Sinking Of The Titanic Essay

The Titanic was the largest ship ever built back in the year of 1912. With the ship weighing 46,000 tons and almost 900 feet long it was deemed to be unsinkable. On April 12, 1912, the ship pulled away from the dock with 2,200 passengers of all different classes from rich to poor. On its maiden voyage, tragedy struck when it hit an iceberg along its travel. How did this ship that was declared to be unsinkable sink exactly? Human factors and the way the ship was built caused the tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic.

The use of faulty materials on the ship was a huge factor of the Titanic sinking. People wonder if good enough rivets were used on the ship. For many decades, scientists have argued if the cause of the ocean water washing in was due to the ship builder using substandard rivets that popped their heads within the impact of the iceberg (Broad, William J). Scientists looked into disclosed government papers finding that Harland and Wolff went to different suppliers of rivet iron. The company should have ordered the No.4 bar which was the best iron then but the ordered a lower standard iron bar No. 3. The company at the time was also had a short amount of skilled riveters of which on October 28, 1911, Lord William Pirrie, the company’s chairman, stated that they were seeking for more riveters due to the lack of them in the company. On

the central hull of the ship, steel rivets were used. Iron rivets were used for the stern and bow of the ship of where the iceberg hit. Six seams were opened on the bow plates and where the rivets were transitioned from iron to steel is where the damage stopped.
Communication on that night took a turn for the worst. Captain Edward John Smith meant to turn left but was told to “hard a starboard” which means to turn the wheel right under the Tiller system and left under the rubber(Titanic Sunk by Steering Blunder). The iceberg was first spotted 2 miles away by First Officer William Murdoch. It was too late for him to turn left when he was told right away to turn in the other direction. The side of the starboard bow was ripped out by the iceberg. The Titanic continued on its voyage at a slower speed instead of stopping and waiting to be rescued. Even if the ship stayed at a complete stop, the ship would have sank in the same amount of time that it did either way.
The ship was supposedly equipped with turn-of-the-century technology. They used the Marconi radio system which was installed a few weeks before the ship set sail. As you can tell now, it was not the best radio technology they had as they inquired. Before the Titanic hit the iceberg, an operator tried to contact the ship about dangerous icebergs they were heading towards. The message got jammed due to another message trying to be sent at the same time. So the message was never received (Radio and the Titanic).
Binoculars were not to be found that night in the crow’s nest.

Officer David Blair had the key to the locker that held the binoculars. David only sailed from Belfast to Southampton for the maiden voyage and when he left the ship he did not advise anyone on where the binoculars were. Since there were no other binoculars they had to rely on their eyes. But when they saw the iceberg it was too late to make any drastic calls which resulted in them hitting the iceberg. Fred fleet, who was one of the survivors from the tragedy, spoke that if they had the key to the binoculars they could have avoided the iceberg (Tibbetts,

Graham).