The Titanic was a White Star Line ocean liner, built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, and designed to compete with the rival Cunard Line's Lusitania and Mauretania. The Titanic, along with her Olympic-class sisters, the Olympic and the soon-to-be-built Britannic (which was to be called Gigantic at first), were intended to be the largest, most luxurious ships ever to operate. The designers were Lord William Pirrie,[6] a director of both Harland and Wolff and White Star, naval architect Thomas Andrews, Harland and Wolff's construction manager and head of their design department,[7] and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager.[8] Carlisle's role in this project was the design of the superstructure of these ships, particularly the superstructures' streamlined joining to the hulls[citation needed] as well as the implementation of an efficient lifeboat davit design. Carlisle would leave the project in 1910, before the ships were launched, when he became a shareholder in Welin Davit & Engineering Company Ltd, the firm making the davits.[9]
Construction of RMS Titanic, funded by the American J.P. Morgan and his International Mercantile Marine Co., began on 31 March, 1909. Titanic's hull was launched on 31 May 1911, and her outfitting was completed by 31 March the following year. She was 882 feet 9 inches (269.1 m) long and 92 feet 0 inches (28.0 m) wide,[2] with a gross register tonnage of 46,328 long tons and a height from the water line to the boat deck of 59 feet (18 m). She was equipped with two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion, inverted steam engines and one low-pressure Parsons turbine, which powered three propellers. There were 29 boilers fired by 159 coal burning furnaces that made possible a top speed of 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph). Only three of the four 62 feet (19 m) funnels were functional: the fourth, which served only for ventilation purposes, was added to make the ship look more impressive. The ship could carry a total of 3,547 passengers and crew.
Features
In her time, Titanic surpassed all rivals in luxury and opulence. She offered an on-board swimming pool, a gymnasium, a Turkish bath, libraries in both the first and second class, and a squash court.[10] First-class common rooms were adorned with ornate wood panelling, expensive furniture and other decorations.[11] In addition, the Café Parisien offered cuisine for the first-class passengers, with a sunlit veranda fitted with trellis decorations.[12]
The ship incorporated technologically advanced features for the period. She had an extensive electrical subsystem with steam-powered generators and ship-wide wiring feeding electric lights. She also boasted two Marconi radios, including a powerful 1,500-watt set manned by two operators working in shifts, allowing constant contact and the transmission of many passenger messages.[13] First-class passengers paid a hefty fee for such amenities. The most expensive one-way trans-Atlantic passage was $4,350 (which is more than $80,000 in today's currency).[14]
Lifeboats
At the design stage Carlisle suggested that Titanic use a new, larger type of davit which could give the ship the potential to carry 48 lifeboats; these would have provided enough places for everyone on board the night of the disaster, but not enough for the ship's total carrying capacity of about 3,600 passengers. However, the White Star Line, while agreeing to the larger davits, decided that only 16 wooden lifeboats (16 being the minimum allowed by the Board of Trade, based on the Titanic's projected tonnage) would be carried (there were also four folding lifeboats, called collapsibles), which could accommodate only 52% of the people aboard. At the time, the Board of Trade's regulations stated that British vessels over 10,000 tons must carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 5,500 cubic feet (160 m3), plus enough capacity in rafts and floats for 75% (or 50% in case of a vessel with watertight bulkheads) of that in the lifeboats. Therefore, the White Star Line actually provided more lifeboat accommodation than was legally required.[15] The regulations had made no extra provision for larger ships since 1894, when the largest passenger ship under consideration was the Cunard Line's Lucania, only 13,000 tons. Sir Alfred Chalmers, nautical adviser to the Board of Trade from 1896 to 1911, had considered the matter "from time to time", but because he thought that experienced sailors would have to be carried "uselessly" aboard ship for no other purpose than lowering and manning lifeboats, and the difficulty he anticipated in getting away a greater number than 16 in any emergency, he "did not consider it necessary to increase [our scale]".[16] Carlisle told the official inquiry that he had discussed the matter with J. Bruce Ismay, White Star's Managing Director, but in his evidence Ismay denied that he had ever heard of this, nor did he recollect noticing such provision in the plans of the ship he had inspected.[9][17] Ten days before the maiden voyage Axel Welin, the maker of Titanic's lifeboat davits, had announced that his machinery had been installed because the vessel's owners were aware of forthcoming changes in official regulations, but Harold Sanderson, vice-president of the International Mercantile Marine and former general manager of the White Star Line, denied that this had been the intention.[18]
Comparisons with the Olympic
The Titanic closely resembled her older sister Olympic. Although she enclosed more space and therefore had a larger gross register tonnage, the hull was almost the same length as the Olympic's. However, there were a few differences. Two of the most noticeable were that half of the Titanics's forward promenade A-Deck (below the boat deck) was enclosed against outside weather, and her B-Deck configuration was different from the Olympic's. As built the Olympic did not have an equivalent of the Titanic's Café Parisien: the feature was not added until 1913. Some of the flaws found on the Olympic, such as the creaking of the aft expansion joint, were corrected on the Titanic. The skid lights that provided natural illumination on A-deck were round, while on Olympic they were oval. The Titanic's wheelhouse was made narrower and longer than the Olympic's.[19] These, and other modifications, made the Titanic 1,004 gross register tons larger than the Olympic and thus the largest active ship in the world during her maiden voyage in April 1912.
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