to leave their husbands Others may have believed the ship would stay afloat for many hours A rescue ship would surely arrive before the Titanic sank Although some men were allowed to board lifeboats when women did not claim vacant seats most boats were not filled to capacity when they were lowered into the ocean The officers were afraid that the davits that supported the lifeboats as they descended to the water would break if all the available places were occupied At regular intervals the crew launched flaring rockets as distress signals to catch the notice of any nearby vessels The ship's wireless telegraph machine operators continuously sent out messages asking for help Despite these measures of hope it eventually became apparent that no help would arrive in time At 2 05 AM less than three hours after the collision the last lifeboat was lowered Hundreds of people remained on board the Titanic Passengers in the boats watched in anguish as the ship's bow fell deeper into the ocean while its stern rear rose into the air They heard a terrible crash as the Titanic's furniture its light fixtures its decorations and its kitchen equipment slid toward the bow Those stranded on the ship struggled to keep their balance on the tilting deck Many fell into the sea Others held on until the last possible minute J Bruce Ismay the managing director of the White Star Line huddled in one of the lifeboats Almost five years earlier he had helped develop the idea for a luxury ship that would surpass everything else on the ocean As the end approached he was helping to row the boat away He did not see the Titanic's final moments By contrast seventeen year old Jack Thayer struggling in the water saw it all Years later he recalled watching as one of the funnels seemed to be WHAT DAMAGE DID THE TITANIC SUSTAIN or many years historians believed that the iceberg with which the Titanic collided opened a 300 foot 91 meter gash in the Titanic's side Recent evidence however questions this conclusion It appears that the ship's rivets gave way opening up a number of small holes Although the damage would not have appeared great at first intense water pressure forced the seawater through the openings at an incredibly rapid rate 10 ICEBERG RIGHT AHEAD
lifted off and fell towards me about fifteen yards 14 m away with a mass of sparks and steam coming out of it I saw the ship in a sort of red glare and it seemed to me that she broke in two just in front of the third funnel The resulting waves swamped Jack pulling him helplessly under the water when he surfaced again his hand struck against an overturned lifeboat A man on top of the boat pulled Jack aboard From his precarious perch Jack watched in fascinated horror as the Titanic finally went down Pull for your lives or you'll be sucked under cried a crew member who commanded another lifeboat Numb with cold and shock many women forced themselves to ply the oars Marian Thayer joined the effort unaware of the fate of her husband or son Almost all the women had been separated from a husband a father a brother or an adult son All they could do was row and wait and pray Iceberg Right
CHAPTER ONE THE BIGGEST SHIP IN THE WORLD One hundred years earlier no one could have imagined a steamship as spectacular fast or safe as the Titanic was meant to be The first Steamship to cross the Atlantic the SS Savannah was actually a hybrid powered both by sails and by a steam engine Despite praise from the New York Mercantile Advertiser the public was reluctant to book passage Sailors similarly cautious had misgivings about signing on with a ships nicknamed the steam coffin What if the engine broke Would the steamy driven paddle wheels be safe in a storm Could sparks from an engine start a fire 12
After a good deal of difficulty the Savannah Steamship Company managed to assemble a crew On May 22 1819 the ship set sail from Georgia Twenty nine days and four hours later she docked in Liverpool England The ship went on to receive enthusiastic receptions in Sweden Russia Norway and Denmark But despite the excitement the venture did not meet with financial success Eventually the company sold the ship Eighteen years passed before the SS Great Western launched on July 19 1837 from Bristol England The age of transatlantic steamship travel was about to begin in earnest But ocean crossings still left a great deal to be desired When British author Charles Dickens sailed to the United States in 1842 he had a miserable experience The passenger areas were cramped The deck was cluttered with crates and chicken coops Dickens described one room as a gigantic hearse with windows on the sides Water seeped in through cracks in the smoking den often soaking the entire room Conditions improved steadily however as steamships became faster and more convenient In 1870 a British shipping company named White Star launched the most comfortable seagoing vessel yet Sometimes called the Mother of Modern Liners the Oceanic featured promenade decks for lounging or strolling in the fresh air spacious rooms and running water Following up with other state of the art vessels White Star gained a reputation for fast enjoyable journeys Its Britannic and Germanic broke records by completing the run from Britain to the United States in slightly over a week White Star's growing success prompted competition Although Britain was the undisputed leader in transatlantic travel Germany decided to enter the race too The new German liners offered roomy pleasant quarters and cut travel time even further Rising to the challenge another British shipping company Cunard built two massive and well appointed ships the Lusitania and Mauretania As the date for the Lusitania's maiden voyage across the Atlantic approached the splendid vessel was the talk of the shipping industry Sailors and maritime experts expected the ship to best all previous records officials at White Star felt the challenge keenly AMBITIOUS PLANS On a summer night in 1907 two men met at a mansion in London England to discuss how the White Star Line should respond to its rival s widely The Biggest Ship in the World 13
