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Volume 1 - 'The Dream' Gallery.
SHIP OF DREAMS
RMS Titanic, the largest and most magnificent ship in the world, the subject of a compelling and ongoing story of bravery, hubris, generosity, valor, sacrifice, negligence, cowardice and greed. All the elements of the humanity that built her, sailed on her, and are forever linked in a story that rivals any fictional tragedy.
The “Ship of Dreams,” whose story captivates the world, still…
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BUILDING THE LEGEND
March, 1911. Morning comes early as the Titanic takes shape under the enormous Arrol Gantry at Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast.
Thousands of workers continue to put together the hull in preparation for her launch and then fitting out, set for late May.
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TOWARDS HOME PORT
April 3, 1912. Titanic sails south, leaving Belfast behind, past the Isle of Man, down the Irish Sea, around the southwestern tip of England, then east, arriving at her home port of Southampton on the southern English coast around midnight.
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SAILING DAY
April 10, 1912. Southampton. Gleaming in the early morning sun, gulls wheeling overhead, with the unmistakable smells and sounds of an ocean port, Titanic lies in berth 44, a new pier constructed especially for the new giant Olympic class liners.
Hundreds are hard at work getting ready for the new liner’s noon departure. Cargo is loaded by on-shore and on-ship cranes into the holds. The boat train, will be arriving soon from London’s Waterloo station.
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CHERBOURG
April 10, 1912, 6:30pm. Titanic crosses the English Channel headed for the French port of Cherbourg, arriving in the early evening.
Two tenders, the Nomadic and Traffic transport passengers—mostly first class—and their luggage, out to the new ship, anchored in the harbor. Later Titanic will head back out into the Channel, bound for a final stop in the morning at the Irish port of Queenstown.
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Volume 2 - 'The Voyage' Gallery.
QUEENSTOWN
Midday on April 11, Titanic stops at Queenstown (now Cobh) Ireland. She anchors off Roche’s Point as two tenders, Ireland and America, ferry passengers, mostly emigrants in third class, out to the great liner.
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TAKE HER TO SEA
April 12, 1912. Titanic heads out into the North Atlantic Ocean, leaving the
green Irish coast behind, headed for New York, and her destiny…
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MID ATLANTIC
From local noon on April 13th to local noon on April 14, Titanic makes 549 nautical miles. Her modified Great Circle course will be altered at a location known as 'the corner,' almost due west towards New York.
The weather is getting colder. In the wireless cabin, Philips and Bride are effecting repairs to their equipment. With passenger messages backing up, the two young men—violating Marconi regulations—get the equipment back on line…
Lives would depend on them, soon.
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THE LAST SUNSET
April 14, 1912 7:00pm Titanic has “turned the corner” and is now heading almost directly west. Captain Smith supposedly delays the course correction for about 20 minutes, to take a more southerly track, hoping to avoid ice reported by other ships.
What Smith doesn’t see, is another ice warning from Mesaba, that indicates ice directly in Titanic’s path. That warning is part of the backlog in the wireless cabin, and will never be delivered to the bridge...
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INTO THE NIGHT
The sun has gone, making way for a canopy of brilliant stars and plunging temperatures. The temperature of the sea water, sometimes used to judge proximity to ice, is taken using a bucket dropped over the side, The water is reading a temperature of 28F degrees.
The sea is a flat calm as Titanic drives west. Imminent danger now only a few hours ahead... in the gathering darkness...
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Volume 3 - 'The Disaster' Gallery.
RENDEZVOUS
11:39pm, April 14, 1912. Titanic steams on at 21 knots.
The sea is flat calm and there is no moon.
Unseen in the darkness ahead, an iceberg lies directly in her path.
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HARD TO STARBOARD
11:39pm, April 14,1912. An iceberg looms up from the darkness. Lookout Frederick Fleet spots the ice, rings the crowsnest bell three times and phones the bridge.
“Iceberg right ahead!”
The helm is put hard over and the Titanic slowly begins to swing her bow to port.
But it's all clearly too late...
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THE COLLISION
11:40pm, April 14, 1912. Titanic crunches along the base of the iceberg. In around ten seconds the ice bends hull plates and pops rivets, opening the hull to the sea along a path almost 300 feet long, floodng her first five watertight compartments.
Titanic is doomed...
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DOWN BY THE HEAD
12:25am, April 15, 1912. 45 minutes after the collision, Titanic is settling by the head as water steadily floods her forward compartments.
Captain Smith has visited the wireless office with the ship’s estimated position. Operator Jack Phillips taps out a CQD, the standard distress call, in hopes of finding a ship nearby. Groups of people gather on the cold Boat Deck, as crew uncover and provision the boats in preparation for lowering women and children first.
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ROCKETS
1:10am, April 15, 1912. Titanic has begun to lower a handful of half-filled lifeboats.
On the bridge Captain Smith has ordered the firing of rockets, at five-minute intervals. Their situation is now so desperate, they are calling out to anyone close enough to see...
There seems to be the lights of a steamer, to the north, about five miles away…
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Volume 4 - 'The Aftermath' Gallery.
THE MIDDLE WATCH
1:30am, North of Titanic's CQD position, the liner Californian is surrounded by field ice and stopped. Her Captain, Stanley Lord is snoozing in the chartroom as his officers watch a strange ship on the horizon, firing a series of rockets at intervals,
normally a sign of distress.
The officers on her bridge note that "a ship isn't going to fire rockets at sea for nothing," also observing that "her lights look queer."
The wireless is shut down, and the Captain takes no action.
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THE BREAK UP
2:17am. The sinking enters its final stages. With the bow section completely flooded, and the last collapsible boats floated off, Titanic’s stern rises to an angle of perhaps 30 degrees. 1,500 people remain on board.
Steel is compressed to the degree that the keel fails with sounds like muffled explosions, the ship breaks up into essentially three pieces ahead of the third funnel.
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RESCUE
6:15am. 15 April, 1912. RMS Carpathia, is taking a more southerly route east, across the Atlantic on the way to the Mediterranean when they receiveTitanic's CQD.
Captain Arthur Rostron immediately orders the ship to a northwesterly course, headed at full speed toward Titanic's reported position. They arrive as it's getting light. Rostron has well-prepared his ship for a large scale rescue, and will collect up 712 survivors, most of Titanic’s lifeboats, and head for New York.
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SOUTH SHORE
4:00pm, April 18, 1912. RMS Carpathia catches the first sight of land on the North American continent, the south shore of Long Island.
Now only a couple of hours out, heading for a City wrapped in black.
Rain is falling all over the northeast USA this day. In Boston, the Red Sox are forced to postpone their home opener in brand-new Fenway Park.
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JOURNEY'S END
7:15pm, April 18, 1912. RMS Carpathia makes her way past lower Manhattan, on her way up the Hudson River toward Pier 54, her berth at the foot of 12th Street.
In the rainy, gathering gloom, illuminated by photographer’s flashes,Titanic survivors come ashore to a new and uncertain world.
And the stories and legends begin.
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