When the Titanic was launched into the water. How did the Titanic sink? The wreck of the Titanic: history

"Titanic" (eng. Titanic) - British transatlantic steamer, the second Olympic class airliner. Built in Belfast at the Harland and Wolfe shipyard from 1909 to 1912 for the White Star Line shipping company.

At the time of commissioning it was the largest ship in the world.

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, during her maiden voyage, she crashed in the North Atlantic, colliding with an iceberg.

Vessel information

The Titanic was equipped with two four-cylinder steam engines and a steam turbine.

All power point had a power of 55,000 hp. With.
The ship could reach speeds of up to 23 knots (42 km/h).
Its displacement, which exceeded the twin steamer Olympic by 243 tons, was 52,310 tons.
The ship's hull was made of steel.
The hold and lower decks were divided into 16 compartments by bulkheads with sealed doors.
If the bottom was damaged, the double bottom prevented water from entering the compartments.

Shipbuilder magazine called the Titanic virtually unsinkable, a statement that was widely circulated in the press and among the public.

In accordance with outdated rules, the Titanic was equipped with 20 lifeboats, with a total capacity of 1,178 people, which was only a third of the ship's maximum load.

The cabins and public areas of the Titanic were divided into three classes.

First class passengers were provided with a swimming pool, a squash court, an A la carte restaurant, two cafes, and a gym. All classes had dining and smoking lounges, open and closed promenades. The most luxurious and sophisticated were the first class interiors, made in various artistic styles using expensive materials such as mahogany, gilding, stained glass, silk and others. The third class cabins and salons were decorated as simply as possible: steel walls were painted white or lined with wood panels.

1 On April 0, 1912, the Titanic set sail from Southampton on its first and only voyage. Having made stops in French Cherbourg and Irish Queenstown, the ship went to Atlantic Ocean with 1317 passengers and 908 crew members on board. The ship was commanded by Captain Edward Smith. On April 14, the Titanic's radio station received seven ice warnings, but the liner continued to move almost at top speed.

To avoid encountering floating ice, the captain ordered to go slightly south of the usual route.
At 23:39 on April 14, the lookout reported to the captain's bridge about an iceberg directly ahead. Less than a minute later there was a collision. Having received several holes, the ship began to sink. Women and children were put on the boats first.

At 2:20 on April 15, the Titanic sank, breaking into two parts, killing 1,496 people. 712 survivors were picked up by the steamship Carpathia.

The wreckage of the Titanic rests at a depth of 3,750 m. They were first discovered by Robert Ballard's expedition in 1985. Subsequent expeditions recovered thousands of artifacts from the bottom. The bow and stern parts are deeply buried in the bottom silt and are in a deplorable condition; raising them to the surface intact is not possible.

The wreck of the Titanic The disaster claimed the lives, according to various sources, from 1,495 to 1,635 people. Until December 20, 1987, when the Philippine ferry Dona Paz sank, killing more than 4,000 people, the sinking of the Titanic remained the deadliest maritime disaster in history. Peaceful time

. Informally, it is the most famous disaster of the 20th century.

Alternative versions of the ship's death

And now - alternative versions, each of which has its adherents in the worldwide club of mystery lovers.

Fire

In particular, he studied photographs taken before the ship left the Belfast shipyard. The journalist saw black marks along the right side of the ship's hull - exactly where the iceberg hit it. Experts subsequently confirmed that the marks were likely caused by a fire that started in a fuel storage facility. “We looked at the exact location where the iceberg was stuck and it appears that part of the hull was very vulnerable at that location, and that was before it even left the Belfast shipyard,” Moloney says. A team of 12 tried to put out the flames, but they were too big to bring under control quickly. It could reach temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius, making the Titanic's hull very vulnerable in this area. And when it hit the ice, experts say, it immediately broke. The publication also added that the liner's management prohibited passengers from talking about the fire. “This is a perfect confluence of unusual factors: fire, ice and criminal negligence. No one had investigated these marks before. It changes the story completely,” says Moloney.

CONSPIRACY

Conspiracy theory: this is not the Titanic at all! This version was put forward by experts who studied the causes of the death of the ship, Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Watt, published in the book “The Mystery of the Titanic.” According to this theory, the sunken ship is not the Titanic at all, but its twin brother, the Olympic. These ships looked practically no different from each other. On September 20, 1911, the Olympic collided with the British Navy cruiser Hawk, causing both ships to be seriously damaged. The owners of "Olympic" suffered heavy losses, since the damage that was caused to "Olympic" was not enough for an insurance payment.

The theory is based on the assumption of possible fraud in order for the owners of the Titanic to receive insurance payments. According to this version, the owners of the Titanic intentionally sent the Olympic to an area of possible ice formation and at the same time convinced the captain not to slow down so that the ship would suffer serious damage when colliding with a block of ice. This version was initially supported by the fact that a fairly large number of objects were raised from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where the Titanic lies, but nothing was found that bore the name “Titanic.” This theory was refuted after parts were brought to the surface, on which the Titanic’s side (construction) number was stamped - 401. The Olympic had a side number of 400. In addition, the minted side number of the Titanic was discovered and on the propeller of a sunken ship. And even despite this, the conspiracy theory still has a number of followers.

German attack

1912 With the First World War two years away, the prospect of armed conflict between Germany and Great Britain is becoming increasingly likely. Germany owns several dozen submarines, which during the war will launch a merciless hunt for enemy ships trying to cross the ocean. For example, the reason for America’s entry into the war will be the fact that the U-20 submarine will sink the Lusitania in 1915, a twin of the same Mauritania that set the speed record and won the Atlantic Blue Ribbon - remember?

