LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Titanic: Ships
built 236 days ago
On September 1, 1985, the wreck of the Titanic was found lying upright in two pieces on the ocean floor at a depth of about 13,000 feet (4,000 metres). The ship, located at about 41°46¢ N 50°14¢ W, was subsequently explored several times by manned and unmanned submersibles under the direction of American and French scientists. The expeditions found no sign of the long gash previously thought to have been ripped in the ship's hull by the iceberg. The scientists posited instead that the collision's impact had produced a series of thin gashes as well as brittle fracturing and separation of seams in the adjacent hull plates... allowing water to flood in and sink the ship. In subsequent years marine salvagers raised small artifacts from the wreckage and even attempted to lift a large piece of the hull.
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Built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, the Titanic was the largest passenger steamship in the world at the time of her sinking. During the Titanic's maiden voyage (from Southampton, England to Cherbourg, France, then on to Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland and finally New York City), she struck an iceberg at 23:40 (ship's time) on Sunday April 14,1912, sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 on Monday April 15, having broken into two pieces at the aft expansion joint.
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The Titanic struck the fateful iceberg on her starboard bow. The ice did not rip a gash in the ship's side, as is often reported, but slightly buckled the riveted hull plates, opening several compartments to the sea. The Titanic would stay afloat under any conditions with two compartments completely flooded. Given the dead calm conditions of that fateful evening, she might well have survived with four bow compartments flooded. Unfortunately, five compartments were open to the sea and the inflow of water exceeded her pumping capacity. Within 20 minutes of the collision, Captain Smith and Thomas Anderson (see below) knew the ship was doomed.
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The Titanic saga seems unending. It continually fascinates as a microcosm of the Edwardian world of the early twentieth century. The wealth and status of its passengers, like John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Isadore and Ida Straus, and Charles Thayer, represent the equivalents of rock music, entertainment, and sports figures. The Titanic story has something for everyone—the ultimate shipwreck, strictures against overconfidence in technology, the results of greed and rampant capitalism, and what-ifs and might-have-beens. The Titanic, if sinkable in reality, remains unsinkable in cultural memory and imagination.
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The Titanic was widely considered "unsinkable", and these remotely-operated water-tight doors were one of the reasons. Fifteen of these transverse bulkheads divided the hull into 16 compartments. The compartments were not strictly watertight, since the bulkheads extended up well above the waterline but were not sealed. It needs to be emphasized that the design of the ship was extremely conservative by the most modern standards for passenger vessels. In any situation, the Titanic would fair better than a modern passenger liner with respect to surviving a collision. In fact, during her sea trials, the Olympic collided with a British cruiser, the Hawk.
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Stonehenge, the new boxed game from Titanic, is now shipping. This Anthology Board Game™ is by a host of famous game designers: Richard Garfield, Bruno Faidutti, James Ernest, Mike Selinker, and Richard Borg. Check out the Stonehenge Design Diary for more information!
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