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Titanic myths (Part II)

We've all heard the story of the Titanic smashing into the iceberg back in 1912, and then being found again in 1985, sitting upright on the ocean floor.

We've all heard the story of the Titanic smashing into the iceberg back in 1912, and then being found again in 1985, sitting upright on the ocean floor.

Last time, I talked about two myths associated with the Titanic - one, that it was incredibly mechanically advanced, and two, that it was widely advertised as "unsinkable". Both of these are wrong.

But the myths don't end there. It's said that on her maiden voyage, the Titanic was speeding to New York, trying to win the coveted Blue Riband prize for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic.

This is definitely wrong.

First, the Titanic was travelling on the longer southern route, to avoid the icebergs, rather than on the shorter northern route. If the Captain had wanted to win the Blue Riband, he would have chosen the shorter northern route.

Second, not all of her boilers had been lit.

Third, even with all of her boilers lit, her maximum speed was 21 knots, much less than the 26 knots of their competitors, the Cunard ships.

Fourth, there had already been much correspondence within the White Star Line Company (who owned the ship) emphasising that the Titanic would berth in New York on a Wednesday (rather than on a Tuesday). This was to avoid the risk of damaging the engines, and the cost and inconvenience of taking care of passengers with fixed train or hotel bookings.

The last great myth about the Titanic is that the iceberg tore open a huge hole in the Titanic, stretching 100 metres along her hull.

The intrepid explorer, Robert Ballard, led the team that found the Titanic sitting on the ocean floor. They explored and documented the wreck with several Remote-Operated Vehicles as virtual "flying eyes". They found little damage to the hull - only six thin gashes. The total area of these six gashes in the Titanic's hull was about 1.1 square metres.

The Titanic sank because of the location of these gashes, not their size. The ship could float with a maximum of four of the 16 watertight holds flooded - but the six holes were over six of them.

Each year, about 10,000 to 15,000 icebergs break off from the Greenland Glacier, but only about 500 make it to the North Atlantic shipping lanes. On this journey, there had been warnings about icebergs.

However, the Titanic's captain, Captain Smith did three foolish things.

First, he ignored ice warnings.

Second, he refused to slow his ship after reports of icebergs in his direct path. The single slender rudder (part of the Titanic's conservative technology) made her much slower to respond - and so it hit the iceberg.

Third, he unnecessarily condemned an extra 457 people to die in the icy waters, because after the crash, he allowed lifeboats to leave before they were fully laden. On that night, the conditions in the Atlantic were flat and calm. But the first lifeboat to leave carried only 12 people, when it could have carried 40. The UK Board of Trade required that the Titanic had lifeboat accommodation for 962 people - even though the ship could carry 3,511 passengers. On its own initiative, the White Line added four collapsible boats, which could carry an additional 216 people, bringing total capacity to 1,178. But only 721 people got on the boats. On that first and only voyage, on April 14, 1912, it carried 2,224 passengers and crew, of whom 1,503 died.

The only record that the Titanic did hold was that of being the largest ship ever built - and that record soon fell without a trace after only five weeks on May 23, 1912, when the Hamburg-America line launched the Imperator. But no craft can match the legendary status achieved by the SS Titanic.

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