Based on these facts, some Western publications proposed their own version of the death of the Titanic in the mid-nineties: a torpedo attack by a German submarine secretly accompanying the liner. The purpose of the attack was to discredit the British fleet, famous for its power throughout the world. In accordance with this theory, the Titanic either did not collide with the iceberg at all, or received very minor damage in the collision and would have remained afloat if the Germans had not finished off the ship with a torpedo.

What speaks in favor of this version? Honestly, nothing.

There was a collision with an iceberg - this is beyond doubt. The deck of the ship was even covered with snow and ice chips. Cheerful passengers started playing football with ice cubes - it would become clear later that the ship was doomed. The collision itself was surprisingly quiet - almost none of the passengers felt it. The torpedo, you must admit, could hardly have exploded completely silently (especially since some claim that the submarine fired as many as six torpedoes at the ship!).

Supporters of the theory of the German attack claim, however, that people in the boats heard a terrible roar just before the Titanic sank - well, this was two and a half hours later, when only the stern raised into the sky remained above the water and the death of the ship did not raise any doubts. It’s unlikely that the Germans would have fired a torpedo at an almost sunken ship, would it? And the roar that the survivors heard was explained by the fact that the stern of the Titanic rose almost vertically and huge steam boilers fell from their places. Also, do not forget that at about the same minutes the Titanic broke in half - the keel could not withstand the weight of the rising stern (however, they will learn about this only after the liner is discovered at the bottom: the break occurred below the water level), and this, too, is unlikely to have happened silently . And why would the Germans suddenly start drowning two years before the start of the war? passenger airliner? This seems dubious, to put it mildly. And to put it bluntly, it’s absurd.

A curse

Mystical version: curse of the pharaohs. It is known for certain that one of the historians, Lord Canterville, transported a perfectly preserved Egyptian mummy priestesses - soothsayers. Since the mummy had a fairly high historical and cultural value, it was not placed in the hold, but placed directly next to the captain's bridge. The essence of the theory is that the mummy influenced the mind of Captain Smith, who, despite numerous warnings about ice in the area where the Titanic was sailing, did not slow down and thereby doomed the ship to certain death. Well-known cases support this version mysterious death people who disturbed the peace of ancient burials, especially the mummified Egyptian rulers. Moreover, the deaths were associated precisely with clouding of mind, as a result of which people committed inappropriate actions, and cases of suicide often occurred. Did the pharaohs have a hand in the sinking of the Titanic?

Steering error

One of latest versions The sinking of the Titanic deserves special attention. She appeared after the novel by the granddaughter of the second mate of the Titanic, Charles Lightoller, Lady Patten, “Worth Its Weight in Gold,” was published. According to Patten's book, the ship had enough time to avoid the obstacle, but helmsman Robert Hitchens panicked and turned the wheel the wrong way.

A catastrophic mistake led to the iceberg causing fatal damage to the ship. The truth about what really happened that fateful night was kept secret by the family of Lightoller, the oldest surviving officer of the Titanic and the only survivor who knew exactly what caused the ship's sinking. Lightoller hid this information out of fear that the White Star Line, which owned the ship, would go bankrupt and his colleagues would lose their jobs. The only person to whom Lightoller told the truth was his wife Sylvia, who conveyed her husband’s words to her granddaughter. In addition, according to Patten, such a large and reliable liner as the Titanic sank so quickly because after colliding with an ice block it was not immediately stopped, and the rate of water entering the holds increased hundreds of times. The liner was not immediately stopped because White Star Line manager Bruce Ismay convinced the captain to continue sailing. He feared that the incident could cause considerable material damage to the company he headed.

Chasing the Atlantic Blue Riband

There were and still are many supporters of this theory, especially among writers, since it appeared precisely in literary circles. “ Blue ribbon Atlantic” is a prestigious prize in shipping awarded to ocean liners for achieving record speeds across the North Atlantic.

At the time of the Titanic, this prize was awarded to the ship Mauritania of the Cunard company, which, by the way, was the founder of this award, as well as the main competitor of the White Star Line. In defense of this theory, it is argued that the president of the company that owned the Titanic, Ismay, encouraged the captain of the Titanic, Smith, to arrive in New York a day ahead of schedule and receive an honorary prize. This allegedly explains the high speed of the vessel in dangerous area Atlantic. But this theory can easily be refuted, because the Titanic simply physically could not have reached the speed of 26 knots at which the Cunard Mauritania set a record that, by the way, lasted for more than 10 years after the disaster in the Atlantic.

But what was it really like?

Sadly, when studying the history of the most famous maritime disaster, we have to admit that the Titanic owes its death to a long chain of fatal accidents. If at least one link of the ominous chain had been destroyed, the tragedy could have been avoided.

Perhaps the first link was the successful start of the journey - yes, that’s right. On the morning of April 10, during the departure of the Titanic from the quay wall of the port of Southampton, the superliner passed too close to the American ship New York, and a phenomenon known in navigation as ship suction arose: the New York began to be attracted to the one moving nearby. "Titanic". However, thanks to the skill of Captain Edward Smith, a collision was avoided.

Ironically, if the accident had happened, it would have saved one and a half thousand lives: if the Titanic had been delayed in port, the ill-fated encounter with the iceberg would not have happened.

This time. It should also be mentioned that the radio operators who received the message from the Mesaba ship about the ice fields of icebergs did not transmit it to Edward Smith: the telegram was not marked with a special prefix “personally to the captain”, and was lost in a heap of papers. That's two.

