- Oh, what a night.
So calm and peaceful.
Just look at those stars, Reg.
- Yeah, the stars are great.
I just wish the moon was out there.
It's so dark without it that I can't see beyond my nose.
Gosh, it's so cold here.
- Hey, Reg, look, what's that straight ahead of us?
Oh my lord, it's an iceberg and it's so close.
Ring the bell Freddy, ring it.
- [Narrator] On a calm moonless night of April 14th, 1912,
the passenger ocean liner, Titanic,
hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage
from Southampton to New York City.
Over 1500 lives were lost,
making the sinking of the Titanic
the third deadliest shipwreck in maritime history.
In this episode, we're gonna talk about the Titanic disaster
and how and why she really sank.
(upbeat music)
The construction of the Titanic started in March of 1909.
3 years before her maiden voyage.
That same year, while 14,000 men were working on the Titanic
in Belfast Docks,
mother nature gave birth to the notorious iceberg
that was destined to send the unsinkable ship
to the bottom of the ocean.
Each year, approximately 40,000 icebergs, big and small,
are born along the coast of Greenland.
They initially float north along Greenland's west coast,
and then begin their southward journey
past the coastlines of Baffin Island, Labrador
and Newfoundland.
Most of the icebergs never reach the shipping routes
of the Atlantic though,
they either get caught on route
or melt in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
But our iceberg was special.
It withstood all the hardships
and after a three year long journey
it finally reached the area, where in April of 1912,
it would meet the unsinkable Titanic.
Let's talk a little bit about the Titanic's design
and why she was nicknamed, The Unsinkable.
Well, the press had heard that the Titanic
was built with 16 watertight compartments
and that she could stay afloat
with up to four of those compartments flooded.
It also heard about her eight pumps
that could suck out up to 30 tons of water per minute.
How exciting.
These and other advancements, like double bottom,
led the press to claim the ship was indeed, unsinkable.
But here's what the press didn't know.
The Titanic's watertight compartments
were actually far from being watertight.
See, to be truly watertight,
a compartment must form a box or cube within the hull,
but what the Titanic really had were 15 bulkheads
and a handful of watertight doors.
Those bulkheads were not much higher than the waterline,
so they didn't really prevent the water from overflowing
through the top.
Now, let's talk about the pumps.
While they could help deal with the consequences
of a small hull breach.
They couldn't keep the ship above water
in case of a somewhat serious one.
They merely didn't have enough power.
Now, back to the maiden voyage.
For four days it was a perfect one.
The passengers were enjoying the calm weather
and perfect service.
But calm weather and still water were camouflaging
the hidden dangers of the seas.
- Mr. Murdoch.
- Captain, sir.
- Well, Mr. Murdoch,
tell the lookouts to keep their eyes wide open.
We're approaching the region from where numerous ships
have sent us ice warnings.
You know what this means Mr. Murdoch.
- [Mr. Murdoch] Yes, captain.
- [Narrator] located on the foremast,
90 feet above the water line.
Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee are the lookouts on duty.
It's their job to maintain a continuous watch of the sea
and alert the bridge on any kind of visible hazard.
That night, detecting iceberg's was their main priority.
A windless and moonless night in the ice heavy region
is a nightmare for the lookouts.
Without the wind,
there are no waves crashing on the icebergs
that they could see or hear.
Without the moon, they can't see far enough,
but more importantly, there are no reflections
from the icebergs that they could spot.
They also didn't have binoculars with them, which is odd.
While the lookouts usually use the naked eye
to spot objects, they also use binoculars to confirm
and enable an enhanced picture of the objects.
So even if they had the binoculars,
that would not have helped Fleet and Lee detect hazards
like iceberg's earlier.
At around midnight, on April 14th,
the Titanic was going at the top speed of 22 knots.
Even though the captain wisely adjusted the course
to go further down south with the idea to avoid areas
known to have ice,
at such high speed, with such poor visibility,
they were playing with fire.
Or perhaps we should say, playing with ice.
At 11:39, Fleet and Lee spotted the iceberg
just 900 feet from them.
- Iceberg straight ahead.
- [Narrator] On the bridge, First Officer Murdoch
reacted lightning fast.
He ordered the ship to execute a port around maneuver
and stop the engines to reduce the speed.
His plan was good, but he simply didn't have enough time.
The Titanic was going way too fast.
While Murdoch was able to avoid the head on collision.
The Titanic struck the iceberg on the starboard side,
just 36 seconds after it was spotted by the lookouts.
Five compartments were breached
and she started taking in water fast,
at the rate of 400 tons a minute.
The pumps were only able to deal with
30 tons of water per minute.
From that moment, nothing could have saved the Titanic.
The unsinkable ship was indeed sinking.
Wait a minute.
The Titanic's hull was made of one inch thick steel plates.
How in the world could a chunk of ice
have breached it so easily?
Well, the steel plates likely withstood the collision,
but the rivets holding them together did not.
In 1998, the rivet samples recovered from the Titanic
were examined by
The National Institute of Standard and Technology.
The examinations determined that the rivets
used on the Titanic were of poor quality.
Through the testing it was discovered that at impact,
the rivet heads likely broke off,
popped the fasteners from their holes
and allowed water to rush in
between the separated steel plates.
So the iceberg didn't really cut the Titanic's hull
like a knife could cut butter.
It was the Titanic's smallest components
that didn't withstand the collision.
Two and a half hours after the Titanic struck the iceberg,
the Titanic's stern rose out of the water,
exposing the propellers.
And she broke in two pieces
between the second and third funnels,
due to the immense forces on the keel.
Minutes later, those in the life boats
saw how the Titanic's stern
disappeared in the cold and dark waters of the Atlantic.
Till this day the question remains.
What if Murdoch decided to go for a head on collision
with the iceberg?
Could the Titanic have survived?
In our opinion, it could have,
but only if the speed was considerably lower than 22 knots.
At 22 knots, after a head on collision,
the amount of structural damage to the hull
would have been devastating
and the Titanic might have sunk even faster,
leaving no time for the lifeboats to be launched.
Lastly, the Titanic was designed to carry 64 lifeboats.
That would've been enough to accommodate all passengers
of the sinking ship.
Yet the Titanic's owner, White Star Line,
decided that too many lifeboats would clutter the deck
and obscure the first class passenger's views.
So they left Southampton with 20.
Who needs lifeboats on an unsinkable ship anyway?
This is the story of the Titanic's sinking.
This is "How It Was."
(upbeat music)
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