The RMS Titanic

Podcast Transcript

On April 15, 1912, one of the greatest disasters in modern nautical history took place.

The RMS Titanic, one of the most celebrated ships of its era, struck an iceberg and sank on its inaugural voyage.

While the story of the Titanic is well known, it has often been exaggerated, and there are many misconceptions about the ship and its sinking that have persisted to this day.

Learn more about the RMS Titanic, its conceptualization, building, and sinking on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Most of you are probably well aware of the story of the Titanic, if not at least somewhat aware. It has been the subject of movies, television documentaries, and books, and its story has become one of the most famous of the 20th century.

However, the story of the Titanic is often only partially told, and much of what people know is incorrect.

To understand what happened, we first have to step back and know why the Titanic was built in the first place.

For centuries, going between Europe and North America was a long, risky voyage. You had to travel in a wooden ship, powered by wind, subject to the seas and the elements. The journey itself was long, often taking multiple weeks; it was dangerous, the food and sleeping conditions were horrible, and many travelers, if they weren’t experienced seamen, would spend much of the time seasick.

Because sailing was dependent on the wind, you had no idea how long it would take, and the time it took to travel east to west was much longer than the time it took to travel west to east.

The development of steam-powered iron ships changed everything. With steamships, travel times became more consistent and significantly shorter, often cutting trips from over six weeks to under two.

Steamships also allowed for scheduled service, enabling companies like Cunard and White Star to advertise fixed departure and arrival times. This predictability made ocean travel more viable for business, migration, and mail.

Speed was the biggest area of competition among steamship companies. Commercial passenger liners crossing the Atlantic competed for the Blue Riband, which was awarded based on the fastest average speed for an Atlantic crossing.

In 1906, the British Cunard Corporation launched two ships that were intended to be the fastest ocean-going passenger ships on the Atlantic: the Lusitania and Mauretania. Both ships won the Blue Riband, and in 1909, the Mauretania’s record of 26.06 knots was the standing record.

Cunard’s main competitor was the White Star Line, which was owned by the millionaire banker J.P. Morgan.

J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, opted for a different competitive strategy in light of the speed of the Cunard ships.

Rather than building the fastest ships, White Star would build the largest, most luxurious, and most comfortable liners ever seen. This approach was based on the assumption that many wealthy travelers preferred opulence and stability over speed. That immigration from Europe to the United States could support large steerage-class volumes.

In 1907, Ismay met with Lord Pirrie, chairman of the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where White Star ships were built. Together, they conceived the Olympic-class liners. A trio of ships, the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic, that would be unmatched in scale and grandeur.

Offering unmatched luxury in First Class, along with modern amenities in Second and Third Class, allowed White Star to target all segments of the transatlantic travel market.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions in the Titanic movie. That people in Third Class were treated like cattle. In reality, they had better conditions than they had on other ships, and that was by design.

There was also an economic strategy for the larger, slower ships. Larger ships could carry more passengers and cargo, potentially making operations more profitable over time, even if they took a day or two longer to make the crossing.

Construction began on the Olympic in 1908 and on the Titanic in 1909. The Titanic, though slightly larger than the Olympic, was built to capitalize on the first ship’s early success.

Designed by naval architect Thomas Andrews, the Titanic was to be the largest passenger liner ever built. She was 882 feet long, weighed over 46,000 gross tons, and could carry over 2,200 passengers and crew.

To put this in comparison, the largest passenger ship in the world today is Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas. It’s over 1,200 feet long, weighs over 250,000 gross tons, and can carry nearly 10,000 people, both passengers and crew.

While it might sound odd in hindsight, the Titanic was equipped with some of the most advanced safety features of ships of that time. She had watertight compartments and watertight doors that could be closed remotely in the event of an emergency.

A brochure published by the White Star corporation promoting their Olympic-class ships said, “As far as it is possible to do, these [ships] are designed to be unsinkable.”

Construction of the Titanic started on March 31, 1909, and was completed on April 2, 1912.

The cost was $7.5 million, which would be approximately $200 million in today’s currency. In comparison, the Icon of the Seas cost roughly $1.86 billion.

The Titanic had a grand staircase descending seven decks, crowned with a wrought iron and glass dome, four elevators, a Turkish bath, gymnasium, a squash court, an la carte restaurant, libraries, smoking rooms, and it was the first ship in history to have a swimming pool.

The inaugural voyage of the RMS Titanic began on April 19, 1912, in Southampton, England. It was bound for New York City with stops at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, which is now known as Cobh (Kove).

I should note that the RMS designation stood for Royal Mail Ship. It was a distinction given to many Cunard and White Star vessels because they would carry mail across the Atlantic.

On board were some of the wealthiest people of the time, including John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim, and the co-owner of the Macy’s department store, Isidor Straus. There were also hundreds of immigrants seeking a new life in America.

The ship was under the command of Captain Edward J. Smith, who, according to some reports, planned to retire after the voyage.

As it was early April, there was still plenty of ice in the North Atlantic. There had been reports of sea ice. Nonetheless, Titanic cruised at almost full speed for the entire voyage.

At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg on its starboard side.

