Week Three
There she is! Here are the links to the last week of dramaturgical work.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Godspeed Titanic: The Fateful Night
The area of the North Atlantic that the Titanic traveled was in the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada (often called Iceberg Alley.) This area had long been known as a dangerous path for ships due to the prevalence of ice. According to the International Ice Patrol, “Between 1882 and 1890, 14 vessels were lost and 40 seriously damaged due to ice. According to reports from the lookouts and other surviving crew following the disaster, there was no moon to reflect light off the iceberg, no wind to crash waves against the ice, and the color of the ice blended in with the dark sky of the horizon. These conditions led to the lookouts not seeing the iceberg until it was too late to navigate out of its path. The events that followed throughout the rest of the evening left the world changed forever. The ship itself was about the people that inhabited it and gave the ship its spirit and life. The ship lost that spirit and life when the people aboard it left its decks or perished.
A Wonder's Sinking
Before being assigned to the RMS Titanic, Frederick Fleet served as a lookout on the Oceanic for 4 years. At 10 pm on the fateful evening, Fleet and another lookout, Reginald Lee, took over the Crow’s Nest post from the other lookouts. At 11:40 pm, Fleet spotted the iceberg and called the bridge with the now famous statement, “Iceberg, right ahead!”
Icebergs vary greatly in size but must be at least 16 feet wide to qualify as an iceberg.
11:40 pm
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| An artistic rendering of the Titanic striking the fabled iceberg. |
Into the bitter night the whole crowd milled, each class automatically keeping to its own decks - first class in the center of the ship, Second a little aft, Third at the very stern or in the well deck near the bow.
12:05 am (April 15th)
Capt. Smith gave the order to prepare the ship’s 16 lifeboats (there were famously fewer than could hold the total capacity of its passengers and crew.) The crew hadn’t been adequately trained on evacuation procedures, never performed any drills, and didn’t know how many people they could safely put into each lifeboat. Thus, many were ultimately lowered with barely half the capacity they could’ve held.
The Titanic only had enough lifeboats to accommodate a third of the ship's total capacity. Had every lifeboat been filled accordingly, they could have only evacuated about 53% of those actually on board on the night of her sinking.
Because the ship lacked a public-address system, Titanic’s stewards went door to door to wake up passengers and crew and encourage them to congregate on the Boat Deck. Their efforts to communicate what was going on varied widely depending on the class. First class passengers got personal help getting dressed and brought to the deck, while third class passengers were jointly told of a vague need to come on deck. At 12:15 am, the captain also gave orders to begin making radio distress calls, which initially gave the ship’s location as being 13.5 nautical miles away from where it actually was. The telegraph responses were encouraging at first. First to reply was the German Lloyd Steamer Frankfort. At 12:18, Frankfort sent a crisp “OK…Stand by” but no position. In another minute acknowledgments were pouring in. The news spread in ever widening circles. Cape Race, New Foundland heard it directly and related it inland. On the roof of Wanamaker’s department store in New York, a young wireless operator named David Sarnoff caught a faint signal and also passed it on. The whole world was snapping to agonized attention.
12:20 am
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| An artistic rendering by Charles Dixon of the Titanic's lifeboats being lowered |
12:45 am
The first lifeboat was lowered with 28 people on board (and 37 empty seats.) Ten minutes later, the second lifeboat—with the same number of people on board—was also lowered. During the next hour or so, lifeboats were lowered every few minutes, and passengers left on board started to understand the grave situation facing the ship. A shortage of trained seamen made the passengers confusion worse. Some of the best men had been used to man the early boats. Other old hands were off on special jobs-rounding up lanterns, opening the A Deck windows, helping fire off distress rockets. President Ismay stood by helping to load the boats. At the last moment he suddenly climbed into a lifeboat.
In an attempt to attract nearby ships (including the Carpathia, and the Californian—which had warned the Titanic about the ice hours before), radio operators continued sending distress signals. The ship also began sending up distress flares. A nearby ship, the Californian, thought it strange that a ship was firing off rockets at night.
The majority of passengers who were boarding lifeboats were from the first and second classes; most third class passengers were struggling to navigate the ship’s corridors and the barriers that were designed to keep them segregated from the other classes. Some third class passengers chose to stay in their rooms rather than fight; others gathered in their common dining room in prayer.
2:05 am
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| Untergang der Titanic ("Sinking of the Titanic") by Willy Stower, 1912 |
Finally, at 2:05 am, Captain Smith finally began to announce, “Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it’s every man for himself.”
