background of titanic construction
after British White Star Shipping Company was acquired by IMM International Shipping Company of American chaebol Julius pierpont Morgan in p>191, his goal was Canard Company. Canard, which was in financial distress, was forced to seek help from the British government. In 197, two unprecedented clippers-Lusitania and Mauritania, which used large steam turbines for the first time, joined the huge postal fleet of Canard Company. Now White Star Company has been left behind in the competition. Backed by IMM, White Star Company decided to catch up.
One night in p>198, Lord peary, owner of Harlan Wolff Shipyard, and Bruce Ismay, chairman of White Star Company, had dinner in Lord Piry's mansion in levia, Berger, London. Harland Wolf Shipyard in Belfast (Harland &; Wolff, HW) has been a loyal partner of White Star Company since 1871. They talked about two new ships of Canard Company. Ismail proposed to build two huge ships of unprecedented scale at HW Shipyard, each with three chimneys, with a tonnage about 15, tons higher than that of two new Canard ships. With two people in peary's study, two ships became three, and three chimneys became four. These three unprecedented giant ships will become the undisputed overlord of the Atlantic route, not only in tonnage, but also in speed and luxury. The new ship will have a first-class restaurant with a height spanning three decks, and even the decoration of the third-class cabin will be far more comfortable and advanced than other mail ships. The new ship has to reach a high speed of 26 to 27 knots. White Star Company is going to install three propellers on the new ship. In order to test the reliability of this new configuration, White Star Company purchased two 15,-ton passenger ships from Dominion Shipping Company in 199, and made a comparative test. Three propellers proved to give the mail ship a speed advantage.
[ Olympic (left) and Titanic (right, unfinished) ]
Olympic (left) and Titanic (right, unfinished)
On December 16th, 198, the first "No.4" Olympic-class mail ship was started at Harlan Wolf Shipyard. Different from other companies' practice of keeping the names of new ships secret before launching, White Star Company soon announced the names of three ships-RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic and RMS Giant (RMS Britannic, renamed after the shipwreck of Titanic). Because the hull size is too large-88 feet long, it is obvious that the shipyard of Harlan Wolf Shipyard can't start three ships at the same time. They decided to build No.1 (Titanic) and No.2 (Olympic) and then start building No.3 (Giant).
General situation of construction
On March 31st, 199, Titanic began to be built at Hanand Wolf Shipyard in Belfast, the largest city in Northern Ireland. The hull was launched on May 31, 1911. All the works were completed on March 31st of the following year. Titanic was designed by William Pirrie, director of Harland and Wolff Shipyard, Thomas Andrews, chief designer, and Alexander Carlisle, general manager. Bruce Ismay, managing director of White Star Shipping Company, provided a lot of advice during the design process. However, in order to make the top deck of the Titanic more spacious, he reduced the number of lifeboats of the Titanic from 48 to 16. In addition, in order to make the first class of the Titanic more luxurious, he lowered the height of the bulkhead in the middle of the hull after learning that the giant ship could bear four bottom cabins filled with seawater without sinking. The funds for the construction of Titanic came from J. P. Morgan and his international merchant marine co.. At that time, it was the largest and most prestigious manned mail ship. The total length of Titanic is about 269.6 meters (882.75 feet), the width is 28.19 meters (92.5 feet), the height from the waterline to the deck is 18.4 meters (6 feet), the registered tonnage is 46,328 tons (net weight is 21,831 tons), and the displacement has reached an unprecedented 66, tons! Although it contains more space, it leads to a larger gross tonnage (16 tons more than its sister ship, Olympic, which is
[ majestic dream ship ]
majestic dream ship
). Only three of the four huge chimneys are really used to exhaust soot. The other one is a foil, which is actually used as a chimney and ventilation in the main kitchen. The ship has 891 crew members and can carry more than 2,2 passengers.
But the interest of White Star Company is not in the pursuit of speed. At that time, the luxury and exquisiteness of Titanic were unprecedented. The boat is equipped with an indoor swimming pool, gym, hamam, library, elevator and a squash room. The lounge in the first class is decorated with fine wooden panels, equipped with high-grade furniture and other high-grade decorations, and makes every effort to provide a service level that has never been seen before. The sunny Paris Cafe provides all kinds of high-class snacks for first-class passengers. The living environment and lounge of the second class or even the third class of Titanic were equally high-grade, even comparable to the first class of many passenger ships at that time. Three elevators are specially designed for first-class passengers; As an innovation, second-class passengers also have an elevator to use, but third-class passengers still need to climb stairs. Biggs, the baker of Titanic, recalled, "... there won't be another boat like her. I once worked on the Olympic, Solemn and Queen Elizabeth. None of them can compare with the Titanic. ..... Yes, just like the Olympic, but much more luxurious. For example, in the big restaurant, the Olympic doesn't even have a carpet. Titanic's carpet is knee-thick ... and then the furniture, which is too heavy for you to lift. And those clapboards ... They can build a bigger and faster ship, but Titanic put all her strength into building a luxurious and comfortable space ... She is really a great ship ... ". What Biggs said is a common view. Titanic seduced everyone who built and designed her. This temptation has made her more and more popular after many years. In the words of Shipbuilder magazine, Titanic "imitated the Palace of Versailles in many details ... the lounge filled with Louis XV style furniture, with a style similar to that of the Salon of Little Trianon Palace in France, and the carved work on the fireplace was" The Goddess of Hunting in Versailles ". There are other exquisite reliefs and works of art ... fine teak and brass decorations, chandeliers and murals, carpets from India and Persia ". Even the third-class cabin has a marble washbasin and bedside heating equipment. Titanic was unparalleled luxury at that time. Although she was not the first ship to provide deck swimming pool, gym, bathroom and elevator, she tried her best to provide a level of service that she had never seen before.
The most luxurious part of the ship is the grand staircase of the first class, which is located between the first and second chimneys. The grand staircase with oak paneling and gold-plated railings extends all the way to the E deck, and the top is a glass dome supported by wrought iron brackets, which makes natural light fill the grand staircase. There is a clock embedded in the wall at the top of the stairs, and fables symbolizing nobility and honor are carved on both sides of the clock. There is also a relatively simple similar staircase between the third and fourth chimneys. James Cameron faithfully recreated this staircase in his movie Titanic.
Although the Olympic and Titanic are sister ships, some details are different. After the observation of the maiden voyage of the Olympic, it was found that passengers on deck A would be drenched by water mist, and the utilization rate of the promenade running through deck B was not high. Both of these defects were improved on the Titanic, and part of the B deck was converted into a private terrace for the first-class luxury suite.
Titanic is regarded as a fixed-point work of technological achievements. Titanic talked more about safety. The two-story ship bottom is divided into 16 watertight compartments by 15 watertight partitions with automatic watertight doors, spanning the whole ship. Sixteen watertight compartments prevent her from sinking. Strangely, these watertight compartments do not extend very high. The first two watertight partitions and the last five were only built on deck D. The eight walls in the middle are only set to the lower e deck. Even so, any two compartments are filled with water, and she can still drive, and even four compartments are filled with water, and can remain floating. People at that time couldn't imagine a worse situation, so The Shipbuilder magazine thought it was "impossible to sink". A crew member said to Sylvia Caldwell, a second-class female passenger, during the voyage, "Even if God comes himself, he can't sink this ship."
mechanical principle and power source
Titanic uses coal as fuel to generate steam to drive the steam engine. There are 25 double-ended boilers and 4 single-ended boilers on board, and their power comes from 159 coal furnaces, which provide the Titanic with steam to maintain its powerful power 24 hours a day. The power system consists of three main engines, two of which are four-cylinder reciprocating steam engines and the other is a steam turbine. The power of the main engine exceeds 51, horsepower, so the maximum speed of the Titanic can reach 23 knots.
maiden voyage
On February 3, 1912, the Titanic completed the decoration work, and the maiden voyage was originally scheduled for March 2. But the unfortunate collision of the Olympic in September 1911 (with the Royal Navy's Hawk cruiser) delayed the final work of the Titanic. Her maiden voyage was scheduled for April 1th. Before that, there will be a sea trial on April 1. Everything is perfect. Titanic arrived in Southampton Port on the 3rd, anchored at Anchorage No.41, and waited for the exciting moment on the 1th. As an unpleasant little episode, the work of adding coal encountered a little setback due to the strike of coal workers in Southampton Port. IMM Company didn't want to postpone the maiden voyage of Titanic any longer, so it searched all the coal blocks from all the coal cabins of the company's mail ships moored in Southampton Port.
On April 1th, 1912, at the Ocean Pier in Southampton Harbour, the "unsinkable" Titanic set sail for the new world. The captain's name is Adward·Smith. The dock was crowded with passengers, family members who came to see me off, baggage handlers and customs inspectors. At eleven o'clock in the morning, the first chimney spewed white steam. Twenty-five of the 29 boilers started to make fires in turn. At 12 o'clock noon, Titanic slowly left the dock under the pull of tugboat. Two outer propellers began to stir the sea water in Southampton Harbour. The Titanic sailed past the steamer Solemn (not the one later compensated by Germany), Philadelphia, St. Lewis, Ocean and New York in turn, and honked its horns to greet them. This 46,-ton ship seems to be very attractive to other ships. When it was about to set sail, another regular ship, the New York, was delayed for an hour because of its huge volume moving in the water, which caused a large amount of water to backfill and almost hit her hull. Titanic's tugboat, the vulcan, jacked the hull of the New York. The world's largest mail ship started its first and only voyage.
Titanic divided passengers into three classes. Third-class cabins are also the cheapest in the lower hull. Most of these passengers are immigrants who plan to build a new life across the Atlantic. The decoration of the second-class cabin and the general guest room actually had the same level as the first class of other general ships at that time. Many second-class passengers originally positioned the first class on other ships, but they gave up because of the voyage of the Titanic. First class is the most expensive and luxurious part of the whole ship, and some of the richest celebrities in the world were on this journey at that time.
At 7 o'clock that evening, Titanic arrived in Cherbourg, France. Another group of passengers and goods boarded the Titanic on two special ferry boats, Nomadic and Traffic, including American rich people Astor and Margaret Brown-later called "unsinkable noble Mrs Brown" by newspapers. At noon the next day, Titanic arrived in Queenstown, Ireland. A group of Irish immigrants who are full of longing and hope for the new world boarded the ship. A passenger landed here, and the photos he took later became out-of-print photos of Titanic, which are of great value to collectors today.
According to Ismail's orders, the Titanic sped up to 25 knots the next day. Although it is believed that Kanade Company only seeks quick strategy to reduce its image, White Star Company also wants to get the blue ribbon to show off. Along the way, nothing important happened on the Titanic. Philip, the telegraph operator on the ship, is busy sending expensive private telegrams for the first-class passengers, mostly for the instructions of peace and stock trading and delivery.
shipwreck in an icy sea
On Sunday night, April 14th, 1912, it was a calm night, and there was not even any wind. If there is, the crew will find the little phosphorescence of the waves lapping on the iceberg. Titanic sailed at a speed of 22.3 knots on this dark and cold ocean. Captain Smith ordered the lookout to observe carefully after receiving ice reports from many ships nearby. Because it was a warm winter this year, icebergs drifted farther south than in previous years. However, the crew of the Titanic forgot to bring their binoculars, so the lookout had to observe with the naked eye. At 23: 4, the lookout Frederic fleet (who survived later) found a black shadow "the size of two tables" in the distance, which became bigger at a fast speed. He knocked the alarm bell on the bridge three times and grabbed the phone: "There is an iceberg directly ahead!" " . Six Moody's officers who answered the phone informed Murdoch, the first mate next to them. Murdoch ordered to slow down, left full rudder, stop the ship and reverse. It turned out to be the stupidest decision. At that time, the best choice was to slow down and hit the iceberg with a solid bow. On that cold night in April, 1912, the Titanic and the iceberg had a kiss of death.
Thirteen hours ago, the telegraph operator Philip was receiving a weak radio signal from Canada, and Elis, a telegraph operator of the nearby Californian, sent a telegram to the Titanic. The voice of Californian's telegram was too loud, which was going to deafen Philip's eardrum, so he cut it off, even though it was related to the iceberg. At the same time, Elis entered the wrong format, forgot to add MEG, and after sending it again, he went to bed.
The result of this collision was later known to people. But at that time, the passengers and crew on board reacted differently. Some
sleepers in first class and second class were awakened by a slight scratching noise. The hull gave a slight vibration. Some people think that there is a big wave, some people think that they are on the rocks, and some people think that the propeller has failed. But the passengers in the cabin below feel