Contrary to popular belief, the iceberg did not slice the ship open but instead buckled the steel hull plates along a 300-foot length. This caused rivets to pop, creating a series of small openings across six of the ship’s forward watertight compartments. Had the ship been cut open, it would have sunk much faster.

The Titanic was held together by three million rivets, some of which were made of iron instead of stronger steel, particularly in the bow and stern.

Recent metallurgical analyses of recovered rivets and steel plates have shown that brittle iron rivets and low-grade steel with high sulfur content may have fractured more easily upon impact in the cold North Atlantic water, exacerbating the hull damage.

The Titanic was designed to stay afloat with up to four of its 16 watertight compartments flooded. However, six compartments were breached. This began a series of events which doomed the ship.

While the ship had bulkheads with water-tight doors, there was a design flaw. The bulkheads did not extend all the way to the top deck. In most cases, they only reached a few decks above the waterline. This meant that once the forward compartments filled, water could spill over the tops of the bulkheads into adjacent compartments, like water cascading over the edges of ice cube trays.

As the bow dipped lower into the ocean, the water overflowed from one compartment to the next, progressively flooding the ship. Had the bulkheads been taller and truly sealed, the Titanic might have remained afloat much longer, or possibly even survived.

Had the Titanic been going slower or had it hit the iceberg at a more oblique angle, then the damage to the ship would have been bad, but it might not have been catastrophic.

In addition to ignoring ice warnings and traveling at near full speed, the lookout crew had no binoculars, as they had been inadvertently locked away and were inaccessible. This reduced the ability to spot the iceberg in time to avoid it.

Also, the Titanic’s rudder was relatively small for a ship of its size, and its large mass made quick turns very difficult. The attempt to turn and reverse the engines actually made the turn wider, not tighter.

The Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats, enough for about 1,178 people or just over half of the more than 2,200 passengers and crew on board.

This met the legal requirements of the time, which were based on a ship’s tonnage, not its passenger capacity. Titanic was equipped with 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsible boats, but could have easily held up to 64 lifeboats if space had been fully utilized.

Several lifeboats were launched underfilled during the evacuation due to confusion, lack of drills, and the belief that the ship might not actually sink.

The process of sinking, because of the time it took to fill up the compartments, was about two and a half hours.

At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, the Titanic broke apart and sank. Out of over 2,200 people, more than 1,500 perished, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

The nearby ship Carpathia, having received the Titanic’s distress calls, arrived around 4 a.m. and rescued the approximately 700 survivors in lifeboats.

The disaster shocked the world and led to widespread public outcry. Inquiries were held in both the United States and the United Kingdom. These revealed systemic failures: insufficient lifeboats, flawed evacuation procedures, and complacency about iceberg warnings.

As a result, significant changes were made in maritime laws. Ships were now required to carry enough lifeboats for all passengers. Lifeboat drills became mandatory. 24-hour radio watches were established.

The International Ice Patrol was also formed to monitor iceberg danger in the North Atlantic.

If you have ever been on a ship and had to go through a drill after you boarded, that is in no small part due to what happened on the Titanic.

The last surviving passenger of the Titanic was Millvina Dean. She was two months old and the youngest passenger on the Titanic. She passed away at the age of 97 in 2009.

The sinking of the Titanic wasn’t the end of the story. The Titanic became a legend, in part due to the massive loss of life, but also due to the hubris of the ship and its sinking on its very first voyage.

One of the ongoing questions was “Where exactly did the Titanic sink?”

This question remained unanswered until 1985, when a team led by Dr. Robert Ballard found the ship, lying 12,500 feet beneath the surface, about 325 nautical miles south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland.

The ship’s bow and stern lie about a third of a mile apart from each other, surrounded by a debris field spanning approximately 5 square miles. The bow remains relatively intact, while the stern is heavily damaged.

The ship is deteriorating quickly. A significant contributor to the decay is the iron-eating bacterium Halomonas titanicae, which accelerates the corrosion of the ship’s metal structures. Experts estimate that the wreck could collapse entirely within the next few decades.

Since 1987, many expeditions to the wreck have recovered over 5,500 artifacts, including personal items like jewelry and clothing, as well as parts of the ship itself.

Director James Cameron has stated several times that the movie Titanic was just an excuse for him to go down and see the wreck himself.

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage was passed in 2001, and it aims to preserve submerged cultural sites such as shipwrecks from looting, commercial exploitation, and unscientific recovery. However, because the ship is in international waters, this is difficult to enforce.

Several projects have also been proposed to create a Titanic II, a modern version of the ship that would look like the original but have modern amenities, safety features, and propulsion.

The RMS Titanic remains a powerful symbol of human ambition, technological hubris, and the unpredictable power of nature. More than a century after its sinking, it continues to captivate the public imagination and serves as a sobering reminder of how even the most advanced technology remains vulnerable to the forces of nature.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

I have a rather embarrassing correction to make.

In the episode on the Ancient Olympics, I said that the Olympics took place on Mount Olympus.

They did not. They took place in Olympia, which is not near Mount Olympus.

What makes this embarrassing is that I know this because I once planned a trip through Greece where I was going to visit both Olympia and Mount Olympus.

For some reason, while writing the episode, I totally spaced on this fact.

Olympus and Olympia sound alike, and they both had to do with the worship of Zeus, but they are different places.

Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa

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