The most iconic ship of all time, the RMS Titanic is also the most tragic vessel ever
launched.
Lauded as unsinkable by her designer and Captain, it took just one disastrous encounter with
a stray iceberg to prove the folly of man.
You're probably familiar with the story of the Titanic, but how much do you really know
about this iconic vessel and its disastrous voyage?
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show- today we're taking a look
at 50 incredible facts about the Titanic.
50.
The RMS Titanic was the largest moveable man-made object of her day, 882 feet and 9 inches (269.1
meters) long, 92 feet (28 meters) wide, and 175 feet (53.3 meters) high.
She could move at 23 knots, making her fast for her size.
49.
The Titanic had 840 cabins for passengers, 416 in First Class, 162 in Second Class, and
262 in Third Class.
She could carry up to 900 tons worth of freight and baggage.
48.
She was powered by 29 triple-furnace coal-fired boilers burning 825 tons of coal per day,
with a storage capacity of 6,611 tons of coal- just enough for a round trip across the Atlantic.
47.
The Titanic was hardly an environmentally-friendly ship however, dumping 100 tons of ash into
the sea each day.
46.
The Titanic had four giant funnels reaching up 81.5 feet (25 meters) above the deck, the
purpose of which was to ensure the passengers weren't covered in the soot that she ejected.
45.
The fourth funnel was only added for aesthetic reasons, to make the ship look powerful and
majestic, and used for ventilation.
44.
The Titanic had 10 decks total, and strung along those decks were 10,000 light bulbs.
43.
Two engines powered three propellers- two were at her rear and weighed 38 tons combined,
and one was at her center and weighed 22 tons.
42.
The Titanic was originally the SS Titanic- SS meaning Screw Steamer, as in driven by
propellers or screws and also standing for Steamship.
She only became the RMS Titanic after carrying British Royal Mail, thus becoming Royal Mail
Steamer Titanic.
41.
Two anchors each weighing 15 tons were used to hold the mighty ship in place when docked.
20 horses were used to transport a single anchor during her construction.
40.
In 1955 Walter Lord published A Night To Remember, a nonfiction account of the Titanic tragedy
which was soon released as a movie in 1958.
The story regenerated public interest in the tragedy after waning substantially over the
years, and is likely the only reason we still talk about her today.
39.
The Titanic took two years to construct and cost an equivalent of 166 million dollars
in today's money.
That's 34 million dollars less than the cost of the 1997 movie Titanic, which was $200
million.
38.
A 228 foot (69 meters) tall gantry was built over the Titanic to construct her, the largest
ever built at the time, from which up to 15,000 men would work during her construction.
37.
3,000,000 rivets were used to join together the pieces of the hull, however unlike many
other ships built at the time, in order to cut costs the Titanic's rivets were a mix
of iron and steel.
Even weaker iron rivets were used on the bow of the ship, which would be the section that
later struck the iceberg.
36.
8 construction workers were killed during the construction of the Titanic, and 246 were
injured.
An unwritten expectation from back in her time was of one death per 1 million pounds
spent, which put her death total of 8 well under budget and was considered a great success.
35.
The Titanic carried 75,000 pounds (34,000 kilograms) of fresh meat, 40,000 eggs, 6,000
pounds (2700 kilograms) of butter, 15,000 bottles of beer, 1,000 bottles of wine, 850
bottles of liquor, and 8,000 cigars.
34.
Her crew and passengers drank 14,000 gallons (53,000 liters) of water a day.
33.
For her last dinner on the night of April 14th, 1912, passengers in First Class enjoyed
Oysters, Salmon, Filet Mignon, Saute of Chicken Lyonnaise, Lamb in mint sauce, roast duckling,
chocolate and vanilla eclairs, and french ice cream.
Passengers in Third Class had the option of gruel, cabin biscuits, and cheese.
Luckily for both First and Third Class, fresh fish would be pretty immediately available
completely for free just a few hours later...
32.
The Titanic was capable of carrying 64 lifeboats- well over her maximum capacity of 3,547 people-
yet was only planned to carry 48.
That number was eventually reduced to just 20 for cosmetic reasons, as it made the decks
look less cluttered.
31.
Despite being far too few for the total number of passengers, the Titanic's 20 lifeboats
was technically legal as law at the time was based on the gross register tonnage of a ship,
not her passenger capacity.
30.
The Titanic carried 2 wooden cutters with a capacity of 40 people each, fourteen 30
foot wooden lifeboats with a capacity of 65 each, and four collapsible lifeboats with
a capacity of 47 each.
This meant only 33% of the Titanic's passengers and crew could fit on the lifeboats.
29.
Because it took two and a half hours for the Titanic to sink, had there been enough lifeboats
every single person aboard could have been saved.
28.
Of the 20 lifeboats aboard, only 18 were successfully launched- two collapsible lifeboats simply
floated away.
27.
Only 9 people were rescued from the water after the lifeboats launched, 3 of which died
shortly after to hypothermia.
26.
