RMS Titanic Story: Written by Tony SL-Name : Tres Trefusis

The RMS Titanic has been called the Ship of Dreams. She is perhaps the most famous cruise ship in all the world. Titanic was conceived by Head of the White Star Line Bruce Ismay and Harland and Wolff Architect Thomas Andrews. The construction of Titanic started on March 31, 1909. She was to be the largest ship ever built. Titanic was eight hundred eighty two feet and nine inches long, ninety-two ft and six inches wide and had a height from waterline to boat deck of sixty feet. She was built in the Harland and Wollfe shipyards at a cost of nearly 7.5 million dollars. That's roughly 450 million dollars today. On May 31 1911 her hull was launched and the outfitting of the ship began. On March 31 1912, Titanic was finished. She could hold a total of three thousand five hundred and forty-seven passengers and crew. Because Titanic also carried the mail she was given the prefix RMS or Royal Mail Steamer, as well as SS or Steam Ship. For the time Titanic eclipsed nearly all standards of opulence and luxury.
 
On board was a gymnasium, a Turkish bath, squash court and two libraries, but nowhere was the sheer beauty of the Titanic more apparent than at the Grand Staircase on A deck. A French Cafe', the Cafe' Parisien, offered cuisine for the first-class passengers on A deck, as well as the first-class dining salon on B deck. Not only was the Titanic in a sense a floating five star hotel, but it was also believed to be utterly unsinkable due to the implication of sixteen water tight bulkheads below the waterline. If an object collided with the ship, these doors would be lowered, sealing off the damaged section. Titanic set sail for the first time on April, 10, 1912. She left from Southampton, England at noon bound for New York, New York. Some of the most prominent people in the world were traveling first class on her maiden voyage. These included millionaire John Jacob Astor and his wife Madeline, Benjamin Guggenheim, the owner of Macy's Department Store, Isidor Strauss and his wife Ida, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife Lucille, perhaps the richest man in the world, William Thomas Stead, U.S. Presidential aide Archibald Butt White Star Line Owner Bruce Ismay and the architect himself, Thomas Andrews.
 
Titanic steamed through the English Channel and stopped by Cherbourg, France to pick up additional passengers. Then she turned for Queenstown, Ireland where she picked up yet more passengers. Titanic left Ireland for the open seas of the Atlantic on April 11, 1912. There were an estimated two thousand two hundred twenty seven souls aboard. The Titanic enjoyed calm seas and smooth sailing for two days, April 12th and 13th and then on the 14th she received the first of six warnings of ice ahead. However, due to pressure from the Owner of the Line, Bruce Ismay, Captain of the Titanic Edward Smith did not slow down the ship. In fact, if the Captain were to have charted out the field of ice as described by all six messages he would have seen an ice field of immense proportions. ...however he did not. On April 14, 1912 at approximately 11:30 P.M. the lookout called down to the bridge with a call of "Iceberg dead ahead!" First Officer William Murdoch was on duty and called for "hard a port" or turn right and all engines "full astern" or reverse. The Titanic turned very slowly... but could not clear the berg; most passengers scarcely felt a thing; a small bump or scraping noise as if someone were running their fingernails down the side of the ship, certainly no cause for alarm. Within moments of the collision Captain Smith summoned the ship's architect to "sound the ship" or make sure she was alright.
 
What Thomas Andrews told him would shock the world. Titanic was sinking. The iceberg had torn a nearly three hundred foot gash in her left side below the waterline. This gash breached five of the sixteen watertight compartments... five was one too many. With five compartments flooded the bow, or front of the ship, would sink enough into the water that the water would flow from one compartment to another in a relentless cycle. Thomas Andrews gave the Titanic two, perhaps two and a half hours. This news swept over everyone in the small room with great force. Since the ship was deemed unsinkable, the White Star Line had removed many of the 48 original lifeboats because the deck looked too cluttered. They left her with only twenty, enough to save only fifty-two percent of the two thousand two hundred and twenty seven people on board. At 1205 April 15th 1912 Captain Smith gave the order to begin filling the lifeboats with women and children, but the crew found it hard to talk the passengers into getting into the boats. No one believed the ship could sink. Many of them thought it was absurd to ask them to leave the warmth of the ship for the icy cold of the open sea. The air temperature was nearly freezing, and the water was twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. This resulted in many of the lifeboats leaving unfilled, one with a capacity of sixty-eight had only seventeen people aboard.
 