However, this message was not the only one, and the captain knew about the ice danger. Why didn't he slow down the ship? Chasing the Blue Ribbon is, of course, a matter of honor (and, more importantly, big business), but why did he risk the lives of passengers? It wasn't that much of a risk, really. In those years, captains of ocean liners often passed dangerous with ice areas without slowing down: it was like crossing the road at a red light: it seems like you shouldn’t do that, but it always works out. Almost always.

To the credit of Captain Smith, it must be said that he remained faithful to maritime traditions and remained on the dying ship until the very end.

But why was the bulk of the iceberg not noticed? Here everything came together: a moonless, dark night, windless weather. If there were even small waves on the water surface, those looking ahead could see whitecaps at the foot of the iceberg. Calm and moonless night are two more links in the fatal chain.

As it turned out later, the chain was continued by the fact that the iceberg, shortly before the collision with the Titanic, turned over with its underwater, water-saturated, dark part upward, which is why it was practically invisible at night from afar (an ordinary, white iceberg would have been visible a mile away ). The watchman saw him only 450 meters away, and there was almost no time left for maneuver. Perhaps the iceberg would have been noticed earlier, but here another link in the fatal chain played a role - there were no binoculars in the “crow’s nest”. The box where they were kept was locked, and the key to it was hastily taken with him by the second mate, who had been removed from the ship just before departure.

After the lookout nevertheless saw the danger and reported the iceberg to the captain's bridge, there was a little more than half a minute left before the collision. Officer of the watch Murdoch, who was on watch, gave the order to the helmsman to turn left, while simultaneously transmitting the command “full astern” to the engine room. Thus, he made a grave mistake, adding another link in the chain that led the liner to death: even if the Titanic had crashed into an iceberg head-on, the tragedy would have been less. The bow of the ship would have been crushed, part of the crew and those passengers whose cabins were located in front would have died. But only two watertight compartments would have been flooded. With such damage, the liner would have remained afloat and could have waited for help from other ships.

And if Murdoch, having turned the ship to the left, had ordered an increase rather than a decrease in speed, the collision might not have happened at all. However, frankly speaking, the order to change the speed hardly plays a significant role here: in thirty seconds it was hardly executed in the engine room.

So, the collision happened. The iceberg damaged the ship's fragile hull along six compartments on the starboard side.

Looking ahead, let's say that only seven hundred and four managed to escape: the next link in the chain of failures was that some sailors took too literally the captain's order to put women and children in the boats, and did not allow men there, even if there were empty seats. However, at first no one was particularly eager to get into the boats. The passengers did not understand what was happening and did not want to leave the huge, comfortably lit, such a reliable liner, and it was unclear why they should go down in a small unstable boat down to the icy water. However, pretty soon anyone could notice that the deck was tilting forward more and more, and panic began.

But why was there such a monstrous discrepancy between the places on the lifeboats? The owners of the Titanic, praising the merits of the new ship, stated that they even exceeded the instructions of the code: instead of the required 962 life-saving seats on the ship, there were 1178. Unfortunately, they did not attach any importance to the discrepancy between this number and the number of passengers on board.

It is especially bitter that not far from the sinking Titanic there stood another passenger ship, "The Californian". A few hours ago, he notified neighboring ships that he was locked in ice and was forced to stop so as not to accidentally run into an ice block. The radio operator from the Titanic, who was almost deafened by the Morse code from the Californian (the ships were very close, and the signal of one echoed too loudly in the headphones of the other), impolitely interrupted the warning: “Go to hell, you are interfering with my work!” What was the radio operator of the Titanic so busy with?

The fact is that in those years, radio communication on a ship was more of a luxury than an urgent necessity, and this miracle of technology aroused great interest among the wealthy public. From the very beginning of the voyage, the radio operators were literally inundated with private messages - and no one saw anything reprehensible in the fact that the Titanic’s radio operators paid such attention to rich passengers who wished to send a telegram to the ground directly from the liner. So at that moment, when colleagues from other ships reported about floating ice, the radio operator transmitted another message to the continent. Radio communication was more like an expensive toy than a serious tool: ships of that time did not even have a 24-hour watch at the radio station.

Hi all! Today I am with you again, Vladimir Raichev, and today I would like to discuss with you some interesting and mystical facts related to the transatlantic liner Titanic, which sank in 1912.

The Titanic was positioned as the most reliable liner of its time, it had the following characteristics:

Owner: British shipping company White Star Line

Date of construction: 1911

Construction cost: £3 million

Number of decks - 8

Length - 269 m

Width - 30 m

Displacement - 52310 t

Maximum speed - 42 km/h

Capacity - 3547 passengers + crew

Design features- double bottom, hull material - steel, hold and lower decks were divided into 16 compartments by bulkheads with sealed doors.

These are just some of the characteristics of the ship; among other things, there were 20 boats on board with a total capacity of 1,178 people. The Titanic was the standard of reliability, wealth, and nothing foreshadowed its collapse. On April 12, 1912, the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton.

History of the disaster

On April 14, the captain and his crew received 7 messages from other ships that they encountered floating ice. For some reason, the team completely ignored these warnings and flew their liner at full speed towards New York.

Closer to midnight, the one looking ahead reported approaching an iceberg, this message was transmitted to the first mate, who was on duty on the bridge that night. William Murdoch, contrary to all instructions, tried to go around the iceberg.

Any inexperienced captain knows that under no circumstances should the ship be turned or put into reverse. As a result of the collision with the iceberg, the Titanic received a large hole on the starboard side below the waterline.

