For more than a century, the tragic story of the RMS Titanic has gripped the imagination of the world. Yet there are many crucial details of that infamous April night that remain relatively unknown. For example . . .
10 The Weather Was Perfect
It’s easy to picture the Titanic battling huge waves at sea, with the fog and rain obscuring the iceberg that famously consigned her to a watery grave. In reality, the opposite was true. As the Titanic sailed toward her doom, the weather was perfectly, eerily calm. With no wind or waves, the sea was stretched out like a flawless mirror, the only ripples in the water coming from the ship herself as she glided along. And that perfect weather may just have been her doom.
Titanic (1953)
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According to the meteorologist Edward Lawrence, even a mild swell would have been enough to push phosphorescent plankton around the edge of the iceberg. The plankton, which glow intensely when disturbed, would have essentially outlined the danger for the lookouts on the Titanic. The ship’s second officer, Charles Lightoller, specifically mentioned the absence of glowing plankton as one of the reasons for the disaster. The calm weather may also have prevented the sudden rise and fall in temperatures that usually warns of sailing into an iceberg field.
Unfortunately, by the time the iceberg was spotted, there was almost no time to avoid a collision. The 1912 inquiry into the sinking found that the Titanic only had 37 seconds to try and change course, although a more recent evaluation of the evidence suggests it was actually a little over a minute. Either way, the ship was doomed. After the sinking, a bitter wind blew up, helping to chill the passengers struggling for survival.
9 It Was On Fire The Whole Trip
Shortly before her fateful maiden voyage, a fire started in the Titanic‘s coal bunkers. As revealed during the British inquiry into the disaster, the flames were still raging when the ship set out for New York, creating a potentially dangerous situation for those on board.
According to surviving stoker J. Dilley: “We didn’t get that fire out and among the stokers there was talk that we’d have to empty the big coal bunkers after we’d put the passengers off in New York
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and then call on the fireboats there to help us put out the fire.” That didn’t turn out to be necessary, since Dilley claimed the flames were extinguished when the iceberg ripped through the hull and flooded the bunkers with seawater.
Other crew members claimed that the fire had successfully been extinguishedthe day before the ship hit the iceberg. Either way, the Titanic was on fire for almost the entire voyage. This wasn’t necessarily disastrous, since the steel bunkers were designed to contain coal fires. But it did increase the risk of the trip and White Star Line managing director Bruce Ismay subsequently alleged that the ship’s owner, J.P. Morgan, forced the crew to sail at full speed in order to “reach New York and unload all the passengers before the inevitable explosions occurred.” Morgan himself was scheduled to sail on the Titanic, but changed his mind and pulled out at the last minute.
8 The Tragic Foresight Of William T. Stead
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In 1886, the legendary journalist William T. Stead wrote a fictional story about an Atlantic mail steamer sinking after a collision, with most of the passengers drowning due to a lack of lifeboats. Stead intended the story to draw attention to lax nautical regulations, which generally did not require ships to carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board.
Stead returned to the theme in 1892, with a story based on the White Star Line’sMajestic liner. In the climactic chapter, the ship is crossing the Atlantic loaded with tourists. Suddenly:
There was a sound as if the steamer were crashing through ice and the screws were churning amid ice blocks. Passengers felt their way cautiously to the deck. It was wet and clammy and bitterly cold. Every half-minute the fog whistle blew. The crashing of ice against the sides of the ship and clamping of ice under the screws made it difficult to speak so as to be heard. Then there came a cry: ‘Icebergs on the starboard.’
Two decades later, Stead lost his own life as a passenger on the Titanic. The liner only carried 20 lifeboats, barely enough for half of the passengers on board.
