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Historical Information

Maiden Voyage
April 10, 1912, Wednesday, Southampton, England - Sailing Day - Passengers arrive at the White Star docks and board Titanic between 9:30 - 11:30 am. Titanic casts off to depart on her maiden voyage promptly at noon.

Titanic made two stops before heading off to New York. The first was at Cherbourg, France, where she picked up Trans-Atlantic mail and 274 more passengers. The following day she stopped at Queenstown, Ireland, to take on more mail and a further 120 passengers.

A small number of passengers left the ship at Queenstown, including crewmember, John Coffey who smuggled himself ashore amongst the mail sacks. No one can be certain whether Queenstown born Coffey was having second thoughts about the ship or whether he had signed on with Titanic with the sole intention of getting a free ride home. It was at Queenstown that Titanic's chief officer, Henry Wilde sent a letter to his sister expressing his misgivings and saying, "I still don't like this ship, I have a queer feeling about it". Henry Wilde was to lose his life three days later.

Icebergs
In 1912 ship to shore wireless was in its infancy and, whilst used on ship, was considered a convenience rather than a neccesity. Today it seems incredible that the wireless operators, Harold Bride and John Phillips, were not even employed by White Star but by the Marconi Wireless Company. Whilst the operators came under the Captain's command when transmitting and receiving messages of importance to the ship, their main employment was tending to the communications needs of the passengers, sending and receiving telegrams on their behalf. Putting these paying customers first, communications concerning weather reports and ship-to-ship telegrams came a poor second.

On the second day of the voyage, the wireless operators began to receive iceberg warnings from other ships in the North Atlantic shipping lanes, with some ships reporting that they had been forced to stop due to the dense ice fields and bergs. Despite these warnings, Captain Smith continued to power on using the full strength of Titanic's mighty 30,000 horsepower engines.

Tragically not all the ice warnings reached the bridge. On the Friday night the wireless had broken down and, whilst the operators struggled to fix it, a backlog of unsent passenger messages began to build up. Once the radio was fixed, the wireless room worked hard to clear the backlog, most of which were messages from wealthy passengers enthusing about their trip to friends and relations. Because the operators concentrated on these passenger messages, it transpires that late ice warnings were never delivered to Captain Smith or his officers. Indeed, a near-by ship, the Californian, had attempted to make contact not ten minutes before the Titanic hit the iceberg - at 11.40 p.m. - but was told to "shut up" by the busy wireless operators, in what could be the singular most tragic mistake of the night.

To spot icebergs, lookouts relied on moonlight lighting up the white foam of waves breaking against the ice. Unluckily 14th April was a beautiful clear night with a moonless sky. The sea was unusually calm, so there were no waves to spot at the base of the icebergs. To make matters more difficult the binoculars in the crows-nest were missing.

Lookout, Frederick Fleet, first saw that fatal iceberg as a small mass one mile away, immediately rang the three-bell alarm and telephoned the bridge. First officer Murdoch ordered, "Hard a starboard and full speed astern". The crew tried in vain to turn the ship which was slow to react partly because its rudder was far too small for a ship of Titanic's size, and partly because the engines were switched to reverse: hindsight suggests that Titanic's engines should have been kept at full speed in order to turn her more quickly. An alternative view was that the ship should have been directed to hit the iceberg head on and hopefully damage only one of the 16 watertight compartments. Instead Titanic was turned only slightly allowing the ice to scrape open its side with water gushing into six compartments.

Most passengers felt only a minor jar or heard a scrape as Titanic hit the iceberg and silently came to a halt.

Only a few miles away, the California was stopped in the ice but unfortunately its wireless wasn't staffed round the clock. Having earlier been abused when trying to warn Titanic of the ice, California 's wireless operator had closed down his set and retired to bed, just minutes before Titanic sent its desperate and unheard cries for help.

Water gushed into Titanic ten times faster than could be pumped out. Because the watertight bulkheads only went half way up the hull to E deck, as the compartments filled with water, the bow of the ship was pulled down. Water overflowed from one compartment to the next and, by now, the ship's fate was sealed.

Captain Smith ordered for distress signals to be sent by wireless and, whilst no general alarm was sounded, the stewards began to urge passengers to dress and put on their life vests.

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