The Biggest Ship in The World: Titanic

The book, Exploring the Titanic, written by Robert D. Ballard, talks to us about what happened on that fateful night when the Titanic sunk and how the ship was discovered. The Titanic was a beautiful ship and one of the biggest ships of her time. The maiden voyage of the Titanic was to New York City. Even though this tragedy was so big, the discovery was even bigger. It actually took 73 years to find the Titanic. When the crew of people returned to land, there were mobs of people gathered around to see the crew members. The wreckage is one of the top shipwrecks in US History! The Titanic even broke a record, the tallest ship in the world at this time.

The Titanic, a British passenger liner, set out on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. It left Belfast, Ireland, and was on its way to New York City. It is estimated that there were 2,400 passengers on this ship. Of these 2,400 passengers, they were divided amongst their backgrounds and social classes. First-class passengers had the most expensive tickets and were mainly rich passengers. These passengers were often celebrities and well-known people. These passengers were placed at the front of the boat. Second-class passengers had the next most expensive tickets, and they were placed in the middle of the boat. These were the average people. They had some money but were not celebrity rich. Third-class passengers had the least expensive tickets and were at the back and bottom of the boat. They were right about the boiler rooms and the engines. They were poor people who were not known to others.

The Titanic was the tallest/biggest ship of her time! This ship was said to have four large tunnels, three huge anchors that weighed around thirty-one tons each (almost the weight of 21 cars), and that she carried enough food to feed a small town for several months! She was 882 feet long and was the height of an eleven-story building. The makers of the Titanic, White Star Line Ship Yard, used 22 tons of soap, grease, and train oil just to get her into the water. Many people were in awe of the grandor size of the ship. The propellor was described by many as being the size of a windmill. This ship was mesmerizing to everyone that saw it. This ship was also not to be sinkable.

On April 14th, 1912, the day was normal for the ship, but at night it was so dark that they could hardly could even see. No one would have ever guessed that there was danger in the water. As the day wore on, several other ships nearby sent in ice warnings, and there was an ice field nearby. In total, there were about 7 ice warnings that day. The Titanic was heading straight forward the ice. Captain Smith would pretty much answer “OK, Thank you” or something similar to that. It was just before midnight on April 14th when the Titanic hit an iceberg. The iceberg hit the ship on the starboard side. The crew started bracing themselves for impact with the iceberg, and they were turning at a slow rate of speed. Some of the crew had hope and thought that they might miss the iceberg, but it was not enough. In reality, the Titanic did hit the iceberg. A lot of ice had flown onto the ship's deck, but many passengers did not know there was anything wrong. The Titanic could stay above water with only four watertight compartments filled, but five were filled, and eventually, all of them would be filled. There was a ship in the distance that the Titanic could see. The Titanic sent rockets that made a loud sound and a bright light. Even with loud rockets and bright lights used as distress signals, the ship in the distance never answered. This ship could have been the Californian and could have rescued the passengers of the Titanic, but the Carpathia had come to the rescue, and she was about fifty miles away.

The Titanic had hit an iceberg and sunk in less than 3 hours and sunk on April 14, 1912. It was a shock for everyone saying that the ship's is labeled unsinkable. Many of the passengers could get saved because there was not enough lifeboats on the ship, while many others died of exhaustion, drowning, exposure.

This tragedy did not just happen on the night of April 12, 1912, but 13 years before the wreck, there was a book that was written by an American author, Morgan Robertson, called The Wreck of the Titan. The book and the wreck had some alarming similarities like it was said to be unsinkable, there was not enough lifeboats, it sailed from England, and look at the name. It is basically the same name except the Titanic has “ic” at the end. The ocean liner had a very popular captain who had a marvelous safety record and was actually going to retire after this trip.

The Titanic made headlines across the world when it sank, but since the ship was found, the headlines and articles would be even bigger. The discovery crew was made up of Americans and French. They were aboard the Woods Hole ship called the Knorr. The crew only had 6 weeks to find the Titanic and would come up short. They used brand-new equipment like a new SAR System, which is a tracking device that looked just like a red Torpedo. Sonar is used to find shipwrecks and other huge objects that have had their lives taken away by the great big sea. For the a while, the ship had gone through some bad weather, like heavy winds and rain. With the major setbacks, the crew had to sit down and make up a whole new search plan because time was running out pretty quickly. When it became crunch time, everyone in the room started to second guess themselves and started to panic because they did not want to go back empty-handed. Just as people were feeling defeated and second-guessing themselves, something popped up on the screen. On the screen, there were large objects that were man-made. One of the first things that the crew saw was one of the boilers. The Titanic, which had been lost for 73 years, had been found! The ship was founded on September 1, 1985.