RMS Titanic’s Maiden Voyage (1912)

Maiden voyage

Both Olympic and Titanic registered Liverpool as their home port. The offices of the White Star Line, as well as Cunard, were in Liverpool, and up until the introduction of the Olympic, most British ocean liners for both Cunard and White Star, such as Lusitania and Mauretania, sailed from Liverpool followed by a port of call in Queenstown, Ireland. Since the company's founding in 1845, a vast majority of their operations had taken place from Liverpool. However, in 1907 White Star Line established another service from Southampton on England's south coast, which became known as White Star's "Express Service". Southampton had many advantages over Liverpool, the first being its proximity to London.

In addition, Southampton, being on the south coast, allowed ships to easily cross the English Channel and make a port of call on the northern coast of France, usually at Cherbourg. This allowed British ships to pick up clientele from continental Europe before recrossing the channel and picking up passengers at Queenstown. The Southampton-Cherbourg-New York run would become so popular that most British ocean liners began using the port after World War I. Out of respect for Liverpool, ships continued to be registered there until the early 1960s. Queen Elizabeth 2 was one of the first ships registered in Southampton when introduced into service by Cunard in 1969.

Crew

Titanic had about 866 crew members on board for the maiden voyage. Like other vessels of the time, Titanic did not have a permanent crew, and the vast majority of crew members were casual workers who only came aboard the ship a few hours before sailing from Southampton. The process of signing up recruits began on 23 March and some were sent to Belfast, where they served as a skeleton crew on Titanic's sea trials and passage to England in early April.

Captain Edward John Smith, the most senior of the White Star Line's captains, was transferred from Olympic to take command of Titanic. Henry Tingle Wilde also came across from Olympic to take the post of chief mate. Titanic's previously designated chief mate and first officer, William McMaster Murdoch and Charles Lightoller, were downgraded to the ranks of first and second officer respectively, and the original second officer, David Blair, was dropped altogether. The third officer, Herbert Pitman, was the only deck officer not a member of the Royal Naval Reserve. Pitman was the second-to-last surviving officer.

Titanic's crew were divided into three principal departments: Deck, with 66 crew; Engine, with 325; and Victualling, with 494. The vast majority of the crew were thus not seamen but were either engineers, firemen, or stokers, responsible for looking after the engines, or stewards and galley staff, responsible for the passengers.

Passengers

Titanic's passengers numbered approximately 1,317 people: 324 in First Class, 284 in Second Class, and 709 in Third Class. Of these, 869 (66%) were male and 447 (34%) female. There were 107 children aboard, the largest number of whom were in Third Class. The ship was considerably under-capacity for the maiden voyage and could have accommodated 2,453 passengers—833 First Class, 614 Second Class, and 1,006 Third Class.

Usually, a high-prestige vessel like Titanic could expect to be fully booked on a maiden voyage. However, a national coal strike in the UK had caused considerable disruption to shipping schedules in the spring of 1912, causing many crossings to be cancelled. Many would-be passengers chose to postpone their travel plans until the strike was over. The strike had finished a few days before Titanic sailed; however, that was too late to have much of an effect. Titanic was able to sail on the scheduled date only because coal was transferred from other vessels which were tied up at Southampton, such as New York and RMS Oceanic, as well as coal that Olympic had brought back from a previous voyage to New York, which had been stored at the White Star Dock.

Some of the most prominent people of the day booked a passage aboard Titanic, travelling in First Class.

Collecting passengers

Titanic's maiden voyage began on Wednesday, 10 April 1912. Following the embarkation of the crew, the passengers began arriving at 9:30 am, when the London and South Western Railway's boat train from London Waterloo station reached Southampton Terminus railway station on the quayside, alongside Titanic's berth. The large number of Third Class passengers meant they were the first to board, with First and Second Class passengers following up to an hour before departure. Stewards showed them to their cabins, and First Class passengers were personally greeted by Captain Smith. Third Class passengers were inspected for ailments and physical impairments that might lead to their being refused entry to the United States – a prospect the White Star Line wished to avoid, as it would have to carry anyone who failed the examination back across the Atlantic. In all, 920 passengers boarded Titanic at Southampton – 179 First Class, 247 Second Class, and 494 Third Class. Additional passengers were to be picked up at Cherbourg and Queenstown.

The maiden voyage began at noon, as scheduled. An accident was narrowly averted only a few minutes later, as Titanic passed the moored liners New York of the American Line and Oceanic of the White Star Line, the latter of which would have been a running mate on the service from Southampton.

Atlantic crossing

Titanic was planned to arrive at New York Pier 59 on the morning of 17 April. After leaving Queenstown, Titanic followed the Irish coast as far as Fastnet Rock, a distance of some 55 nautical miles (63 mi; 102 km). From there the voyage of 1,620 nautical miles (1,860 mi; 3,000 km) along a Great Circle route across the North Atlantic, reached a spot in the ocean known as "the corner", southeast of Newfoundland, where westbound steamers carried out a change of course. Titanic sailed only a few hours past the corner on a rhumb line leg of 1,023 nautical miles (1,177 mi; 1,895 km) to Nantucket Shoals Light when making fatal contact with an iceberg. The final leg of the journey would have been 193 nautical miles (222 mi; 357 km) to Ambrose Light and finally to New York Harbor.

From 11 April to local apparent noon the next day, Titanic covered 484 nautical miles (557 mi; 896 km); the following day, 519 nautical miles (597 mi; 961 km); and by noon on the final day of the voyage, 546 nautical miles (628 mi; 1,011 km). From then until the time of sinking, the ship travelled another 258 nautical miles (297 mi; 478 km), averaging about 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h).

The weather cleared as Titanic left Ireland under cloudy skies with a headwind. Temperatures remained fairly mild on Saturday 13 April, but the following day Titanic crossed a cold weather front with strong winds and waves of up to 8 feet (2.4 m).

Sinking

At 11:40 pm (ship's time) on 14 April, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of Titanic and alerted the bridge. First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship to be steered around the iceberg and the engines to be stopped, but it was too late. The starboard side of Titanic struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline. The hull was not punctured, but rather dented such that the steel plates of the hull buckled and separated, allowing water to rush in. Five of the sixteen watertight compartments were heavily breached and a sixth was slightly compromised. It soon became clear that Titanic would sink, as the ship could not remain afloat with more than four compartments flooded. Titanic began sinking bow-first, with water spilling from compartment to compartment over the top of each watertight bulkhead as the ship's angle in the water became steeper.

Those aboard Titanic were ill-prepared for such an emergency. In accordance with accepted practices of the time, as ships were seen as largely unsinkable and lifeboats were intended to transfer passengers to nearby rescue vessels, Titanic only had enough lifeboats to carry about half of those on board; if the ship had carried the full complement of about 3,339 passengers and crew, only about a third could have been accommodated in the lifeboats. The crew had not been trained adequately in carrying out an evacuation.

Aftermath of sinking

RMS Carpathia took three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster with a journey slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas. Carpathia was, however, able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened.

In January 1912, the hulls and equipment of Titanic and Olympic had been insured through Lloyd's of London and London Marine Insurance. The total coverage was £1 million (£124 million today) per ship.

Even before the survivors arrived in New York, investigations were being planned to discover what had happened, and what could be done to prevent a recurrence.

Once the massive loss of life became known, White Star Line chartered the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to retrieve bodies.