SOUNDINGS

No. 06 · Olympic-class ocean liner

RMS Titanic

Lost 15 April 1912 · North Atlantic · about 3,800 m

The largest ship afloat when she sailed in 1912, Titanic sank on her maiden voyage after striking an iceberg, with the loss of about 1,500 lives.

Flag
United Kingdom (White Star Line)
Built
Harland & Wolff, Belfast, 1909–1912
Length
about 269 m
Aboard
about 2,200
Lives lost
about 1,500 (counts range 1,490–1,517)
Survived
about 705–712
Position
41°43.5′ N, 49°56.8′ W
Lies at
about 3,800 m, mud
NEWFOUNDLANDNOVA SCOTIAGrand Banks58°W56°W54°W52°W50°W48°W46°W42°N44°N46°N0100 nautical milesRMS Titanicabout 3,800 mN
North Atlantic, about 600 km south-south-east of Newfoundland, on her maiden voyage.
RMS Titanic departing Southampton
RMS Titanic departing Southampton. Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart, 1912 · Public domain

Four days out from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York, Titanic was crossing a calm, moonless sea at speed. She carried lifeboat places for about half the people aboard, which met the regulations of the day.

Cause. She struck an iceberg, which opened at least five of her forward watertight compartments, and sank about two hours and forty minutes later.

Plate · elevation, starboard side

The ship

TITANICTITANIC AB

Load waterline

A The bridge, the first funnel and the forward lifeboats
B The stern: docking bridge, cranes, rudder and centre propeller

Elevation, starboard side

The last hours

Ship drawn to scale; the water below is not.

  1. 14 April 1912, 23:39

    Iceberg, right ahead

    Lookout Frederick Fleet saw an iceberg directly ahead and telephoned the bridge. First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship turned.

  2. 23:40

    The collision

    The iceberg scraped along her starboard side below the waterline and opened the forward compartments to the sea.

  3. 15 April, about 00:05

    Boats uncovered

    After her designer Thomas Andrews reported that she would sink, Captain Edward Smith ordered the boats prepared and distress calls sent.

  4. 00:45

    The first boat

    Lifeboat No. 7 left with about 28 people in it, far below its capacity. Distress rockets were fired over the next hour.

  5. 02:05

    The last boat

    Collapsible D was the last boat lowered from the davits. There was room in the boats for only about half of those aboard.

  6. 02:20

    She goes down

    The ship broke apart and sank. Most of those still aboard died in the freezing water.

  7. About 04:00

    Carpathia

    The Cunard liner Carpathia arrived at about four in the morning and over the next hours took aboard everyone in the boats, about 710 people.

500 m · 273 fm
1,000 m · 547 fm
1,500 m · 820 fm
2,000 m · 1,094 fm
2,500 m · 1,367 fm
3,000 m · 1,640 fm
3,500 m · 1,914 fm

Below about 200 m almost all sunlight is gone. This is where the twilight zone begins.

Below 1,000 m no sunlight reaches at all: the midnight zone. The only light is made by living things.

At 3,800 m the pressure is about 381 times what it is at the surface.

M 1Empty davits2Where funnel no. 1 stood3Foremast, fallen across the bridge4Forefoot buried in mud5Torn away here
  1. Empty davits
  2. Where funnel no. 1 stood
  3. Foremast, fallen across the bridge
  4. Forefoot buried in mud
  5. Torn away here

Elevation, starboard side, as found.M mud · about 3,800 m

As found

Where she lies

She lies upright in two main pieces about 600 m apart. The bow is fairly intact; the stern is badly collapsed. Iron-eating bacteria grow over the steel as 'rusticles', and parts of the decks have fallen in since 1985.

Found

Found on 1 September 1985 by a French–American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of Woods Hole. Their towed camera sled Argo saw debris, then a boiler, and followed the trail to the hull.

Today

A memorial site, protected under the 2001 UNESCO Convention on underwater cultural heritage since 2012 and by an agreement between the UK and the US.

Sources