Captain Edward Smith climbed onto the bridge a little later; he felt the collision while in his cabin. Having assessed the damage to the liner, he consulted with the chief designer of the ship and decided to prepare for the evacuation of people.

The radio operators were given the command to transmit distress signals. The sailors knew very little about the procedure for their actions in an emergency, although the plan for these actions was posted in several places, but the sailors did not bother to study this plan.

The fact is that each boat had its own sailor. And it took a lot of work for the officers to organize the preparation of life-saving equipment. No one could even imagine the sinking of the Titanic, so there is nothing strange in the fact that such self-confidence reigned around.

The passengers, who were directed to the lifeboats, were in no hurry at all, as they did not imagine that a disaster had occurred: the people on the upper deck did not even feel the collision.

Untrained sailors lowered the first boats not completely filled. And if you remember, at the very beginning of the article I mentioned the capacity of the ship and the number of seats in life-saving equipment. There were 3 times fewer seats in the boats than there were passengers.

The ensuing panic also complicated the evacuation of passengers. The Titanic had it all: manifestations of cowardice and cowardice, and courage and perseverance, the inept actions of the crew bordered on the help of women in the boats, who told some men how to handle the oars.

Contrary to engineering calculations, the liner stayed on the water for more than 3 hours. Desperate people, who did not have enough space on the boats, jumped into the icy water. The water temperature reached -2 degrees - borderline freezing temperature.

Ultimately, only 705 passengers managed to escape, and over 1,500 died in this disaster. This disaster was one of the largest in the last century.

Causes of the disaster

A collision with an iceberg was the main reason for the death of the liner. But why did this happen? Why did the captain and his crew so neglect reports of drifting ice? Why did the first officer act so unprofessionally? Why did the person looking ahead report the approach to the iceberg so late? Why was the evacuation so disorganized?

There are many more questions related to this incident than answers. After a long time, many alternative versions of the crash began to appear. For example, one of them says that the White Star Line company sent another ship, the Olympic, instead of the Titanic, as if the plan was simple: to initiate a disaster, sink the ships and receive insurance compensation for a cheaper ship.

Captain Edward Smith, before he was appointed captain of the Titanic, managed to take part in some disasters with his other ships, for example, the Republic and Adriatic ran aground, the Majestic and Baltic caught fire, and the liner " Olympic collided with the British war cruiser Hawk in 1911.

However, some members of the crew were also flawed, such as First Officer Murdoch, who was unable to avoid a collision with a block of ice, or Chief Radio Operator Jack Phillips, who responded very harshly to warnings about drifting ice.

It is noteworthy that just before leaving for the flight, Smith's team was replaced by the one looking forward. And the sailor removed from the ship forgot to give his colleague only one key, which opened the doors of the box where the binoculars were located.

Mystical consequences of the tragedy

But it is interesting that now other explanations for the disaster have begun to appear - mystical ones. Over the course of a century, this story has managed to acquire details and guesses. More than once artistic and documentaries shed light on this story from different angles.

In 1994, right at the site of the sinking of the liner, fishermen caught a 10-month-old baby alive, tied to a life preserver with the words “Titanic” written on it. Also, information has repeatedly surfaced about a girl who appeared in our time and claimed that she was a passenger on this ship.

Surprisingly, both the baby and the girl were documented to exist at the beginning of the century, and the girl was declared sane by psychiatrists. There is nothing left but to connect the mysterious events taking place with the emergence of a certain “time portal” at the site of the sinking of the Titanic.

The stories of eyewitnesses about luminous circles under water, shortly before the disaster, are also suggestive.

The appearance of the captain

There was another interesting case. On August 9, 1991, near Iceland, a Norwegian research vessel picked up a man adrift on a boat. Imagine the surprise of the crew when it turned out that this was the captain of the Titanic, Edward John Smith.

This man was somewhat dazed, but overall he was healthy, and what was most striking was that he looked as if the year on the calendar was still 1912. For 80 years he was considered dead, but he looked great, smoked a pipe and was dressed in a clean White Star Shipping Company uniform.

Of course, they didn’t take this man’s word for it. He was taken to Sweden, and there, in the city of Oslo, he was sent to a psychiatric clinic. They also took his fingerprints there. The results of the fingerprint examination shocked the researchers. It was confirmed that the man from the boat was indeed Captain Edward John Smith.

Of course, both the girl who “rescued” from the Titanic and the captain of the ship remained within the walls of specialized institutions, isolated from the world.

It is shocking that all these people at the time of discovery looked the age they were at the time of the disaster, as if these 80 years did not exist for them. Scientists explain the phenomena occurring in the Atlantic by formation in this anomalous zone space-time holes.

There is documented evidence from a Norwegian ship that on the day of the disaster, a giant funnel, in other words, a whirlpool, was seen in the Atlantic. A few hours later, the Titanic shipwrecked in this area. Perhaps the crater and the crash are somehow connected.

Scientists are working to study the mechanisms of the appearance of “space-time portals,” and in the meantime we can only guess what other mysteries the Atlantic Ocean holds, and how many secrets the famous superliner Titanic took with it.

This is where I want to end my article today. Share this with your friends interesting story, subscribe to updates, we still have a lot of interesting things ahead. See you soon, take care of yourself.

105 years ago, April 15, 1912, “unsinkable ship”, “the largest and most luxurious ocean liner"On his first flight, he crashed into an iceberg and took with him more than one and a half thousand passengers to the bottom of the ocean. It would seem that for many decades there are no more secrets and mysteries about this terrible disaster. And yet, let's remember how it was.

