On 31 March 1909, the first keel plates were laid in yard 401 at Harland & Wolff’s Belfast, Northern Ireland shipyard.  The construction of the second of three huge 45,000 ton plus “Olympic” class liners for the White Star Line had commenced.

The new liner was launched on 31 May 1911 and completed on 31 March 1912, exactly 3 years after her keel plates were laid.  After a brief series of tests, she was handed over to White Star on 2 April 1912 and spent her first night at sea on the journey from Belfast to her UK base of Southampton on the night of 2/3 April, arriving shortly after mid-day and passing her sister ship “Olympic” in the English Channel.  “Olympic was outbound for Cherbourg, Queenstown (now Cobh) on the south coast of Ireland and New York.

Easter fell over the weekend of 6/7 April in 1912 and for a week, she was docked at Southampton signing on her crew and provisioning for her maiden voyage under the command of White Star’s senior Captain, Edward J. Smith.  By long-standing tradition Smith always commanded new White Star ships on their maiden voyages, and it was rumoured that he was to retire after this return crossing.

She sailed at 1pm on Wednesday 10 April 1912, scheduled to call at Cherbourg in France that evening and Queenstown the next morning before setting off across the Atlantic to New York, with a scheduled arrival date of Tuesday 16 April.  She called at Cherbourg and Queenstown as planned, but after sailing westward from Queenstown, she would next be seen 73½ years later, in September 1985.

At 11.40pm on Sunday 14 April, she collided with an iceberg, sustaining underwater damage to six of her sixteen watertight compartments.  She had been designed to remain afloat with any four of her first five compartments breached, but not all five.  The weight of water flooding into the hull forward would pull her down at the bow until the water spilled over the top of the bulkhead into the sixth compartment, then the seventh and so on until she sank.

The ship was carrying 2,206 passengers and crew, but the 16 wooden and 4 collapsible canvas lifeboats could accommodate only 1,178, little more than half the total number aboard.  1,503 lives were lost in this famous disaster.

The name of this ill-fated giant was R.M.S. Titanic.

Peter : Can't see the picture, dear. You could use for exp. photobucket dot com. Up load pictures there and then copy a code and paste it on your journal then the picture will apprear.

Pete - in Photobucket, use the HTML code to copy/paste into journal entries, and the IMG code for the forums.

All the best mate!

Sorry folks, it's all too complicated for me, you'll have to make do with a description of the proposed picture, a B&W photo of Titanic's stern view taken at Southampton on the day she sailed 10 April 1912.

can't see the picture ja

www.photobucket.com open free account. Follow instructions to upload pics. After pics are uploaded you will see them on your page. each pic (when you are signed in) will have a box under it with four different types of links. use the HTML code to copy/paste into journal entries, and the IMG code for the forums. Just clicking on the code you want will automatically copy it to clipboard. One note, make sure pic isn't too wide for journal or forum, they don't auto re-size.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/strange/themasudi/odd-bed.jpg?o=6