and the shots of revolvers. So, when the last boats were lowered, panic began, and the ship's officers had to use weapons. In the engine room, work did not stop until the last. So mechanics and stokers made every effort to ensure that the liner was provided with electric lighting for the operation of the radio station. The Titanic did not stop sending requests for rescue to ships that were near the liner.
The ship "Carpathia" was the first to respond to the SOS signal, which rushed to the rescue at maximum speed. Within two hours, 712 people were picked up, and the remaining 1,495 people died. People who did not get on the boats jumped into the water wearing life jackets, but the water was icy, so even a healthy man could only survive in such conditions for about an hour. Also near the scene of the tragedy were two more ships. Fishermen on the schooner Samson were engaged in shadow sealing, so when they saw the white signal lights of the Titanic, they thought it was the Coast Guard and hurried away from this place. If the liner had red signal lights, then more lives could be saved. At the same time, the captain of the Californian, seeing the lights, thought of fireworks being set off on the Titanic. The ship's radio station was not working, as the radio operator was resting after the watch. For failure to provide assistance in the sinking of the Titanic, the captain of the Californian was stripped of his rank.
Survivors and dead
Almost all the women and children who lived in the cabins of the first and second classes were saved, in contrast to the passengers and their babies from the lower decks, whose exit was blocked. As a percentage, 20% of men and 74% of all women were saved. 56 children survived, which was slightly more than half of the total. Lillian Gertrud Asplund, an American who witnessed the sinking of the Titanic, died in 2006. At that time she was five years old, and in this terrible catastrophe she lost her father and brothers. It is worth noting that they were third-class passengers. In boat number 15, her mother and three-year-old brother escaped with her. Lillian rarely spoke about the tragedy and always avoided questions and public attention. In May 2009, at the age of 97, the last passenger of the Titanic, who at the time of the shipwreck was only two and a half years old, died.
Crash hypotheses
Versions about the causes of the crash were completely different. But experts clearly name a few of them. The Titanic was built in the shortest possible time and had many shortcomings. So, when building a ship, in some places they used pins made of base material, which was brittle. Therefore, after colliding with an iceberg, the ship cracked the hull exactly where the low-grade steel rods were used. Due to the huge dimensions and weight of the Titanic, it was clumsy, so he could not dodge the obstacle.
Exploration of the shipwreck
On September 1, 1985, the sunken remains of the liner were discovered by an expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard, director of the Woods Hole Institute of Oceanology in Massachusetts. The depth of occurrence at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was 3750 meters. The wreck was located 13 miles west of the coordinates where the Titanic had transmitted an SOS signal. The wreck received protection from the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage in April 2012, one hundred years after the sinking. Thus, the ship has protection from plunder, destruction and sale. Such measures are necessary to ensure proper treatment of the remains of the dead. In August 2001, the shipwreck was investigated by diving to the Titanic on the Russian deep-sea submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2. The initiators of this was director James Cameron. Through the use of small ROVs Jack and Elwood, unique footage was captured that formed the basis of the documentary film Ghosts of the Abyss: Titanic (2003), which shows the remains of the ship from the inside. In 1997, the public saw the film Titanic, which won an Oscar. In the creation of the film, footage from the underwater shooting of the liner was used, capturing its interior and exterior.
Despite the fact that many years have passed since the crash of the liner, this topic is still relevant. So the millionaire from Australia, Clive Palmer, announced to the whole world about his desire to build a copy of the sunken ship and create the Titanic-2 cruise liner. Hypothetically, the object will be ready by 2016. It will have four steam pipes, like its counterpart, but at the same time it will be equipped with modern running and navigation equipment.
Film "Ghosts of the Abyss" (2003)