Infographic: How the Titanic sank

the wreck

– (Luiz Iria, Marcelo Garcia and Eber Evangelista/)

1. Titanic was the second in a fleet of three luxury ships owned by White Star Line (the first, Olympic, worked without problems, and third, Britannic, also sank, due to an explosion of unknown cause). At 269 m long and 28 m wide, the Titanic was the largest ship at the time. Its construction began in March 1909 and ended in May 1911. On April 10, 1912, he left for his first voyage, from Southampton, England, to New York, USA

two. On the 14th, at 23:40, the ship collided with an iceberg. The piece of ice had been sighted too late and, even with an attempt to divert, the collision was inevitable. Contrary to popular belief, the ice did not tear the hull: the impact actually broke the rivets that held the steel plates together. The rupture, of more than 60 m, passed through five cargo rooms and one boiler room

3. Captain Edward Smith was not on the bridge at the time of the crash, but he went up there as soon as he heard about the incident – ​​between 11:30 pm and 11:50 pm. He ordered the closing of the floodgates between the boiler and engine rooms, to isolate the water invasion, and sent crew members to investigate the damage. At 11:50 pm, Smith already knew that the Titanic would sink

– (Luiz Iria, Marcelo Garcia and Eber Evangelista/)

4. At 00:10, distress messages are sent by morse code. A single ship came to the rescue – the Carpathia, which was 93 km away and did not reach the scene until 4:10 am. Another vessel was sighted and alerted with a flare, but did not approach. One theory is that it was a fishing vessel operating illegally, so its captain did not want to get involved. Another theory is that the «short arm» ship was the SS Californian, but the captain of that vessel always denied having seen the Titanic.

5. The lifeboats started to depart at 00:45. In total, there were 20 boats, capable of carrying up to 1,178 people out of the 2,223 on board. However, only 705 people were rescued, because, due to the crew’s unpreparedness and the false impression that staying on the ship was safe, the boats were not fully occupied. It is worth saying that, andAlthough it didn’t have lifeboats for everyone, the Titanic didn’t break the law: at the time, it only required lifeboats for 962 people. A curiosity: there were at least nine dogs, two roosters and two chickens on board – two of the dogs were saved in the boats

6. The fact that the hull ruptured on the right side and in the frontal area determined the movement of the ship in its slow agony. The weight of the water caused it to tip slightly to the right and, subsequently, it sank its bow to the point of raising the stern, at an angle estimated at less than 20o. It was there that most of the passengers tried to flee.

– (Luiz Iria, Marcelo Garcia and Eber Evangelista/)

7. The lift of the stern in the air rolled in two moments. As the ship began to sink, the rear tipped out of the water. The weight was too much for the structure of the ship, which broke between the third and fourth chimneys – its most “hollow” area and where there was one of the expansion joints. After breaking, the bow and stern submerged in a vertical position.

– (Luiz Iria, Marcelo Garcia and Eber Evangelista/)

8. At 2:20 am, the stern finally submerges and the sinking ends. The lights remained on for most of the disaster, only going out at 2:18 am. The last boat left at 2:05 am – leaving more than 1,500 people behind. Those that were not taken to the bottom of the ocean were struggling on the surface, trying not to sink or freeze to death – the water temperature hit -2 oC

9. Only one of the lifeboats returned to look for shipwrecked people – it rescued only four. The survivors wandered in their boats in the dark until 4:10 am, when the Carpathia finally reached the scene. It took four hours for everyone to board the ship. The Carpathia then left for New York, where it arrived on the 18th. Of the 1,517 dead, only 337 bodies were recovered.

A) In the entrails of the animal
The ocean liner was coal-powered. For this, it had 29 boilers, containing 159 ovens, fed with human labor. Together, the furnaces consumed 660 tons of coal a day. They powered two engines, which were the largest built at the time, and drove two outer propellers. Titanic’s top speed was 23 knots (42 km/h)

B) Poor but clean
In addition to being on the lowest levels and difficult to access, the third-class cabins only had built-in bunks and a toilet. To take a bath, the 710 passengers in this sector had only two collective bathtubs available. When it was time to go out for a walk, they could only go out on the back deck, where the air reeked of smoke coming from the chimneys. However, all cabins had running water – a luxury that many poorer passengers did not even have at home.