30 people managed to survive by sitting, standing, or kneeling atop the upturned hull of collapsible
lifeboat B after they failed to right it.
25.
The Titanic had 3,500 life jackets aboard, but the water was so cold that they would
have been useless as people simply froze to death within minutes of entering the frigid
water.
24.
Despite having a capacity of 65, the first lifeboat launched with just 28 people- this
was due to people being reluctant to leave the ship as they did not consider themselves
to be in imminent danger.
23.
A total of 472 seats aboard the lifeboats went unused.
22.
Another lifeboat with a capacity of 65 carried only 12 people: 5 first-class passengers and
7 crew members.
The press nicknamed it the 'Millionaire's Boat' who accused the occupants of ignoring
the cries for help from people in the water.
Some things never change.
21.
Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, a member of the 'Millionaire's Boat', paid each of the 7 crewmembers in his
lifeboat 5 pound each, an equivalent of $510 in today's dollars.
He was later heavily criticized for paying the men, but claimed that he was simply compensating
them for the loss of their kit.
We're sure it had absolutely nothing to do with launching the boat early and keeping
it away from drowning victims desperately calling for help.
20.
Jack B Thayer, a survivor, said of the 'Millionaire's Boat', “The partly filled lifeboat standing
by about 100 yards away never came back.
Why on Earth they never came back is a mystery.
How could any human being fail to heed those cries?”.
We think it’s because money clearly doesn't buy you humanity.
19.
1 lifeboat returned to try and save others after launching, despite fears of being overwhelmed
by desperate victims or being dragged under by downward suction caused by the Titanic's
sinking.
We're guessing there were probably no rich people aboard that particular boat.
18.
Lifeboats floated for 1 hour and 10 minutes in open water before the rescue ship Carpathia
arrived on-scene.
Luckily the seas were relatively gentle- had they been rough it's likely all would have
perished.
17.
The Carpathia secured 13 of the Titanic's lifeboats, but left 7 to float adrift.
Days later the Canadian ship Mackay-Bennett tried to bring one boat on board but failed.
There's a chance at least one of the Titanic's lifeboats could still be bobbing around somewhere
in the Atlantic.
16.
Souvenir hunters removed the plates from the lifeboats containing the name Titanic, as
well as the lifeboat numbers.
Able Seaman Tom Jones pried off the number 8 from lifeboat 8 and sent it to Lucy Noel
Martha, the Countess of Rothes.
15.
It's thought the rest of the surviving lifeboats were put into use on the Titanic's sister
ship the Olympic.
14.
6 life jackets from the Titanic remain in existence in museums or private collections
around the world.
13.
On the 25th of June, 2008, one blood-stained life jacket was sold at auction in New York
for 34,692 pounds.
12.
Prior to the Titanic's sinking, American author Morgan Robertson wrote the novel 'Futility',
in which an ocean liner named Titan strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage.
11.
Before her collision, the Titanic received 6 ice warnings from passing ships.
10.
Despite fog and unsafe waters, the Titanic steamed along at 22.5 knots, or just .5 knots
below her top speed of 23 knots.
From the moment lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg dead ahead, it took only 30 seconds
for the ship to crash into it.
9.
4 forward compartments could have flooded without the Titanic sinking- but 6 were ruptured
in the collision.
The iron rivets used in her construction have been universally blamed for her sinking.
8.
The iceberg caused a 220 to 245 foot (67-75 meter) long gash under the water line, causing
an opening 12 cubic feet along a fourth of the ship.
7.
Flooding at a rate of 400 tons per minute, it took the Titanic 160 minutes to sink.
6.
Approximately 38,000 tons of water filled the bow of the Titanic, causing the ship's
stern to lift up out of the water and split the ship in half just in front of the third
funnel.
5.
It took the two sections of the titanic between 5 and 10 minutes to reach the sea bottom.
4.
The water temperature at the time was 28 degrees (-2 Celsius), four degrees below freezing.
The Titanic's Second Officer, Charles Lightoller, described hitting the water as “a thousand
knives being driven into one's body.”
3.
A photograph taken by the liner Prinze Adelbert just a few miles south of the Titanic's sinking
may be of the iceberg responsible for her sinking.
(Use this photo: https://titanicfacts.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/iceberg-that-hit-titanic.jpg)
2.
The Titanic iceberg was thought to originally have been 1 mile long when first 'born' off
the coast of Greenland, but was estimated to be between 200-400 feet (61-122 meters)
at the time of the sinking.
1.
Approximately 300 icebergs reached the North Atlantic shipping lanes in April 1912, the
highest number for 50 years.
The Titanic's Captain, Edward Smith, was quoted as saying, “I cannot imagine any condition
which would cause a ship to founder.
I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel.
Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”, while in command of the Adriatic.
Had the Titanic not cut corners by using weaker rivets, it's well possible that the good Captain
may have been proven right.
What other facts about the Titanic do you know?
Were her designers really just tempting fate, claiming her to be unsinkable?
Also, be sure to check out our other show 50 Facts About World War 1!
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time