2:17 am
The grand staircase collapses and the lights and electric systems on the ship begin to fail and flicker out. Titanic’s stern lifted out of the water because of the sharp downward angle of the ship. The lights flickered and then went out. At this point, the slant of the deck began to grow so steep that people could no longer stand, so they fell or jumped in hopes of reaching a nearby lifeboat. Titanic’s hull broke in two. The stern floated vertically in the water for a few minutes before sinking straight down into the ocean. Passengers and crewmen jumped or fell into ocean, many dying of broken necks from hitting the water or hypothermia if they survived the initial fall.
2:20 am
The ship slips beneath the surface of the ocean, never to surface again.
Rescue at Sea
Rescue at Sea
Once dreamed of as the titan of the sea, Titanic, sank beneath the smooth surface of the Atlantic Ocean the trouble was far from over. The situation and soundscape passengers and crew members found themselves in was the most troubling of all. As John Thayer, a teenager who survived the ordeal, said, shouts from those thrown into the icy water swelled into "one long continuous wailing chant." "It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night in the woods. This terrible cry lasted for twenty or thirty minutes, gradually dying away, as one after another could no longer withstand the cold and exposure."
Most of the deaths associated with Titanic’s sinking can be attributed to the following causes:
1. Drowning: The most commonly ascribed cause of death related to Titanic’s sinking did not, in fact, kill very many people. Drowning, within its simplest definition, death following the immersion of the mouth and nostrils in liquid and the inhalation of liquid, means very few of those in the water drowned. However, anyone who survived the plunge into the water without a life belt on likely did drown. Those people who remained inside the ship stood a greater chance of drowning.
a. One of the reasons it is known that few of those in the water died of drowning was the mass cry heard by survivors. Many of those who died in the water were able to call for help or otherwise make loud vocal noises.
2. Hypothermia: This was the cause of death of most for the people who landed in the ocean alive. When a human’s body temperature goes below 95° F, the phenomenon of hypothermia sets in. The temperature regulation malfunctions and a flush of blood rushes to the extremities, causing a false warm sensation. Shortly after this, internal organs begin to shut down and death occurs rapidly. In the 28-31° F water of the North Atlantic, this process likely took no more than 15 minutes for healthier individuals. The elderly and the youngest, as well as the sick, would have lasted much shorter periods of time. Getting out of the frigid water would have helped raise the body temperature for a short while, but prolonged exposure to the cold air would take its toll, albeit more slowly.
3. Injury: Specifically, from falling or lifebelt misuse. As the tilt of the ship became more intense, more people would have fallen; against other people, parts of the ship, or into the water. The further the fall, the greater the injury. As the stern of the ship became closer to perpendicular, the likelihood increased of muscle strength failing and victims falling from up to 200 feet into the water. At this type of height, bones would break very easily when hitting the surface of the ocean.
§ Additionally, those wearing life belts faced an additional danger. Because of the lack of proper emergency drilling aboard the Titanic, few if any, of the passengers knew the proper way to drop into the water with a life belt on. The ideal way is to cross one’s arms across the chest with hands on the opposing shoulders and then to land feet first.
4. Crushing: “Crushing” concerns most or all the body being injured at once, a far more catastrophic event. The people who died from crushing mostly did so in the water, under one of the funnels or under the stern. The falling funnels and stern would have explained why many of the bodies did not float to the surface, as well, since the impact would have pushed the bodies further under water. This would have also forced water into any open body cavities, as well as possibly tearing away life belts or forcing water into the cork of the life belts.
The chorus of voices around the lifeboats slowly died away as the night wore on. The men, women and children aboard them huddled close to fight off the cold. The closest ship in the area, the British Carpathia, was some 58 miles away and would take several hours to reach them once it had picked up on their initial distress signals. At around 4 am, about two hours after the final lifeboat had been lowered, the Carpathia arrived.
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| A lifeboat from the Titanic as it approaches the Carpathia. |
Over the course of the next several hours, the Carpathia worked diligently to bring aboard the approximately 700 survivors of the disaster. According to crew members of the ship, the Carpathia was strangely quiet. Perhaps people were too horror stricken to speak. Maybe they were too busy. Or maybe it was that they were in the aftermath of something too big to grasp.