C) Right on the tape
The 207 second-class cabins were equivalent to what was, at the time, first-class on other ships. They had mahogany furniture and were laid out in the same way as the simpler first-class cabins, with berths built into the walls and lavatories in each room. Bathrooms were not private. Social segregation was so strict that each class received a dish with a different decoration.

D) Steps of luxury
Nothing was more luxurious than the first-class front staircase, which spanned six floors and led to the dining room. The glass and iron dome caught the natural light and illuminated the polished oak railings with bronze carvings. A clock on the first flight of stairs, representing Time, was adorned with characters that symbolized Honor and Glory

– (Luiz Iria, Marcelo Garcia and Eber Evangelista/)

10. The two parts of the Titanic sank 3.8 km until they found the seabed, where they came to rest 600 m from each other. At this depth, there is no more light, the temperature is very low and the pressure is extreme. Therefore, it was only in 1985 that technology was advanced enough to find the wreckage, about 700 km off the Canadian coast.

– (Luiz Iria, Marcelo Garcia and Eber Evangelista/)

E) A stranger among us
Of the four funnels, only three were real and belched smoke – the fourth was added to make the ship more impressive and was used only for ventilation. From the keel (the base of the ship) to the top, the ship measured 53 m in height. The masts supported an antenna and the “crow’s nest” (the “basket” from which the iceberg was seen). Along the decks, some 200 miles of electrical cables ran to power lights, heaters and appliances.

F) I’m rich!!!
First class had the best located cabins and the most elaborate and ostentatious decorations. The most expensive of the 389 suites had a living room, two bedrooms, two closets and a private bathroom – and two of them even had a balcony. Of the four elevators on the Titanic, three were exclusively for the wealthy. The richest passenger was Lieutenant Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, with a fortune equivalent today to R$ 3.3 billion – he did not survive

G) Buoy time
The first class dining room, with its Renaissance decor, was the largest room. A seven-course dinner was the main social event. Second class had a separate saloon, but the food came from the same galley as first class. And the lounge on the third was much smaller, forcing passengers to eat in shifts – those who missed their turn would go hungry. The pantry held 40 tonnes of potatoes, 34 tonnes of meat, 40,000 eggs, 300 kg of tea and 1,000 bottles of wine.

H) Fun on the high seas
There was no lack of things to do in the four days of the trip. On board, there was a squash court, a Turkish bath (a kind of sauna), two barber shops, a library, a gym and several restaurants, bars and cafes – only for first and second class, of course. The third had to make do with a single salon and a smoking room. The Titanic was also the first ship with a heated pool.

I) Unsinkable?
The Titanic was divided into 16 compartments, separated by locks, so that if one compartment flooded, closing them would protect the others. Theoretically, it would be possible to maintain the integrity of the vessel with up to four flooded compartments… But the iceberg damaged six

J) Daily chat
In addition to taking care of internal communication, the mail room carried several messages from Europe to the US – around 3,000 bags of mail were lost in the sinking. The boat also had its own newspaper, the Atlantic Daily Bulletinwith news, announcements, gossip and the menu of the day

NOTHING ELSE WAS THE SAME
Tragedy changed ship safety laws

– All ships now have enough boats to accommodate all passengers and crew
– All ships now have a radio, which should work 24 hours a day
– Established the International Ice Patrol, a consortium of 16 countries to monitor icebergs in the Atlantic

SOURCES Books Titanic: An Illustrated Historyby Donald Lynch and Ken Marshall, Inside the Titanic (A Giant Cutaway Book)by Hugh Brewste, and Titanic – DK Eyewitness Books, by Simon Adams; websites Encyclopedia Titanica, Titanic Historical Society, British Titanic Society, The Titanic It is Keyflow; and documentary Ghosts of the Abyssby James Cameron