The Titanic (when it hit the iceberg)

The Sink

On the 14th of April 1912, only four day into the crossing to New York City where the Titanic was going to dock and only about 375 Miles south of Newfoundland, the Titanic hit an Iceberg at 11.40 ships time.

The Iceberg was seen by lookout Fredrick Fleet, he immediately alerted where first officer, William Murdoch ordered the ship to be steered around the obstacle and for the ship engines to be put in reverse.

Even though the Titanic did get a series of warnings about drifting ice within the area, it kept going at full speed which was standard practise at the time. It was also generally thought that ice would have no harm on a vessel like the Titanic - 'Captain Smith himself had declared in 1907 that he could not "imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that."'

the crash caused the Titanic's hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard side and opened 5 of her 16 water tight compartments. The sea overflowed into the ship through here and then gradually started filling the ship.

whilst this was all happening, crew and passengers were getting evacuated into lifeboats however, as already stated in the page called 'the Titanic (the background)' there wasn't enough safety precautions for everybody who was on board. Many of the lifeboats on board were launched with only half the capacity it could take due to the high levels of stress the crew were under at the time and it also didn't help that the crew weren't trained to handle such a huge health and safety situation.
The rule on board the ship at the time when evacuating was women and children first, due to this many of the men were left on board as the Titanic sank.

By 2.20am the Titanic sinking increased due to the front of the boat dipping under the water and sea pouring into the grates and open doors. As her unsupported stern started to rise out of the boat. The ships propellers were out of the water and the boat started to break in half between the third and fourth floors due to immense strain on the keel. a few minutes after the ship split in half, it foundered with over a thousand people still on board.

Under 2 hours after the ship sank, the Cunard liner (RMS Carpathia) arrived where it picked up only 705 survivors.

Life expectancy in the freezing water

life expectancy in the cold water which was around 28 fahrenheight, would be under 15 minutes even for a fit and healthy young person. Around 20% of the victims in the Titanic would have died from cold shock when plunging into the water. Around another 50% would have died from cold incapacitation within 15 to 30 minutes of being in the water.  Exhaustion, unconsciousness and cardiac arrest would have caused the rest to drown in the Sea.

Only 13 of the people in the water were helped into the lifeboats even though nearly 500 people could have been saved in the same way.

Retrieval of the dead

Once the massive loss of life was known, White star line sent cable ship, CS Mackay-Bennet (Nova Scotia) was sent to retrieve bodies from the sink area. Three other canadian ships followed not long after in the search.

All the ships contained embalming supplies, undertakers and clergy.

333 victims were found in the water, 328 retrieved by the canadian ships, the other 5 were found by passing northern atlantic steamships.

The Undertakers on board only decided to preserve the bodies of the wealthy 1st class, justifying their decision by the need to visually identify them to resolve any disputes over large estates. As a result, many of the 3rd class passengers and crew were buried at sea.

Some of the bodies after being transported to Halifax, were sent to their home towns to be buried however, only two thirds of the bodies were actually identified. the unidentified victims were given simple numbers in order of which they were discovered.

The majority of the victims found were buried in 1 of three cemetries in Halifax.

In mid- May 1912 the RMS Oceanic found 3 more bodies over 200 miles away from the site of the sinking, which were buried at sea. 

the last ever body to be found was May 22nd by Newfoundland sealing vessel. 

Body No. 330 was Steward James McGrady, he was buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax on June 12th.

SURVIVOR AND VICTIM CHARTER

Passenger category	Number aboard	Number saved	Number lost	Percentage saved	Percentage lost
Children, First Class	6	5	1	83.4%	16.6%
Children, Second Class	24	24	0	100%	0%
Children, Third Class	79	27	52	34%	66%
Women, First Class	144	140	4	97%	3%
Women, Second Class	93	80	13	86%	14%
Women, Third Class	165	76	89	46%	54%
Women, Crew	23	20	3	87%	13%
Men, First Class	175	57	118	33%	67%
Men, Second Class	168	14	154	8%	92%
Men, Third Class	462	75	387	16%	84%
Men, Crew	885	192	693	22%	78%
Total	2224	710	1514	32%	68%

REFERENCES  - 

 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic

 - http://www.titanicbelfast.com

 - http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org
 - Lauren Tarshis (2010). I Survived the Titanic, 1912. New York: Scholastic Inc.. p1-76.
 - Rebecca Aldridge (2008). The Sinking of the Titanic. New York: Infobase Publishing. p33-75.
 - Jay Henry Mowbray (2012). The Sinking of the Titanic (Extended Edition). Germany: JazzyBee Verlag, 2012. p23-33.
 - The Titanic Belfast Museum
 - The Titanic Exhibit, Las Vegas

Reflection of research

Reflecting back on my research within this page i feel i used a good amount of different sources and included them all in a descriptive essay style piece of writing. Obviously there is a lot more to the Titanic than just the sinking of it so i have created other pages to research it a bit more fully. This will really help me develop my work into a more media based project as i can start researching the films made about this tragic accident.