At 8:50 that morning the Carpathia headed on to New York to drop the rescued passengers off safely. The Carpathia took three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster. Her journey was slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas. She was, however, able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened around 6:15 that morning. The initial reports were confused, leading the American press to report inaccurately.
Later on the 15th, confirmation officially came through that Titanic had been lost and that most of her passengers and crew had died. The news attracted crowds of people to the White Star Line's offices around the world. It hit hardest in Southampton, whose people suffered the greatest losses from the sinking.
"Every man to his post and let him do his full duty like a true Englishman. If the situation calls for it, let us add another glorious page to British history."- Chief Setward Hughes of Carpathia
The Carpathia finally docked at 9:30 pm on April 18th at New York's Pier 54 and was greeted by some 40,000 people waiting at the dock in heavy rain. Many of Titanic's surviving passengers did not linger in New York but headed onwards immediately to their relatives' homes. Some of the wealthier survivors chartered private trains to take them home, and the Pennsylvania Railroad laid on a special train free of charge to take survivors to Philadelphia.
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| A depiction of the debarkation of Titanic survivors from the Carpathia. |
With the sinking of the Titanic, the safe return of its survivors, and the reporting and investigations into the incident the world shifted. These events signaled the end of confidence in the era and would later be seen as a precursor to the entrance to World War 1. The Titanic also marked the end of a general feeling of confidence in the early 20th century. Until then men and women felt they had found the answer to a steady, orderly, civilized life in the modern era. The Titanic woke people up and thrust them into the terrifying new modernity of the world.
Aftermath: The Story of the Century
When the Titanic sailed, the New York Times listed the prominent passengers aboard this “unsinkable ship” on the front page. After she sank, the New York American broke the news on April 16 with a lead devoted almost entirely to John Jacob Astor; at the end it mentioned that 1,800 others were also lost. The loss of the ship was the greatest news story of modern times.
Once the massive loss of life became known to the public, White Star chartered several ships from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to retrieve bodies. Three other Canadian ships followed in the search. Each ship left with embalming supplies, undertakers, and members of the clergy. The first ship to reach the site of the sinking, the CS Mackay-Bennett, found so many bodies that the embalming supplies aboard were quickly exhausted. Health regulations required that only embalmed bodies could be returned to port. Captain Larnder of the Mackay-Bennett and undertakers aboard decided to preserve only the bodies of first class passengers, justifying their decision by the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates.
Bodies recovered were preserved for transport to Halifax, the closest city to the sinking with direct rail and steamship connections. A large temporary morgue was set up in the curling rink of the Mayflower Curling Club and undertakers were called in from all across eastern Canada to assist. Some bodies were shipped to be buried in their home towns across North America and Europe. About two-thirds of the bodies were identified. Unidentified victims were buried with simple numbers based on the order in which their bodies were discovered. The majority of recovered victims, 150 bodies, were buried in three Halifax cemeteries. As far as unaccounted bodies and missing victims go, over 1,000 were never located. These bodies most likely were scattered in all different directions and depths of the Atlantic following the sinking.
Even before the survivors arrived in New York, investigations were planned to discover what had happened, and what could be done to prevent a recurrence. Inquiries were held in both the United States and Great Britain, the former more robustly critical of traditions and practices, and scathing of the failures involved, and the latter broadly more technical and expert-oriented.
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| View of the US Senate inquiry into the RMS Titanic sinking. |
The British Board of Trade's inquiry into the disaster was headed by Lord Mersey, and took place between May 2nd and July 3rd. Being run by the Board of Trade who had previously approved the ship, it was seen by some as having little interest in its own or White Star's conduct being found negligent.
Each inquiry took testimony from passengers and crew of Titanic, crew members of Leyland Line's Californian, Captain Arthur Rostron of Carpathia, and other experts. The British inquiry also took far greater expert testimony, making it the longest and most detailed court of inquiry in British history up to that time. The two inquiries reached broadly similar conclusions; the regulations on the number of lifeboats that ships had to carry were out of date and inadequate, Captain Smith had failed to take proper heed of ice warnings, the lifeboats had not been properly filled or crewed, and the collision was the direct result of steaming into a dangerous area at too high a speed.
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| The SS Californian |
Neither inquiry's findings listed negligence by the ships parent company’s as a factor. The US inquiry concluded that since those involved had followed standard practice the disaster was an act of God. The British inquiry concluded that Smith had followed long-standing practice that had not previously been shown to be unsafe, noting that British ships had carried 3.5 million passengers over the previous decade with the loss of just 10 lives, and concluded that Smith had done "only that which other skilled men would have done in the same position". The British inquiry also warned that "what was a mistake in the case of the Titanic would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future".
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| A survey plane with the International Ice Patrol does a reconnaissance flight. |
The recommendations included major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that wireless equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock. An International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic, and maritime safety regulations were harmonized internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea; both measures are still in force today.
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| What remains of Captain Smith's bathroom. |
Prior to the discovery of Titanic's wreck, in addition to the common assumption that she had sunk in one piece, it had been widely believed that conditions at 12,000 feet down would preserve the ship intact. The reality has turned out to be very different, and the ship has increasingly deteriorated since it sank.
Additional Reading
Ship-Safe Seas: Could the Titanic Disaster Happen Again?
John Matson on April 5, 2012 for Scientific American
After the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, claiming more than 1,500 lives, the international community took swift action to prevent similar catastrophes. Just over one month after the Titanic struck an iceberg late on April 14, 1912, the U.S. Navy dispatched the cruiser USS Birmingham to begin preliminary ice patrols of the North Atlantic, near where the wrecked ocean liner lay. By January 1914 an international conference produced the first of several conventions for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), dictating safety standards for mariners. Included in the 1914 convention was the requirement that ships carry enough lifeboats to accommodate all passengers and crew on board, a precaution that was not taken for the Titanic's voyage.
Those changes, along with the advent of superior technologies for navigation and communication, have made the seas much safer since 1912. As such, it is unlikely that the specific circumstances leading to the sinking of the Titanic will recur. But the ocean remains an unpredictable place, fraught with hazards.
The first SOLAS convention addressed the proximate cause of the Titanic disaster: the danger of icebergs near the Grand Banks off the Newfoundland coast. The international agreement called for regular ice patrols, funded by a consortium of seafaring nations and carried out by the U.S. Those patrols, which continue today, have kept watch on the icebergs floating over the underwater plateau of the Banks, where transatlantic shipping routes cross the path of icebergs drifting down from Greenland.
Today's ice watchers, of course, have access to technology that did not exist in the early 20th century. Nowadays the U.S. Coast Guard's International Ice Patrol (IIP) monitors the Grand Banks with radar-equipped HC-130 aircraft. "It's certainly not the days of old where the guy's freezing his butt off on the lookout," says John Luzader, senior chief marine science technician with the IIP. Both the IIP and the Canadian Ice Service (CIS) fly reconnaissance flights over the iceberg-infested waters off Newfoundland, using all-weather radar and, when possible, visual confirmation to identify icebergs.
Together, the two patrol agencies issue a daily ice report, which defines the so-called iceberg limit. "We draw a line in the water and say, you should be safe to navigate beyond that line," Luzader says. "Inside that line, we say, 'there may be ice, and proceed at your own risk.'"
The iceberg bulletin also draws on satellite observations and reports from the crews of passing ships, which may have sighted an iceberg or simply picked up a stationary object on radar. Even if the iceberg in question has already been identified from the air, the ship reports can provide updates on an iceberg's position. In the absence of a recent sighting, the iceberg forecasters use a computer model to predict the bergs' drift and deterioration.
In nearly 100 years of operations, the IIP has established an enviable track record. "Since we've taken over ice patrol, nobody that's heeded our warning has struck an iceberg," Luzader says. (Less successful were the IIP's early attempts to destroy icebergs altogether. A 1959 article in The New York Times documented a failed attempt at an incendiary bombing campaign, which followed similar experiments with guns, torpedoes and explosives. Finally, the Times reported, the patrol "conceded that the icebergs had been more or less impervious to destruction by man-made means.")
But ice hazards have continued to doom ships beyond the Grand Banks. In 1959 a deadly accident occurred north of the zone monitored by the IIP. On its maiden voyage the Danish ship Hans Hedtoft struck an iceberg and sank off the southern tip of Greenland, claiming the lives of all 95 people on board. And in the Southern Ocean the Antarctic cruise ship Explorer sank in 2007 after ice punctured its hull; fortunately everyone on board was rescued.
Even near the well-monitored Grand Banks waters, ships do venture inside the iceberg limit, where conditions can be dicey. (The crew of the Titanic had in fact been repeatedly warned of ice in the area by nearby ships before it sank.) Modern ships have radar and sonar to help detect hazards, but those systems are not always effective, especially for smaller bergs in bad weather.
