Titanic: The (Un)sinkable Ship

The sinking of the Titanic will forever go down in history as an astounding calamity and massive technological failure. At the time, the doomed steam liner was the largest of its kind measuring in at a record breaking 883 feet in length. This being somewhat of a modern marvel of the time, the media covered this ship like a blanket of snow. The Titanic, prior to its demise, was tracked since the time it was built; at its launch from Belfast Lough, a large, intertidal sea inlet on the east coast of Northern Ireland, to its cold and miserable end, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.

From the start, over 100,000 spectators from across Ireland came to watch as the Titanic set sail at 12:15 p.m., May 31, 1911. Once in the water, the ship was then towed to a fitting-up berth where it spent the next year being fitted for its turbines, auxiliary and other machinery. During this time, the press decorated the papers with talk of this aquatic behemoth, comparing its size to skyscrapers and its ingenuity to monuments such as the Great Pyramids and St. Peter’s Church in Rome.

On April 2, 1912, the Titanic left Belfast for Southampton, England where it stayed before starting its maiden voyage for New York. During its time in England, the ship was available for viewing by paying members of the public. This gave the citizens a look into the magnificence that the Titanic had to offer and was the first time that people could see it outside the pages of a newspaper.

Finally, on April 10, 1912, the Titanic left the docks and made its way to Cherbourg, its first stop on its voyage, but things didn’t go as well as expected. Upon setting sail, the gigantic steam liner nearly crashed into it a docked ship, the New York. It came within four feet of the ship, creating an undertow, snapping six of the mooring ropes and sucking the New York towards the Titanic. “A disaster was narrowly avoided,” wrote the Calgary Daily Herald. The paper quoted a witness on the shore: “The tugs Neptune and Vulcan raced at the New York, caught her with ropes by the bows and stern, and tried to tow her back to her place.” At this point, the launch of the Titanic was already world news.

The papers between Europe and the United States were anxiously awaiting to see how well this leviathan of steam and steel would do in the icy north Atlantic waters. But no one ever expected that this world famous ship would forever be inscribed in history as a world famous catastrophe.

Thanks to James Cameron, we all know how the maiden voyage of the Titanic fared. But before the news of the Titanic was confirmed, the crew had placed a CQD distress call at 10:25 p.m. on April 14 that was picked up by the media, saying that they had struck an iceberg. Immediately, the news outlets, believing that the ship was truly unsinkable, starting running stories as if the ship was hit but not sunk. “All saved from Titanic after collision,” said the Evening Sun. “Passengers safely moved and steamer Titanic taken in tow,” wrote the Christian Science Monitor. British newspapers reported that messages arriving from Newfoundland were “reassuring” and quoted A.S. Franklin, vice president of the International Mercantile Marine, as saying “We have nothing direct from the Titanic, but are perfectly satisfied that the vessel is unsinkable.”

Carr Van Anda, the New York Times’ managing editor, was the only one who did not believe the reassuring statement. Acting on the belief that the Titanic’s silence meant it had sunk with most of her 2208 passengers, he wrote headlines that anticipated the worst: “New Liner Titanic Hits an Iceberg; Sinking by the Bow at Midnight; Women Put Off in Lifeboats; Last Wireless at 12:27 a.m. Blurred”

As we know, the rest is history. The ship sunk, and the Carpathia hauled the survivors back to New York. This entire saga of the Titanic was tracked by the media from start to end. It was a spectacle that attracted the attention of millions across the globe and taught journalists a harsh lesson in trusting one’s gut over the predictions of a company.