101 Amazing Facts about Ships and Boats by Jack Goldstein

101 Amazing Facts about Ships and Boats by Jack Goldstein

Author:Jack Goldstein
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: ship, boat, submarine, education, facts, fun, trivia, frigate, destroyer, USS, HMS, bounty, titanic, Mayflower, Cruise, Mary Rose, Victory, Trafalgar, battle, navy, nimitz, carrier, gerald ford
ISBN: 9781783335244
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2014
Published: 2014-01-09T00:00:00+00:00


The Bismarck

The Titanic

The headline of the first edition of the London Daily Mail’s on the 16 th of April 1912 was “Titanic Sunk, No Lives Lost”. Tragically this couldn’t have been further from the truth, with the actual loss being 1514 souls.

On the day the Titanic hit the iceberg which sunk her, a lifeboat drill for all passengers and crew was due to take place. For an unknown reason however, the captain cancelled it. Had the drill taken place, it is thought many more lives could have been saved.

The ship even had its own newspaper, called The Atlantic Daily Bulletin. As well as the day’s menu for each restaurant, it featured news, adverts, share prices, society gossip and horse-racing results!

The most expensive tickets on the ship cost $4,350 - that’s equivalent to around $80,000 in 2013. And until the ship went down, it truly was a luxurious voyage; for instance, the last dinner served in the first-class restaurant before the ship sank featured an amazing eleven different courses!

Even the cheapest cabin on a cruise ship today would seem like luxury compared to someone travelling third class on the Titanic. For instance, seven hundred people had to share just two bath tubs!

If you look at a photo of the ship, you will see four funnels. Amazingly, only three were real funnels; the fourth just carried vents from the engine room and kitchens - the designers of the ship just thought it made her look much grander that she would with just three funnels!

One of the reasons that so many lifeboats were nowhere near to carrying their full capacities was that most people were unsure of their operation. Some thought they should only be boarded when in the water, and therefore they were lowered before being full - for example, the very first had a capacity of 65, but only carried 28 people away from the sinking ship.

Whereas many ships sink due to terrible conditions, the Titanic actually sank because conditions were too good! Unexpectedly for the time of year, the sea was flat calm, there were no waves, no wind and no swell. As it was a dark, moonless night, the crew stood almost no chance of seeing the iceberg. Even if there had been the tiniest of waves, there would have been some phosphorescence from miniature organisms as these lapped around the base of the iceberg. If the conditions had not been this ‘perfect’ (for anything other than a moonless night), the lookout would have easily seen the iceberg in plenty of time.

When the iceberg was spotted, the captain did everything he could to turn the ship around, however it was too late and the hull was breached. Scraping down the side of the ship, six of the watertight compartments were wrenched open and from then she stood no chance. If only four had been opened, the Titanic would not have sunk. Amazingly, modern theory also suggests that due to the ship’s strong bulkheads, had she hit the iceberg head-on (as she was due to on her original heading) it is thought she would have stayed afloat.



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