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"Not even God himself could sink this ship. " , that was the sentence of the employee of the White Star Line, at the launch of the Titanic , May 31, 1911. But it was just before midnight on April 14, 1912, and the Titanic was at the end of the fourth day into her maiden voyage. Just off the coast of Newfoundland the ship struck a huge iceberg. A few hours later, the ship was history. Everyone here know the whole tragedy and so I want to tell you some more details of this ship and his maiden voyage.
First of all I'd like to point out why the Titanic was so famous. Among the guests there were a lot of prominent and a lot of the most important people; for example James Bruce Ismay, president of White Star and proud ship owner of Titanic and also Isidor Straus, the director of Macy's department store, William Stead, a famous author, George Wildener, one of the richtest men in Philadelphia and Benjamin Guggenheim, known as a notorious playboy. The Titanic has been the most modern and biggest ship until the end of the World War the Second. Here are some facts you should know to understand how grand this ship was. The Titanic was larger than the highest buildings in the world and too large for some harbours. The expectations of the people to this vessel were obviously enormous and her maiden voyage had to proof her status as the number one ship in the world.
The captain of the Titanic was Captain Edward John Smith. He was born in 1850 in England and died in the accident. The Chief officer was Henry Tingle Wilde. He died with 39 years also on the ship. First Officer William McMaster Murdoch died, too. Furthermore, there were five more officers and the whole crew which were for example firemens, waiters, stewards, butlers and so on.
Now I've got a drawing of the ship to show how this ship was build. The officers and captains navigated the ship from the bridge . The ten decks on the Titanic were designated alphabetically A, B, C, D, E, F and G, with \"A\" representing the Boat deck. The decks were : · Boat Deck (A) · Promenade Deck (B) · Bridge Deck (C) · Shelter Deck (D) · Saloon Deck (E) · Upper Deck (F) · Middle Deck (G) · Lower Deck · Orlop Deck · Tank Deck Lower Deck, Orlop Deck and Tank Deck were reserved for the crew, cargo and machinery. The passenger and public areas were located at the A, B, C, D, E, F, G decks. The guests were divided in 3 sectors.
The accommodation for first class was arranged to provide 39 private suites. The suites included bedrooms with private toilet facilities. All had up to five different rooms: 2 bedrooms, 2 wardrobe rooms and a bathroom. First class accommodation also held 350 cheaper standard cabins with single beds. The expensive and exclusive staterooms had excellent fittings. Each were decorated in different periodic styles including Louis XVI, Louis XV and Queen Anne.
Obviously you can see that the first class had the best fitting compared to the second and the third class. The whole supplay of the freetime activities for the first class included for example a swimming pool, Turkish Baths, Squash courts and a gym. The first class public rooms included a dining saloon, a reception room, a restaurant, a reading and writing room, a smoking room and the veranda cafes with palm courts. Second class passengers had their accommodation arranged as two or four-bed rooms to a maximum complement of 668 passengers. Second class passenger accommodation was to be found over seven decks. Exits were either by the second class grand stairway or an electric elevator which ran up and down all seven decks.
The second class had also a smoking room and of course a dining room where a piano stood to entertain diners. A special room for this class was a library. There were over 1000 third class passengers on the Titanic. The third class accommodation was much less luxurious than second class. The rooms comprised mainly of two- to six-bed rooms. The third class had a dining room and a Smoke and Gerneral room.
Nobody of the third class could meet sombody of the second or first class. Of the 2227 people aboard when the ship started his trans-Atlantic voyage in Southamton a total of 1522 persons died in the disaster. It's important to know that four fifths of an iceberg are covered underwater. So, you see, it's hard to recognize how big an iceberg is. The Titanic made her voyage constantly taking more than 500 miles of her route per day. On the fateful evening, the ship's radio room received several ice-warnings from other ships in the area.
According to the testimony of surviving officers only the message from the Californian was posted in the chartroom. This message said that in front of the Titanic was a huge icefield which was 78 miles long. But these icewarning was ignored. The Titanic was running over 22 knots and 24 of the 29 boilers were fired. She was never going faster than that speed. At 11:40 the large iceberg directly in front of the Titanic was reconized and the bridge was alarmed.
The order to 'stop full astern' instantly resulted in that the fifteen watertight doors close at the same time. But it was too late. The Titanic scrabbed the iceberg for a length of over 300 feet. Five minutes before midnight only fifteen minutes after the collision, the 'G' deck has been already flooded. Second Officer Lightroller imediately began to load women and children into lifeboats. By 2:00 a.
m. all but four lifeboats had been lowered and every distress-flare had been fired. At 2:17 a.m. the bow of the Titanic was completely under water. At twenty minutes past two it slid into the ice-cold ocean down to the bed of North Atlantic some 13 000 feet below water line.
Most of the third passengers had no chance to escape and had to drown like rats. But also some important first class passengers died for example Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor Straus. At dawn on April 15th,1912, The Carpathia arrived on the scene and those who had not yet frozen in the icy North Atlantic waters were rescued.
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