The story of the Titanic and the iceberg has
grown into a legend of the sea. It took her discovery in 1985 to begin to
find the truth behind the myth. One of the things that makes the Titanic so
fascinating is that she represented the best of technology when she set sail
on her ill-fated voyage in 1912, and it took the best of technology in the
form of sonar, satellite tracking, and deep-dive technology to locate her
grave 73 years later. In the early 1900's, waterborne transportation was the
norm; today, satellites are taken for granted by our society. But we tend to
forget the immense effort that these two technologies require to operate to
their maximum potential. Until recently, the technology did not exist to
locate, photograph, and explore this ship that rested two and a half miles
down on the ocean floor. On April 10, 1912, the RMS Titanic set sail
from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. At that time, she was the
largest and most luxurious ship ever built. At 11:40 PM on April 14, 1912,
she struck an iceberg about 400 miles off Newfoundland, Canada. Although her
crew had been warned about icebergs several times that evening by other ships
navigating through that region, she was traveling at near top speed of about
20.5 knots when one grazed her side. Less than three hours later, the Titanic plunged
to the bottom of the sea, taking more than 1500 people with her. Only a
fraction of her passengers were saved. The world was stunned to learn of the
fate of the unsinkable Titanic. It carried some of the
richest, most powerful industrialists of her day. Together, their personal
fortunes were worth $600 million in 1912! In addition to wealthy and the
middle class passengers, she carried poor emigrants from Europe and the
Middle East seeking economic and social freedom in the New World. The remains of the Titanic were found in 1985 by Dr. Robert Ballard, an oceanographer and marine
biologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. When he located
the Titanic, he saw that, as some survivors reported, the ship
had broken apart. He believed the weight of the water-filled bow raised the
stern out of the water and snapped the ship in two just before it sank.
Debris falling out of the ship was strewn over a 1/2 mile across the sea
floor. The bow and the stern were found nearly 2000ft. apart. Keeping her location a secret, Bob Ballard used GPS to find
theTitanic again when he returned the next year. He hoped to
prevent treasure seekers from finding her and plundering the ship for booty
such as coffee cups inscribed with RMS Titanic. On this second
expedition, he visited the ship several times by submarine. On his last
descent, he left a plaque honoring the 1500 victims and asking that
subsequent explorers leave their grave undisturbed. Find the Titanic again! 1. Eventually Bob Ballard released the coordinates of
the Titanic's location. He recorded her coordinates as, stern
section sits on ocean floor at 41o43'35" N, 49o56'54"
W, boilers at 41o43'32" N, 49o56'49" W, bow
at 41o43'57" N, 49o56'49" W. Find these
coordinates and trace the outline of the sunken pieces of the Titanic on
a chart of the North Atlantic. 2. How far is it from its plotted course? At the time of the
accident, the ship was reported to be at 41o46' N, 50o 14'
W. (She was found 13½ miles southeast of the position given in her
lastdistress call.) 3. Discuss the fact that satellite technology through GPS
can pinpoint any position on Earth to within 30 feet. In 1912, navigation
techniques of dead reckoning and celestial navigation could only give one
an approximate location within several miles of one's true position.If theTitanic had
had better navigational aids, could its passengers have all been saved?
Could it even have avoided the iceberg? 4. Track the route she took from England to New York in
April, 1912. She started from Southampton, England, and stopped at
Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland to pick up passengers. Her
destination was New York. She sank 1000 miles due east of Boston,
Massachusetts, and 375 miles southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland. Unsinkable challenge Build an unsinkable boat. What would it be made of? How
would it be shaped? How will you test your hypothesis? How much weight
("passengers") could it carry? How far can it tip to the side
before it flips? Reliving the moment Draw a picture of the Titanic on that
fateful night, using literature connection references. Information that
should be incorporated into the work: It was night. There were icebergs. As
the bow sank, the stern lifted farther and farther out of the
water."Just before the ship disappeared entirely," according to
Bob Ballard,"Many eyewitnesses agreed that the ship in fact broke in
two, the bow plunging down while the stern briefly righted itself before
turning almost vertical and sinking a few moments later." Detail what it might have been like aboard the Titanic between
11:40PM (when the ship gently grazed the iceberg) to 2:18 AM when it
disappeared below the sea. Or draw an illustration of Jason finding the bow of
the Titanic at the bottom of the sea at a depth of 12,460
ft. The ship was found in several pieces. Draw what the Titanic might
look like after another 100 years on the ocean floor. Lifeboats How many lifeboats were needed? TheTitanic was
owned by the British White Star Line, flew the British flag,and thus was
under the rules and regulations of the British government. Although she was
originally designed to carry 42 lifeboats, the ship carried only 20
lifeboats (four more than were required at the time by British regulations)
for the 2,228 passengers and crew. (That number could supposedly hold 1,178
people.) The original designer of theTitanic had proposed 50
lifeboats, but the British owners of the White Star Line had decided
against it. (If it had been under US Government regulation at the time, 42
lifeboats, enough to accommodate 2,367 persons would have been required for
a ship that size.) Only 705 people were rescued; 1523 drowned or froze to death
in the icy water. Ironically, most of those who drowned were Americans.
Assuming that each lifeboat could hold 65 people, how many lifeboats did
they need? Unfortunately, the 20 lifeboats on board were launched in panic
before they were filled to capacity, so the number of people rescued was
even fewer than could have been accommodated. Only 705 of 2,227 people on board survived. What percentage
is that? Women Men Total & Children First class 94% 31% 60% Second class 81% 10% 44% Steerage 47% 14% 25% Crew 87% 22% 24% Analyze these statistics. What do these figures tell you
about the policy of saving women and children first, how social standing
and wealth influenced who was rescued, and the tradition that the crew
usually went down with the ship? Many of the poorest people were not aware
of the seriousness of the damage to the Titanic until
shortly before it sank.