Captain Edward Smith on board the Titanic. Photo: New York Times

First official version

Two government investigations that followed the disaster determined that it was the iceberg, and not the ship's defects, that caused the death of the liner. Both commissions of inquiry concluded that the Titanic sank not in parts, but as a whole - there were no major faults.

The blame for this tragedy was placed entirely on the shoulders of the ship's captain, Edward Smith, who died along with his crew and passengers of the Atlantic liner. Experts reproached Smith for the fact that the ship was traveling at a speed of 22 knots (41 km) through a dangerous ice field - in dark waters, off the coast of Newfoundland.

Robert Ballard's discovery

In 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard, after a long unsuccessful search, finally managed to find the remains of a ship at a depth of about four kilometers on the ocean floor. It was then that he discovered that the Titanic had actually split in half before sinking.

A couple of years later, the wreckage of the ship was brought to the surface for the first time, and a new hypothesis immediately appeared - low-grade steel was used to build an “unsinkable ship.” However, according to experts, it was not the steel that turned out to be of low quality, but the rivets - the most important metal pins that tie together the steel plates of the airliner's hull. And the found wreckage of the Titanic does indicate that the stern of the ship did not rise high into the air, as many believed. It is believed that the Titanic split into parts while relatively level on the surface of the ocean - this is a clear sign of miscalculations in the design of the ship, which were hidden after the disaster.

Design miscalculations

The Titanic was built in a short time - in response to the production of a new generation of high-speed liners by competitors.

The Titanic could stay afloat even if 4 of its 16 watertight compartments were flooded - this is amazing for a ship of such gigantic size.

However, on the night of April 14-15, 1912, just a few days into the liner’s debut voyage, its Achilles’ heel was revealed. The ship, due to its size, was not agile enough to avoid a collision with the iceberg, which the watchmen had been shouting about for the last minute. The Titanic did not collide with the fatal iceberg head-on, but drove along it on its right side - the ice punched holes in the steel plates, flooding six “watertight” compartments. And after a couple of hours the ship was completely filled with water and sank.

According to experts studying the potential weak point of the Titanic - the rivets, they found that due to the fact that time was running out, builders began to use low-grade material. When the liner hit an iceberg, the weak steel rods in the bow of the ship cracked. It is believed that it was no coincidence that the water, having flooded six compartments held together by low-grade steel rods, stopped exactly where the high-quality steel rivets began.

In 2005, another expedition studying the crash site was able to establish from the wreckage of the bottom that during the crash the ship tilted only about 11 degrees, and not 45, as had long been believed.

Memories of Passengers

Because the ship tilted only slightly, passengers and crew were lulled into a false sense of security—many of them did not understand the gravity of the situation. When the water has flooded enough bow hull, the ship, while remaining afloat, split in two and sank in minutes.

Charlie Jugin, the Titanic's chef, was standing near the stern when the ship sank and did not notice any signs of hull fracture. Nor did he notice the suction funnel or the colossal splash. According to his information, he calmly sailed away from the ship, without even getting his hair wet.

However, some passengers sitting in lifeboats claimed to have seen the stern of the Titanic raised high in the air. However, this could only be an optical illusion. With a tilt of 11 degrees, propellers sticking out in the air, the Titanic, the height of a 20-story building, seemed even taller, and its roll into the water even greater.

How the Titanic sank: a real-time model

The menu for the last dinner on the Titanic, which sank in 1912, has been sold in New York. The price for it was 88 thousand dollars (about 1.9 million hryvnia).

Blue Company Star Line"announced the construction of Titanic 2. According to the designers, the ship will become an exact copy of the famous liner that sank in 1912. However, the liner will be equipped with modern safety equipment. Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer undertook to finance the project.

Now this 105-year-old cracker is considered the most expensive in the world.

It turns out that a cracker made by Spillers and Bakers called "Pilot" was included in the survival kit that was placed on each lifeboat. Later, one of these products went to a man who kept it as a souvenir. It was James Fenwick, a passenger on the ship Carpathia, which was picking up shipwreck survivors.

REFERENCE

On the night of April 15, 1912, the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank. He sailed in the Atlantic Ocean on his way from Southampton (England) to New York. About 1.5 thousand people died then, mostly third class passengers. In total there were more than 2.2 thousand people there.

100 years ago, on the night of April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Titanic liner sank, carrying more than 2,200 people.

Titanic is the largest passenger ship of the early 20th century, the second of three twin steamships produced by the British company White Star Line.

The length of the Titanic was 260 meters, width - 28 meters, displacement - 52 thousand tons, height from the waterline to the boat deck - 19 meters, distance from the keel to the top of the pipe - 55 meters, maximum speed - 23 knots. Journalists compared it in length to three city blocks, and in height to an 11-story building.

The Titanic had eight steel decks, located one above the other at a distance of 2.5-3.2 meters. To ensure safety, the ship had a double bottom, and its hull was separated by 16 waterproof compartments. Watertight bulkheads rose from the second bottom to the deck. The ship's chief designer, Thomas Andrews, stated that even if four of the 16 compartments were filled with water, the liner would be able to continue its journey.

The interiors of the cabins on decks B and C were designed in 11 styles. Third class passengers on decks E and F were separated from first and second class by gates located in different parts of the ship.

