 | Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters |  |
FACTS ABOUT THE WRECK OF THE TITANIC
NUMBER of persons aboard, 2340.
Number of life-boats and rafts, 20.
Capacity of each life-boat, 50 passengers and crew of 8.
Utmost capacity of life-boats and rafts, about 1100.
Number of life-boats wrecked in launching, 4.
Capacity of life-boats safely launched, 928.
Total number of persons taken in life-boats, 711.
Number who died in life-boats, 6.
Total number saved, 705.
Total number of Titanic's company lost, 1635.
The cause of the disaster was a collision with an iceberg in latitude 41.46 north, longitude 50.14 west. The Titanic had had repeated warnings of the presence of ice in that part of the course. Two official warnings had been received defining the position of the ice fields. It had been calculated on the Titanic that she would reach the ice fields about 11 o'clock Sunday night. The collision occurred at 11.40. At that time the ship was driving at a speed of 21 to 23 knots, or about 26 miles, an hour.
There had been no details of seamen assigned to each boat.
Some of the boats left the ship without seamen enough to man the oars.
Some of the boats were not more than half full of passengers.
The boats had no provisions, some of them had no water stored, some were without sail equipment or compasses.
In some boats, which carried sails wrapped and bound, there was not a person with a knife to cut the ropes. In some boats the plugs in the bottom had been pulled out and the women passengers were compelled to thrust their hands into the holes to keep the boats from filling and sinking.
The captain, E. J. Smith, admiral of the White Star fleet, went down with his ship.
| Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters | |