The Night of the Sinking
The Beginning
The night of the sinking was busy. People were at first annoyed, then panicked, and then desperate. The item that most explorers would die to find is the Logbook of the Titanic. The Logbook would tell us exactly what happened. But until then, we will have to rely on the stories of the survivors.
Despite the many ice warnings, the officers and crew of the Titanic were not worried. They took no special precautions, though were aware of the fact that it was the time of year when icebergs were plenty. The ship maintained a cruising speed of around 22 knots though, and two lookouts, the usual number, were scheduled for duty. The word that icebergs were around was casually passed along, and no special alerts were given.
Like many of the Titanic films, Captain Smith and Second Officer Lightoller remarked on the situation on the bridge at about 9:00 p.m. They agreed that the sea was a "flat calm." The sky was clear, but the weather was cold. There was no wind and no moon, which made the icebergs about 4 times as hard to see. The stars were out though, and the passengers admired the sky from the inside of the ship. Smith told Lightoller to contact him if any change of weather occured, and then proceeded to retire to his quarters.
First Officer Murdoch then replaced Lightoller on the bridge at 10:00 p.m. The two commented on the cold and Lightoller exchanged the instructions with Murdoch: to wake up Captain Smith if the weather changed, to look out for icebergs, and that the ship was approaching ice. Then Lightoller went off duty.
See No Evil
The Titanic employed six qualified lookouts who took turns working in pairs. Shifts lasted for two hours and they got a four hour break in between shifts. Shifts were spent in the crow's nest, an elevated part of the ship that provides a 360-degree view of the horizon. The Titanic's crow nest was equipped with the following: a bell that could be rung by hand as a warning, and a telephone with which to call the officer in charge on the bridge. It was also usually equipped with binoculars, but a pair of binoculars had been lost, and the officers decided that the crow's nest could do without. We can only ask ourselves; if they had had binoculars, would they have sighted the iceberg sooner and been able to avoid it?
The lookouts on duty at the time were Reginald Lee and Fred Fleet, who first spotted the iceberg. Here is how the conversation went:
Fleet: There's ice ahead.
Then he rang the bell three times by jerking the bellpull. Next he picked up the phone and called the bridge. The phone was answered promptly by Sixth Officer James Moody.
Fleet: Iceberg right ahead!
Moody: Thank you.
(Later, when Fleet recounted the events following his sighting of the iceberg in the U.S. Senate inquiry, his statement that Moody said "Thank you" made a big impression on the spectators. Some newspapers that featured Fleet's testimony used the words "Thank you" as a headline.)
Crunching Numbers
Calculations from tests that were later conducted on the Olympic reveal that the iceberg was just 500 yards away when Fleet spotted it. At a speed of around 22 knots, the Titanic was moving about 38 feet per second and reached the iceberg 37 seconds after the berg was sighted.
Then it hit.
A Turn for the Worst
"Hard a-starboard," (sharp left turn) was the first order given by Murdoch at the bridge, immediately upon hearing of the iceberg dead ahead. The ship moved 22 1/2 degrees to port (the left) after Quartermaster Robert Hitchens cranked the steering wheel.
Murdoch's next order was "Stop. Full speed astern." (cut the power going forward and blast off backward -- the closest you can come in a steamship to slamming on the brakes) At the same time, he flipped the electric switch which closed the watertight doors.
His orders avoided a head-on collision with the berg, and led the ship instead to skimming along to the left. Some small chunks of ice were knocked aboard deck and passengers have reported seeing Third-class passengers playing soccer with the ice. The serious damage though, occured below the water line, and could not be seen. Water was already flooding down below, and people didn't even find out what was actually happening until about 1 hour later.
Coming Apart at the Seams
Under the surface, the iceberg had caused severe damage and opened up the hull of the great ship. What happened, which was decided after the wreck was found, was that the iceberg caused a number of plates to bend sharply, popping the rivets that held them and allowing water to rush in. These rivets may have been made of a poor-quality iron, making them especially vulnerable ot the force exerted by the bending plates.
What did I hear?
Here are some ways that passengers described the noise of the collision:
She heeled slightly to port as she struck along the starboard side. There was the sound of rending metal right away.
-- Lookout Reginald Lee
We felt a sort of stopping, a sort of, not exactly shock, but a sort of slowing down, and then we felt a sort of a rip that gave a sort of slight twist to the whole room.
-- Hugh Woolner, passenger
If I had had a brimful glass of water in my hand, not a drop would have been spilled.
-- Jack Thayer, passenger
[It was] as though someone had drawn a giant finger all along the side of the boat.
-- Lady Lucile Duff-Gordon, passenger
It did not seem to me there was any great impact at all. It was as though we went over about a thousand marbles.
-- Mrs. J. Stuart White, passenger
Times
Here is a little time table which I found in The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Titanic that reviews what I said above and can tell you the general but important things that happened the night of the sinking.
11:40 p.m. ---- Frederick Fleet, lookout in the crow's nest, spots an iceberg 500 yards away and calls the bridge. "Iceberg right ahead," reports Fleet. First Officer William Murdoch orders reverse engines and hard to starboard.
At 22 knots, the Titanic reaches the iceberg in 37 seconds, sustaining a 300-foot gash on the starboard side, flooding 6 of her 16 watertight compartments; a head-on hit would have flooded only 2 or 3 compartments, allowing her to stay afloat.
12:45 a.m. ---- The first lifeboat is lowered into the water with only 28 on board (in a lifeboat that had been tested and re-tested and could hold 75 men); many of them reluctantly, thinking they would be safer on the big ship.
As the bow sinks lower, the stern is lifted out of the water. The forward funnel collapses onto the bridge. Finally, the ship is wrenched in two; the bow section sinks and the stern crashes back down, with hundreds of people still on it and hundreds more already in the 28-degree water.
2:20 a.m., Monday, April 15, 1912 ---- The stern tips upright and sinks straight down. The Titanic and some 1,500 passengers and crew are lost. Just over 700 are saved in lifeboats.
3:20 a.m. ---- The Carpathia arrives on the scene to rescue the survivors of the Titanic.
What Amazes Me
What amazes me, everytime I think about it, are two things. The first thing is how I can understand how in movies they portray the passengers as not to believe anything because even now, when I look back on the disaster of the Titanic, it still amazes me. How could anyone expect them to believe it. It was the "ship of dreams". Wonderful, glorius, glamorous, and elegant. Practically a floating world. Everything was on that ship, and to be told that in two and a half hours, this paradise would be 2,000 miles under the ocean is unbelievable. I can understand their disbelief, and I hope that through my page, you can learn to understand it also.
The second thing that amazes me still, is how when First-class passengers learned that they should go outside and have their life jackets on, some passengers and crew members had already died drowning. While people upstairs laughed at the rumor that the ship was going to sink, and sat around drinking whiskey and beer, people down below were walking in water and their feet were already numb from the cold. These things still amaze me to this day, after all of this time of learning about the Titanic, and I think, and hope, that they always will. If we forget the Titanic, then we can't learn from it, and then all of those who died, their deaths will be even more grievous.
The Titanic
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