Soon it became apparent that the ship was in distress as the bow sank lower and lower into the water. At 1225 the Carpathia, a Cunard Liner, picked up Titanic's distress call and turned toward her at more than her top speed. ...but she was still more than four hours away. At 2:05 a.m. the last lifeboat left the ship, leaving more than fifteen hundred people on Titanic's decks. The stern, or back of the ship, began to tilt upwards. At 2:18 A.M. the ship's hull couldn't take the stress anymore and buckled, splitting between the third and fourth funnel down to the keel. The bow section quickly sank, and the stern fell back level. It floated there for nearly a minute and then tipped straight up on its end. Then the stern began its final plunge. At 2:20 a.m. April 15, 1912 the last of Titanic slipped beneath the waves leaving over fifteen hundred people stranded in the icy water. Water of that temperature can kill in fifteen to twenty minutes and the passengers and crew quickly succumbed to the bitter cold. Though there was room in the life boats for perhaps another seven to eight hundred people only one boat went back to pick up survivors, led by Fifth Officer Lowe, but even he waited too late. He picked up seven only seven people who were alive, the other seventeen hundred had frozen to death. The passengers in the lifeboats were afraid that if they rushed to the aid of their fellow passengers they would be swamped and overturned by the desperate people in the water.
 
Many of the survivors were haunted by the screams of their fellow passengers for the remainder of their lives. At 3:30 a.m. the passengers in the lifeboats sighted the first rocket from the Carpathia as she steamed to the rescue. At 4:10 a.m. April 15th 1912 the Carpathia picked up the first lifeboat from Titanic. Many of the women on board Carpathia found themselves widows. Most of the men had stayed behind, and most of them did not survive. Among the male survivors was Bruce Ismay, who jumped into the last lifeboat just before it was to be lowered. It was a decision that haunted him the rest of his days. Thomas Andrews stayed onboard the ship, as did Captain Smith and perished. Of the nearly eight hundred crew, only about two hundred survived that fateful night. The Carpathia turned and steamed for New York, New York. She arrived in New York Harbor 8:50 a.m. and the world watched in silence as she lowered Titanic's lifeboats in the massive docking area meant for the grand ship. In the months following the disaster both a Congressional Inquiry and British Trade Inquiry were conducted, interviewing the witnesses of the disaster. Because of the Titanic's sinking the laws for life boats required aboard a vessel were changed to better protect people on board in case of an accident, laws that are still in effect today.
 
The North Atlantic Ice Patrol was created to chart and locate icebergs and report their positions seasonally. Captain Arthur Henry Rostron of the Carpathia was later a guest of President Taft and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions that night. Though she sank in 1912 the RMS Titanic lives on in the minds of millions. Movies have been made, Museums erected, books have been written, and now a virtual model has been constructed, one of the finest models in the world, and it's available to the public on Linden Labs' virtual world of the future, Second Life. Come and live a dream on the Ship of Dreams, dance in the elegant ballroom, walk down the magnificent grand stair case, run on up to the Cafe' Parisien and have tea with a friend, or stand on the bridge and imagine what it would be like to be Captain. Or what about giving your beloved one and yourself The wedding of your dreams..... on the Ship of Dreams. Within Second Life you are only limited by your imagination. Come join us sometime on the Ship of Dreams, as she floats upon an ocean of memories...
Written by Tony SL-Name : Tres Trefusis