"This is where the smaller pieces are perhaps a bit more dangerous," says Luc Desjardins, senior ice and iceberg forecaster at the CIS. "Even a smaller-size iceberg that could easily be sighted with our reconnaissance program could actually be missed by a ship's radar, depending on ambient conditions." (In ideal weather airborne reconnaissance can pick up the smallest icebergs, known as growlers, which are about the size of a grand piano.)
To make matters worse, visibility over the Grand Banks is often poor. "The joining of the cold Labrador currents and the warm Gulf Stream water currents make a clash and produce quite a bit of fog," Desjardins says. "So visual detection can be challenging."
The ice threat has not been not eliminated, but it has been greatly diminished by modern surveillance. "While you can still run into it, it's going to be a lot harder to do that," says Lt. Garrett Meyer, chief of the incident management division for the Boston sector of the U.S. Coast Guard. "You see things a lot better than what things were like 100 years ago."
In the event of a disaster, authorities today certainly have more resources than they did in the early 20th century. The Coast Guard has a variety of response vessels, from harbor patrol boats to oceangoing 115-meter cutters and search aircraft, including the HH-60 Jayhawks, which are "basically a search-and-rescue version of the Army's Black Hawk helicopters," Meyer explains.
But the nearest assistance in the open ocean is often not a rescue vessel but a passing commercial or military ship. A voluntary reporting system begun in 1958 called Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue, or AMVER, helps locate nearby vessels in the event of an emergency. In 1912 the notification of a nearby vessel was a crapshoot; the nearest ship to the Titanic did not have its radio operator on duty when the doomed liner radioed for help. (It also remains unclear whether that ship saw the distress rockets fired by the Titanic’s crew.)
In March of this year a damaged 11.5-meter sailboat was rescued northwest of Cuba by the cruise ship Norwegian Star after the Coast Guard used AMVER to determine that the liner was only 50 kilometers from the stricken boat. The sailboat’s position had been relayed to authorities by an emergency radio beacon. "Anything we can get on scene quickly is an asset to us," Meyer says. "The person in the water doesn't care what color the boat is, or who's driving it. They just want to get out of the water."
With a suite of navigation and communication technologies—GPS, radar, AMVER, sonar—at their fingertips, today's ship captains have far more resources to help them avoid and mitigate disasters than did the crew of the Titanic. But the Costa Concordia disaster in January, which claimed at least 30 lives, serves as a tragic reminder that all the technology in the world cannot completely prevent catastrophe. "When it comes down to it, you can't eliminate all accidents," Meyer says. And as far as threats to safety on the water, he adds, "complacency is probably going to be the biggest one."
Another Additional Reading
An Unsinkable Ship?
Kate Hudec, PBS, NOVA
Although it may not be very comforting, the truth is there is no such thing as an unsinkable ship. No matter how sophisticated the safety features or how impressive the size, all ships are vulnerable given the wrong circumstances. Yet naval engineers have tried to safeguard vessels with innovative features to keep them afloat.
"You can have all the safety in the world and it's not going to help you if you hit a bomb," points out Dr. Robert Ballard, who recently explored the wreck of the ocean liner Britannic, which sank during World War I off the coast of Greece, the victim of either a bomb or a torpedo. The sinking of Britannic was especially tragic—not only because it followed so closely the sinking of its sister ship, Titanic, in 1912, but because extensive safety improvements had been made to the ship to avoid just such a repeat disaster.
While bombings are no longer a daily threat for most ships, danger still lurks in the form of fires, groundings, collisions and worse. So engineers, designers and human systems analysts are continually devising new ways to keep ships where they belong—on, not under, the water.
RECENT INNOVATIONS
Surprisingly, structural safety design has changed very little since the days of the pre-World War I luxury liners. Modern day cruise ships have more or less the same safety features that the Britannic had. What has changed, however, is the execution of those designs. For example, both the Britannic and the Titanic had reinforced steel hulls. But recent research suggests the steel might have been of poor quality, making it dangerously brittle under stress. Today, materials engineers use computers to model the stresses on ship hulls and formulate steel able to withstand those stresses.
Watertight compartments, or hull divisions, are another safety feature from the days of the Britannic that have carried over to modern cruise ships. If a puncture occurs, the idea is to contain and isolate the incoming water—and keep the ship afloat until help can arrive. The concept was proved sound when the Olympic, yet another sister ship to Titanic and Britannic, received a 34-foot gash in its hull from a collision at sea. With one of it compartments filled with water, the ship was able to limp back to port.
