Titanic’s wreck is full of incredible extremes; at the stern, whole chunks of the ship were
ripped off with violent force.
The inside was blasted as air rushed out to escape pursued by surging seawater, leaving
virtually nothing inside intact.
Meanwhile in the bow section, glasses remain standing upright on sideboards and washstands.
The same is true of the debris field; piping and steel plating lie in tangled heaps, torn
like cardboard by water pressure; but littered around are delicate crystal decanters and
china.
Lying there too a re incredible, ornate and intact leaded glass windows.
Titanic was designed and built by a guiding philosophy; to trick the first and second
class traveler into forgetting they were even on a ship at all.
The plan was to build a ship so vast for its time that passengers wouldn’t really feel
the sway of the ship and to fill it with interiors inspired by the grandest hotels in Europe
and America to make them feel right at home.
All of it - the wood paneling, the delicate oak carving and detailing, the ornate staircases
and gilt light fixtures; all of it was part of an elaborate illusion, not just luxury
for luxury’s sake.
Many passengers were nervous travelers in the same way people today might not like flying;
for centuries going to sea in a ship was a dicey affair and you were likely to end up
wrecked.
Titanic’s designers wanted to put all that as far away from the passengers’ minds as
possible and they found clever ways to do it.
Probably my favourite example of executing this illusion could be found down on D-Deck
in the First Class Dining Saloon and the adjacent Reception Room.
The Reception Room was a spot where passengers could congregate for light refreshments or
tea on nice wicker furniture surrounded by palms before heading in for dinner in the
main Dining Saloon.
Now looking at this space you’d be forgiven for thinking this was actually the lobby of
a hotel from the time; one crucial reason for this are the windows seen in the back
here.
But this space is located far down on Titanic’s hull where only portholes could be used to
get natural light in.
Windows would shatter under the weight of pounding Atlantic waves.
Other ships of the time made use of portholes in the interior design of their dining saloons;
but on Titanic this would shatter the illusion and make it clearly evident to the passengers
dining that they were on a ship and not sitting in a hotel.
The solution was ingenious; in the region of the Dining and Reception Rooms, portholes
were doubled to let in as much light as possible; and on the reverse side, inside the First
class rooms, they were covered in huge, ornate and finely detailed leaded glass windows.
All the way along the two rooms the leaded glass windows masked the portholes and natural
light shone through them during the day making it look as though they were the windows of
a hotel.
That wasn’t all though; at night, the windows could be swung open and small lights turned
on before being closed up again.
These ‘linolite’ lamps backlit the windows and made it look that natural light was flooding
in even during dinner after sun-down.
Expedition dives down to Titanic’s wreck reveal many of these windows still to be sitting
in place; James Cameron even shone lights through the portholes outside to see the details
in all their glory.
Sadly the ship broke up in the region of the dining saloon so that room is all mostly gone;
the windows from that part of the ship, along with everything else in the middle were ripped
apart and scattered across a vast debris field.
Incredibly, even after a 4 kilometer drop to the sea floor, dozens of those leaded glass
windows survive largely intact.
Before we go on with the list I’d like to talk to you about today’s sponsor - and
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eking out a new life in America.
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Also scattered throughout Titanic’s debris field can be seen hundreds, if not thousands
of floor tiles of all different colours and shapes.
These also tell an interesting story of the era Titanic came from and speak of what was
then a relatively new and exciting wonder-material called linoleum.
When you think of linoleum today you might think of what once decorated your mum’s
kitchen floor.
But back in Titanic’s day it was a very different material.
Derived originally from linseed oil or pine resin, linoleum could be manufactured in thick
tiles and died in hundreds of different colours to make ornate patterns.
The benefits for usage on ships are obvious; Linoleum is water and stain proof, ideal for
dining rooms on a rocking and rolling ship where passengers might spill their food or
wine on a pristine carpet.
It is also decorative, hardy and lightweight.
The colours were deep and vibrant and not prone to fading; it could easily be polished
and brought back to life if scuffed.
Many people are saddened to hear that Titanic was not clad in marble flooring.
This would have been impossible; the weight would make the ship dangerously top-heavy
and liable to tipping over.
Instead, in many of the grand public rooms, linoleum was used instead by the ship’s
builders, Harland and Wolff.
Some examples include the big black and white linoleum tiles used in the Grand Staircase
for first class; red and blue tiles in a flower pattern were used in the First Class smoking
room; in 2nd and 3rd class spaces, fleur de lilies motifs in red, green, black and white.
But definitely the most ornate were the tiles found in the first class dining saloon in
a detailed pattern of blue, red and gold.
Dotted around the wreck are these exact tiles, torn from their original locations and scattered
across the debris field in clumps and at random.
Third and second class tiles can be seen piled together in groups.
Other styles have been recovered from the wreck; like this tile from the first class
Grand Staircase.
But most interesting are those from the dining saloon.
For a long time it was thought that this space was carpeted; when James Cameron made his
1997 movie Titanic he had the set built with carpet from a company who said they were the
manufacturer of the original carpet used in the room.
But when he later dived down to the wreck instead he found huge blue, gold and red tiles
intact on the room’s floors and in the debris field.
Some of these have since been recovered and put on display, the colours still plainly
visible!
In 1985, Robert Ballard and his team were scouring the sea floor looking at the debris
field of Titanic’s wreck.
These were some of the first sights anybody had seen of Titanic since 1912 and their eyes
were glued to the monitor as the submersibles 13,000 feet or 4 kilometers beneath their
feet broadcast back grainy footage.
Twisted metal, drinking glasses and pots but then a sight that caused the crew of the submersible
Alvin to shudder.