Before the Titanic set out on its first and last voyage, it was especially emphasized that there would be 10 millionaires on board the ship on its first voyage, and in its safes there would be gold and jewelry worth hundreds of millions of dollars. American industrialist, heir to a mining magnate Benjamin Guggenheim, millionaire with his young wife, assistant to US Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft Major Archibald Willingham Butt, US Congressman Isidore Strauss, actress Dorothy Gibson, wealthy public figure Margaret Brown, British fashion designer Lucy Christiane Duff Gordon and many other famous and wealthy people of that time.

On April 10, 1912, at noon, the Titanic superliner set off on its only journey along the route Southampton (Great Britain) - New York (USA), with stops in Cherbourg (France) and Queenstown (Ireland).

During the four days' journey the weather was clear and the sea was calm.

On April 14, 1912, on the fifth day of the voyage, several ships sent reports of icebergs in the area of the ship's route. The radio was broken for most of the day, and many messages were not noticed by the radio operators, and the captain did not pay due attention to others.

In the evening, the temperature began to drop, reaching zero Celsius by 22:00.

At 23:00, a message was received from the Californian about the presence of ice, but the Titanic's radio operator interrupted the radio exchange before the Californian had time to report the coordinates of the area: the telegraph operator was busy sending personal messages to passengers.

At 23:39, two lookouts noticed an iceberg in front of the liner and reported it by telephone to the bridge. The most senior of the officers, William Murdoch, gave the command to the helmsman: “Rudder to port.”

At 23:40 "Titanic" in the underwater part of the ship. Of the ship's 16 watertight compartments, six were cut through.

At 00:00 on April 15, Titanic designer Thomas Andrews was called to the bridge to assess the severity of the damage. After reporting the incident and inspecting the ship, Andrews informed everyone present that the liner would inevitably sink.

There was a noticeable tilt on the ship's bow. Captain Smith ordered the lifeboats to be uncovered and the crew and passengers to be summoned for evacuation.

By order of the captain, the radio operators began sending distress signals, which they transmitted for two hours, until the captain relieved the telegraph operators of their duties a few minutes before the sinking of the ship.

Distress signals, but they were too far from the Titanic.

At 00:25, the coordinates of the Titanic were taken by the ship Carpathia, which was located at a distance of 58 from the site of the wreck of the liner. nautical miles, which was 93 kilometers. ordered to immediately head to the site of the Titanic disaster. Rushing to help, the ship was able to reach a record speed of 17.5 knots - with the maximum possible speed for the ship being 14 knots. To do this, Rostron ordered to turn off all appliances that consume electricity and heating.

At 01:30 the operator of the Titanic telegraphed: “We are in small boats.” By order of Captain Smith, his assistant, Charles Lightoller, who led the rescue of people on the left side of the liner, put only women and children in the boats. The men, according to the captain, were supposed to remain on deck until all the women were in the boats. First Mate William Murdoch on the starboard side to the men if there were no women or children in the line of passengers gathering on deck.

At about 02:15, the Titanic's bow dropped sharply, the ship moved forward significantly, and a huge wave rolled across the decks, washing many passengers overboard.

At about 02:20 minutes the Titanic sank.

At about 04:00 in the morning, approximately three and a half hours after receiving the distress signal, the Carpathia arrived at the site of the Titanic's wreck. The ship took on board 712 passengers and crew members of the Titanic, after which it arrived safely in New York. Among those rescued were 189 crew members, 129 male passengers and 394 women and children.

The death toll, according to various sources, ranged from 1,400 to 1,517 people. According to official data, after the disaster, 60% of passengers were in first class cabins, 44% in second class cabins, 25% in third class.

The last surviving passenger of the Titanic, who traveled on board the liner at the age of nine weeks, died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97. The woman's ashes were scattered over the sea from the pier in the port of Southampton, from where the Titanic set off on its last voyage in 1912.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

More than 100 years have passed since the tragic sinking of the Titanic. Largely thanks to the efforts of James Cameron and his film - one of the highest grossing and ratings in history, everyone learned about this ship. But despite the fact that every first person on our planet has heard about the Titanic, many fundamental details associated with the disaster on April 14, 1912, still remain little known. Let's correct this omission.

The weather was perfect

On the day the Titanic sank, there was absolute calm at sea.

It’s easy enough to imagine how the Titanic liner struggles with high waves, how fog and heavy rain hide the iceberg that later sent the ship to the bottom. But it wasn't like that at all. When the Titanic headed to the place of its destruction, the weather was beautiful, one might even say frighteningly calm. There was no wind or waves, and the surface of the sea was flawlessly smooth - like a mirror. Maybe, beautiful weather

and contributed to the tragedy.

Unfortunately, when lookout Frederick Fleet noticed a block of ice directly ahead, it was already too late to avoid a collision. During an investigation in 1912, experts found that from the moment the iceberg was discovered, the ship had only 37 seconds to change course.

Other experts said that the time was slightly longer - about 65 seconds. In any case, the Titanic was doomed, because even if the “full stop” command had been given, the liner would have moved by inertia for about 3.5 minutes.

As luck would have it, immediately after the accident a strong cold wind arose, which literally froze people struggling for life in the icy water.

This is interesting: In total, during the sinking of the Titanic, 1,514 people on board (including the crew) died, 710 were saved. 76% of women, 51% of children and only 18% of men were able to survive. Of the 908 crew members, 696 were killed.

The whole trip was accompanied by fire

It turns out that a fire was raging on the Titanic all the time.

Shortly before the first and, unfortunately, last voyage, a fire started in one of the ship's coal bunkers. Investigators looking into the cause of the disaster were able to prove that the fire was still raging when the Titanic headed for New York, creating a potential danger for everyone on board.