If disaster does strike, the chances of help arriving in time to minimize casualties are better today than ever before. "Those were such good innovations that we stay with them," explains Dr. Owen F. Hughes, a naval architect at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, "We would never do away with them." The newly completed 51,000-ton cruise liner, Carnival Destiny, has 18 watertight compartments. Two can be filled with water and the ship will still float.
This concept of containment has recently been expanded and applied to fire, the most common cause of disaster at sea. "We now require structural fire protection," explains Commander Van Haverbeke of the United States Coast Guard. "The vessel needs to be both subdivided and built of non-combustible material, so if a fire does start in a certain area, the spread is limited." In the days of the Titanic and Britannic, few fire regulations existed at all.
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
Even the best safety innovations can't keep a ship afloat if the features are used incorrectly—or not at all. Evidence from Dr. Ballard's recent exploration of the Britannic wreck suggests that when disaster struck the ship in the form of a mine or torpedo, the doors that divided the hull into watertight compartments were, for some reason, left open. Also left open were the lower portholes, further defeating the integrity of the hull. Whether closed doors and portholes would have saved the Britannic from sinking is anybody's guess, but as Ballard points out, "You can have all sorts of safety technology, but if some idiot turns the doggone stuff off, so much for design."
From capsizings to groundings of large oil tankers, human error is almost always the culprit behind the worst accidents at sea. In 1987, Britain's Herald of Free Enterprise ferry left port with one of its cargo doors wide open. The ship, known as a "ro-ro," was designed to roll vehicles on one end of the ship and off the other, thereby minimizing time in port. Ironically, the Herald of Free Enterprise was chock-full of sophisticated safety equipment, but none of it addressed the simple possibility of someone forgetting to close the bow door. Water surging across the cargo deck ended up capsizing the ferry in shallow water.
To reduce these types of accidents, the U.S. Coast Guard and other international agencies have begun to focus more and more on the human element in ship safety. Commander Van Haverbeke explains, "One of our primary projects is what we call 'prevention through people'. It's the recognition that the majority of casualties have their root in the human element. Can we make ships safer? Yes. Can we do it all by technology? I think there is a vast area for improvement by focusing on the way people are using the ships they already have and operating them more safely."
Part of this means understanding and accepting a given ship's limitations. For example, the "ro-ro" ferry design is extremely efficient for channel crossings, but is not well suited for transit in heavy seas. This became abundantly clear in 1994, when a huge wave ripped the bow door right off the Estonia near the coast of Finland. The ferry capsized, and eight-hundred and thirty-four passengers were killed. As a result, "ro-ro" ferries are no longer used in heavy weather, and many companies have welded their bow doors permanently shut.
SAVING LIVES
When the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, there weren't enough lifeboats for the number of people on board. By the time the Britannic set sail, two years later, ships were required to carry enough lifeboats to accommodate all on board. This addition helped save the lives of most of those aboard the Britannic. According to Dr. Hughes, lifeboat technology has continued to evolve. "Lifeboats are much easier to launch now. And they've doubled the capacity. So if a ship is heeling and you can only launch boats on one side, you still have enough." New types of evacuation slides are also beginning to be deployed.
If disaster does strike, the chances of help arriving in time to minimize casualties are better today than ever before. Advanced communications and navigation technology allow the Coast Guard and other rescue agencies to pinpoint ships in distress quickly and accurately. According to Commander Van Haverbeke, "We have rapidly cut down on the loss of life due to delays in getting the rescue there."
One ship the Coast Guard uses for rescue missions in severe weather is the remarkable 47-foot Motor Lifeboat, which is about as close to "unsinkable" as any vessel currently at sea. Able to travel at speeds of up to 25 knots through 30-foot surf, the boat carries a small, but extremely hardy crew of four. Not only does the vessel ride high on the water, so much so that its passengers feel every swell—but it can capsize completely, and within eight seconds, return automatically to an upright position. A series of ballast compartments in the hull force the ship to float upright.
"If you get seasick, this isn't the boat for you," laughs Tom Goodearl, former Boatswain's Mate with the U.S. Coast Guard. "It rides like a cork on the waves and really throws you around. You get very wet, but it's exhilarating. It does give you a real feel for how heavy water is and what the ocean can do."
