Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the morning hours of April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg on her first trip from Southampton to New York City. More than 1,500 of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew onboard drowned, making the sinking one of the worst commercial maritime disasters in modern history in peacetime. By the time she entered service, Titanic was the largest ship on the float and the second of the White Star Line 's three Olympic-class ocean liners.She was built by Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff. Thomas Andrews, the shipyard 's chief naval architect at the time, died in the catastrophe.
Titanic Captain Edward Smith, who also descended on the ship. The ocean liner transported some of the world's richest men, as well as hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere across Europe seeking a new life in the US. The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, featuring a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. There was a high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter available for sending "marconigrams" to passengers and for operational use by the ship. Titanic had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and watertight doors that were remotely activated, it only carried enough lifeboats for about half the number on board for 1,178 people, and one third of its total capacity due to the maritime safety regulations. The ship carried 16 lifeboat-davits for a total of 48 boats which could lower three lifeboats each. Titanic, however, carried only a total of twenty lifeboats, four of which were collapsible and proved difficult to launch during sinking.
Titanic was laid out in a much lighter style, similar to that of a high-class contemporary hotel. The Ritz Hotel became a reference point — with Empire-style First Class cabins built. Various other decorative styles, ranging from the Renaissance to Louis XV, have been used to decorate ship's First and Second Class areas with cabins and public rooms.
Although Titanic was primarily a passenger liner, she was carrying a significant amount of cargo, too. Her designation as a Royal Mail Ship (RMS) indicated she had been carrying mail with the Royal Mail under contract. It has allocated 26,800 cubic feet of space in her holds for the storage of letters, parcels and specie. Five postal clerks occupied the Sea Post Office on G Deck; three Americans and two Britons, who worked 13 hours a day , seven days a week, sorting up to 60,000 pieces a day.
The sheer size of Titanic and her sister ships posed a major engineering challenge for Harland and Wolff; no shipbuilder had ever attempted to build vessels of this size before. The ships were built on Queen's Island in Belfast Harbour, now known as the Titanic Quarter. Harland and Wolff had to demolish three existing slipways and build two new ones, the largest ever built up to that time, to accommodate both ships. Their construction was facilitated by a huge portal built by Sir William Arrol & Co., a Scottish company responsible for the construction of the Forth Bridge and the Tower Bridge in London.The Arrol Gantry was 69 meters high, 82 meters wide and 260 meters long, and weighed over 6,000 tonnes. It fitted in with a number of mobile cranes. A separate floating crane was brought in from Germany, capable of raising 200 tonnes.
Titanic's trials at sea started at 6 a.m. On Tuesday 2 April 1912, just two days after she had completed her fitting out and eight days before she was due to leave Southampton on her maiden voyage. Thanks to bad weather, the trials were postponed for a day but it was clear and fair by Monday morning.The sea trials consisted of several tests of her handling characteristics, performed first in Belfast Lough and then in the Irish Sea open waters. Over the course of about 12 hours, Titanic was driven at different speeds, her turning ability was tested and a "crash stop" was performed in which the engines were reversed full ahead to full astern, bringing her to a stop in 850 yd (777 m) or 3 minutes and 15 seconds. The ship covered a distance of about 80 nautical miles (150 km), averaging 18 knots (33 km / h) and reaching a maximum speed of just under 21 knots (39 km / h).
Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Cobh in Ireland, before heading west to New York, after leaving Southampton on 10 April. She hit an iceberg at 11:40 am on April 14, four days into the crossing and about 600 km south of Newfoundland. It's ship time. The collision caused the hull plates to buckle inward along its right side and opened to the sea five of its seventeen watertight compartments; only four floods could survive.In the meantime passengers and some members of the crew were rescued in lifeboats, many of which were only partially filled. Due to a "first woman and children" protocol for loading lifeboats, a disproportionate number of men were left on board. At 2:20 a.m., she broke apart and founded with over a thousand people still on board. The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived just under two hours after Titanic sank and carried an estimated 705 survivors onboard.
The disaster was met with shock and outrage worldwide over the huge loss of life, as well as the regulatory and operational failures that led to it. Public investigations in Britain and the United States have resulted in significant changes in maritime safety.