The surviving fireman, John Dilley, said: “We were unable to put out the fire, and the stokers said that when we disembarked the passengers, we would have to empty all the large coal bunkers, and then call the fire boats to help us put out the fire.” John claims that the flames only went out when a block of ice ruptured the hull. The water instantly flooded the bunkers. Some other crew members claim that the fire was successfully extinguished on the morning of April 14 - that same fateful day. Be that as it may, the Titanic burned throughout its entire maiden voyage.

It is not certain that the fire would have led to catastrophic consequences, because the designers designed the steel bunkers to withstand coal fires. Nevertheless, the risks increased many times over.

This is interesting: The managing director of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, later claimed that John Pierpont Morgan, the owner of the IMM company, which owned the Titanic, forced the crew to sail at maximum speed in order to “swim to New York and land people before the inevitable explosions occur."

William Steed's tragic foresight of disaster

William Steed is a man who foresaw the disaster... And died in it

Even 26 years before the sinking of the Titanic, British journalist William Steed wrote a fictional story about the sinking of a large Atlantic mail steamer.

In the story, most of the passengers drowned due to a shortage of lifeboats. With this story, Steed wanted to draw public attention to the fact that ship crews do not demand that there be a sufficient number of boats to save all passengers on board.

William Steed returned to this topic again in 1892. In the climactic chapter, a ship crosses the Atlantic Ocean with hundreds of tourists on board. Here is an excerpt: “There was a roar, as if a steamship had hit ice. The propellers spun, cutting through ice blocks. All passengers carefully climbed onto the deck. The weather was damp and very cold. Every half minute a whistle blew from somewhere in the fog. The roar of the ship grinding against the side and the ice being ground by the propellers made it impossible to talk or be heard. But suddenly a desperate cry was heard from the darkness: “Iceberg on the starboard side!”

20 years later, Steed died while on board the Titanic...

Captain Edward Smith

Captain Edward Smith was shocked when he realized that all the passengers could not be saved.

The captain of the infamous ship, Edward John Smith, has become the hero of dozens of legends since the day he sank with the Titanic. Many claim that he managed to personally save the child’s life before dying. But it is worth noting that his heroic image is slightly embellished.

They say that when Smith learned that the Titanic could not be kept afloat, he realized that even with the maximum load of lifeboats, at least 1,000 people would remain on the sinking ship. The realization of this fact horrified him. The captain temporarily lost his resolve: he did not demand an early evacuation, did not organize the work of the team, gave only vague and contradictory orders, and did not answer the officers and sailors who asked him about something. Edward Smith did not give the order to load the boats to the maximum due to their shortage, and did not monitor the evacuation and the accuracy of the execution of his orders.

Later, when the last boat was launched, Smith walked along the boat deck for the last time. He ordered all crew members to stop working and try to save themselves. The captain repeated, “From now on, every man for himself.”

This is interesting: When the Titanic sank, out of the hundreds of people who found themselves in the water, only a few survived. Crew members Charles Lightoller, Jack Thayer, Archibald Gracey and about 30 other people managed to climb onto the folding boat turned upside down. Realizing the danger of complete flooding of the boat, they were forced to push away people floating nearby with oars, not paying attention to pleas for help. Later in his book, Gracie admired the behavior of those left in the icy water: “I did not hear a single reproach after the refusal of help. Refusals were met with courageous words: “Okay, good luck, guys, and God bless you!”

It was only in 2012 that it became known that Smith had failed a navigation test on his first try. He managed to do this only in 1888. However, the initial failure was perhaps not a good sign.

The only Japanese on board

Masabumi Hosono was hated and treated like a coward in Japan

The only Japanese passenger on the Titanic was civil servant Masabumi Hosono. Before boarding the ship and starting his journey home, he spent several months studying railway systems in Europe. As the Titanic began to sink, Hosono made his way to the upper deck to face death with dignity. He understood that there was practically no chance of survival, because the crew members put only women and children in the boats, and drove the men away at gunpoint. Suddenly, Hosono found that he could save himself.

The opportunity arose when a crew member shouted that there were 2 left in the lowered lifeboat. free seats. Seeing someone jump into the water, Hosono did the same. If he could have known what consequences this would lead to in the future, he might have chosen to die.

It was then believed that it was better for a worthy man to die with honor than to survive in a disgraceful manner. After returning to Japan, Hosono was branded a coward and hated by almost the entire country. He was fired from his government job, although he was hired back a few years later. Negative reviews about the Asian man who survived in boat No. 13, lead to the conclusion that it was Hosono.

This is interesting: The water temperature outside was −2°C (freezing threshold). Some people, once in it, died of a heart attack immediately. Others died after about half an hour. At first, due to severe hypothermia, severe trembling appeared, then the pulse and body temperature slowed down. Soon the man lost consciousness and died.

In 1997, Masabumi's reputation was partially restored when a handwritten description of the tragedy was found among his belongings. In a letter to his wife, Hosono mentioned that he was in boat No. 10. If this is true, then he could not be that Asian.

Real Titanic necklace

The Heart of the Ocean Necklace Really Existed

In the movie Titanic, a magnificent necklace was mentioned called the Heart of the Ocean. You might think that this is the director's invention. But it turns out that a similar story happened on a real ship: passenger Kate Phillips was given a valuable sapphire necklace by her lover Henry Morley.

A wealthy 40-year-old confectionery owner fell in love with 19-year-old Kate, who worked as an assistant for his competitor. Soon Morley decided to leave his wife and little daughter for Kate. The couple boarded the Titanic to escape and start a new life in California. On the night of the disaster, Kate managed to get on board the last rescue boat. And Henry Morley died.