It was the head of a child’s doll.
In the 1860s through to the 1900s, lifelike dolls with porcelain faces became very popular
among the children of the rich.
The dolls cost about $40, or $1,200 in today’s money - so they were mainly found among the
upper crust and high society.
The dolls often featured moving joints and were painted to look as realistic as possible,
with vibrant glass eyes and real hair.
This doll head once belonged to a fine French or German doll and would have been beautifully
painted.
Instead by the time Ballard found it, undersea organisms had eaten away all of its cloth
fittings and body and the seawater had bleached it bone white.
Its ghostly image was a real shock to the people on duty the day it was spotted, such
a shock that they didn’t note its location and the doll head has never been seen again.
Another great example of what we’ll call the hotel-at-sea illusion were the glass domes
crowning the top of the first class grand staircase.
Titanic had two grand staircases for first class, one forward and one back towards the
stern or back of the ship.
This provided easy access for first class passengers to get around in areas where their
cabins were located.
In older ships, first class staircases looked similar to other staircases on the ship although
with more elaborate use of wood paneling.
This is true of the generation of luxury liner before Titanic and in fact, on Titanic’s
original plans, the ship builders Harland and Wolff planned on installing this kind
of basic stairs.
But then the plans changed and instead a large, sweeping and curved staircase was installed
creating a much nicer space for passengers on the landings and feeling much more like
a hotel lobby or social club than a ship.
This is the staircase of the Australiana Club in Melbourne which was built in the 19th century
and bears a clear resemblance to that found on Titanic.
But sitting above the staircases were two large domes, one circular and one oval-shaped.
The domes featured a wrought iron frame with intricate, individual glass panels fitted
within the patterns of the iron and featured a chandelier in their center to cast a large
amount of light down the stairs at night time.
Domes on ships like this weren’t new; skylights were an easy way to get a lot of natural light
into the ships.
But Titanic’s staircase domes were particularly lovely and exceptionally large.
On the night of the sinking, right at the end, Titanic’s bow plunged down heavily
and a massive amount of water began to press up on the dome’s skylight cover from the
outside.
The inevitable implosion devastated the structure and everything underneath and the dome was
shattered into pieces.
Meanwhile the second dome at the staircase towards the stern of the ship was destroyed
when the ship’s back broke; virtually everything between the ship’s last two funnels was
obliterated.
But in 2010 expedition members made a fascinating discovery; seemingly defying the odds resting
on the sea floor in the debris field was a huge section of that second dome with the
centerpiece still intact.
The section comprises the center of the dome along with the innermost decorative ring and
remnants of the chandelier remain in the form of copper sockets for the light globes which
have since turned green from sea water exposure.
No sign of the forward grand staircase dome has been seen - it’s not impossible that
a part of it still remains in a decent state of preservation, but because the debris field
is 2 square miles or 5 square kilometers large, finding it would be a bit like finding a needle
in a haystack.
Titanic’s lifeboats were kept on the boat deck flanked by tall cranes called davits.
These were a special kind of davit, designed by Swedish inventor Axel Welin for the Royal
Navy.
Titanic’s builders, Harland and Wolff, were keen to implement the very latest technology
on Titanic so the Welin davit was chosen to service Titanic’s boats.
They had a special purpose; hand-cranked, they could swing forwards and backwards.
Backwards so lines could be attached to a lifeboat kept on the deck, and then forwards
to swing it out and over the side of the ship for lowering.
This was useful if you wanted to keep a second row of lifeboats on-deck to increase capacity.
In Titanic’s case, Welin actually recommended that the ship carry a second row of lifeboats
but in the end only a single row was used meaning the Welin davit’s special ability
to be cranked far back in was never really used on the ship.
Today, Welin davits lie in tangled heaps on the seafloor.
It’s likely that during Titanic’s sinking the ship’s great funnels were ripped from
their bases or collapsed under intense water pressure and their support cables, also known
as stays, ripped up and down the deck, tearing davits from their positions and tangling them
all up.
But forward on the Titanic wreck is one, lone davit still standing; and the position it
has been left in tells us a fascinating story.
Right at the end, Titanic’s first officer William Murdoch was frantically filling boats
and that davit lowered away emergency collapsible lifeboat C at 2am.
Once the lifeboat hit the water and its occupants detached their lines and rowed away the davit
arm was left cranked out far over the side of the ship.
But then Murdoch and his team began to crank it back in to take another lifeboat.
Collapsible A was roughly manhandled from its location on top of the Officer’s Quarters
and landed on the boat deck.
In a rush.
Murdoch and 6th Officer Moody began to attach the falls, or ropes, from the davit they’d
just cranked in to the lifeboat.
But suddenly Titanic’s bow plunged downwards and water began to surge around the lifeboat.
It couldn’t be lowered away in the normal way, time had just run out.
Instead the falls were detached and the lifeboat floated off the ship and somehow survived
clearing the funnel support stays and even the collapse of the ship’s number one funnel.
Murdoch and Moody were both lost in the disaster and never seen again.
This davit on Titanic’s wreck, the only one still standing on the starboard side.
Davits still in place on the other side of the ship, the port side, are still swung out
in the positions they were left in after they launched their boats.
But the starboard side davit is different; it is pointing up, still ready to take the
lifeboat on that floated off and away from the ship.
It stands as a monument to Murdoch and Moody’s efforts that night, along with the heroic
crew who struggled to get passengers off the ship and ultimately sacrificed their own lives.
Ladies and gentleman it's your friend Michael Brady from
Oceanliner Designs.
Thankyou so much for watching this video!
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Until then, stay safe, stay happy and I'll see you again next time.