In January of 1996, a tug boat towing a large oil barge off Rhode Island exploded, throwing six crew members overboard in high seas. Much publicity came from the giant oil leak that resulted. But less publicized was the rescue team that went out in the severe weather and saved all six lives using the Motor Lifeboat.
PREVENTION
While all these innovations help, the real trick is keeping boats out of trouble in the first place. This is perhaps where advanced technology has had the biggest impact. Radar can give ships a visual picture of where they are and what other ships are in the area. Better weather forecasting can guide ships away from hurricanes and severe weather altogether. GPS and other navigation systems can pinpoint a ship's exact location. Iceberg patrols can warn ships out of harm's way. And advanced satellite communications systems can transmit information at sea greater distances than ever before.
So even though there's no such thing as an unsinkable ship, seafarers can rest assured that their chances of making it to shore have improved considerably in recent years.
Further Reading
Bibliography / Further Reading
· Beesley, Lawrence. The Loss of the S.S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.
· Biel, Steven. Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Print.
· Dodge, .Washington. "Eyewitness Account of the Sinking of the Titanic." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (1912): n. pag. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Web.
· "Encyclopedia Titanica." Encyclopedia Titanica. N.p., n.d. Web.
· Gracie, Archibald, and John B. Thayer. Titanic: A Survivor's Story. Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago, 1998. Print.
· Lord, Walter. The Night Lives On. New York: Morrow, 1986. Print.
· Lord, Walter. A Night to Remember. N.p.: R + W Holt, 1955. Print.
· Matson, John. "Ship-Safe Seas: Could the Titanic Disaster Happen Again?" Scientific American. N.p., 5 Apr. 2012. Web.
· "R.M.S. Titanic - 100 Years Later." Library of Virginia. N.p., n.d. Web.
· Robertson, Morgan. The Wreck of the Titan; Or, Futility. Freeport, NY: for Libraries, 1970. Print.
· "Survivors of the Titanic." Survivors of the Titanic. BBC, n.d. Web.
· Thayer, John B. The Sinking of the S.S. Titanic, April 14-15, 1912. Philadelphia: n.p., 1940. Print.
· "Titanic Disaster Newspaper Archive." Titanic Newspaper Archive. Paperless Archives, n.d. Web.
· "The Titanic in Northern Ireland." National Museums of Northern Ireland, n.d. Web.
· "Titanic in Nova Scotia." Titanic in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia Communities, Culture and Heritage, n.d. Web.
· "Titanic U.S. Senate Inquiry." Titanic Inquiry. N.p., n.d. Web.
· Winocour, Jack, Lawrence Beesley, Archibald Gracie, and Harold Bride. The Story of the Titanic, As Told by Its Survivors. New York: Dover, 1960. Print.
Friday, November 18, 2016
Week Two
Week Two
All aboard! Welcome to Week Two. Here are your links:
What a Remarkable Age
I Must Get on That Ship
The Latest Rag
What a Remarkable Age
I Must Get on That Ship
The Latest Rag
What a Remarkable Age
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| The Titanic docked at Southampton before it's departure. |
On Wednesday April 10, 1912 Titanic's maiden voyage began. Following the embarkation of the crew, the passengers began arriving around 9:30 am. In all, 923 passengers boarded Titanic at Southampton: 179 First Class, 247 Second Class and 494 Third Class. The large number of Third Class passengers meant they were the first to board, with First and Second Class passengers following up to an hour before departure. Stewards showed them to their cabins, and First Class passengers were personally greeted by Captain Smith on boarding.
After making it safely through the complex tides and channels of Southampton Water, Titanic headed out into the English Channel. and headed for the French port of Cherbourg, a journey of 77 nautical miles. Four hours after Titanic left Southampton, she arrived at Cherbourg. 274 additional passengers were taken aboard: 142 First Class, 30 Second Class, and 102 Third Class. The process was completed within only 90 minutes and at 8 pm. Titanic weighed anchor and left for Queenstown with the weather continuing cold and windy.
At 11:30 am on Thursday, April 11, Titanic arrived at Cork Harbor on the south coast of Ireland. In all, 123 passengers boarded Titanic at Queenstown: 3 First Class, 7 Second Class and 113 Third Class. Titanic weighed anchor for the last time at 1:30 pm and departed on her westward journey across the Atlantic.
Titanic was planned to arrive at New York Pier 54 on the morning of April 17th.
The Titanic's crossing of the Atlantic was expected to take a little under a week.
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