After 9 months, Kate gave birth to a baby, whom she named Ellen. Only at the age of 76 did Ellen learn that her father was one of dead passengers"Titanic". When she talked to her mother about it, she learned that Kate still had that same sapphire necklace.

Errors and theories

Perhaps the Supermoon is to blame for the disaster

Researchers have repeatedly tried to figure out why the Titanic collided with an ice block. Immediately after the disaster, British and American experts decided that the ship was moving too fast. At low speed the damage would be much less, and the chances of avoiding a collision would increase. And so the iceberg, like a can opener, ripped open 5 bow compartments of the Titanic. During the collision, 6 holes appeared in the starboard side skin, the total length of which reached 90 meters.

This is interesting: The hull of the liner was divided into 16 watertight compartments using 15 bulkheads built across the ship. The designers calculated that the Titanic would be able to stay afloat if any 2 compartments or 4 adjacent ones (bow or stern) were flooded at the same time.

In 2010, journalist Louise Patton, the granddaughter of one of the Titanic's officers, suggested that the ship would have avoided the collision if helmsman Robert Hitchins had not panicked after reporting the iceberg and first turned the wheel in the opposite direction. Louise is sure that her grandfather conspired with other crew members to try to keep this mistake a secret. The truth could destroy the reputation of the White Star Line and all its colleagues.

At the same time, two astronomers from the University of Texas suggest that a rare “Supermoon” could have caused the movement of the iceberg. Note that a “Supermoon” occurs when, at the moment of the full moon, our satellite approaches the Earth at its closest close quarters. It is known that on January 4, 1912, the Moon approached the Earth at its closest distance in the last 1.5 thousand years. This happened the day after the so-called perihelion of the Earth (the maximum approach of the planet to the Sun). As a result of the combined gravitational influence of the Sun and Moon, unusually strong tidal forces could arise.

Astronomers believe that powerful flows of water set in motion many icebergs along the path of the Titanic, which created all the preconditions for a disaster.

Elizabeth Shutes

Elizabeth Shutes claims she smelled ice before the disaster Titanic passenger Elizabeth Shutes claimed that shortly before the disaster she was shocked by the smell of ice, which did not allow her to sleep properly. He reminded her of a huge

ice cave , which Shutes once visited. Elizabeth survived and later wrote her own account of the tragedy. Shutes was the governess of 19-year-old First Class passenger Margaret Gramm. When the liner vibrated and shuddered slightly for the first time, the girl was not very worried about it, being sure that nothing threatened the huge ship. Elizabeth was lying in her cabin when her friend knocked on the door and reported that she had seen through the window of her cabin

It was only after the first-class passengers were herded to the upper deck that Shutes realized the gravity of the situation. As she wrote in her memoirs, there were only 36 people in the lifeboat she was in (even though it was designed for 65 seats). Elizabeth was almost forced into the boat against her will. The girl wanted to stay on the ship, because she didn’t believe that such huge liner may drown. But when the boat sailed a sufficient distance, the Titanic broke into two parts and disappeared under water in a matter of seconds.

Parallels with the crash of the Costa Concordia liner

Is there a connection between the death " Costa Concordia"and 'Titanic'?

This is interesting: Many people draw parallels between the sinking of the Italian ship Costa Concordia and the sinking of the Titanic. First, some surviving Concordia passengers claimed that Celine Dion's famous song "My Heart Will Go On" was playing in the dining room when the ship hit the rock. Secondly, both liners met their end within 100 years of each other.

There are other strange coincidences. The christening of both ships was unsuccessful - a bottle of champagne did not break on the side of the Costa Concordia. They say that the same thing happened to the Titanic. Both disasters were caused by human error. Finally, both ships were sailing at maximum speed at the time of the disaster.

Perhaps the most significant difference is the reputations of the two captains. When people remember the captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, as a hero who died along with the ship and previously saved the life of a child, only curses are heard against Francesco Schetino. Shchetino, along with the second officer, fled from the ship when there were still 300 passengers on board who could have been saved.

Optical illusions

Distress signals from the Titanic were interpreted by the crew of a nearby ship as mirages.

The sinking Titanic sent distress signals several times. In addition, 8 signal flares were launched. The California ship, closest to the crash site, ignored the missiles, although they brightly lit up the night sky. The California captain later lost his job due to the scandal, as many people believed that he deliberately ignored signals. But further investigation into the causes of the Titanic disaster allows us to give a more plausible explanation for its behavior - the refraction of light.

It is important to note that on the night of April 14-15, the Titanic sailed through areas of the so-called thermal inversion. It causes incorrect refraction of light, which causes mirages to appear. According to historian Tim Maltin, dozens of mirages were observed from several ships close to the accident site on the fateful night. Maltin is confident that temperature conditions caused anomalous refraction of light. This can explain, for example, why the Titanic's lookouts reported that the ship was heading towards the iceberg too late.

These mirages kept the California crew from correctly interpreting distress signals. Maltin made this conclusion in 2012, 20 years after the British government officially closed its own investigation into the influence of light refraction on the sinking of the Titanic.

The sinking of the Titanic, even more than a hundred years later, remains one of the most famous disasters in history. The dramatic events that took place on board the ship on the night of April 15, 1912 are reflected in art. Interest in the death of the ship, which was considered unsinkable, continues to this day. Hundreds of books, thousands of articles have been written about the Titanic, documentaries and feature films have been made. And in memory of the victims of the disaster in different countries monuments and memorials were erected.

It might be useful to read: