An American writer named Morgan Robertson once wrote a book called The Wreck of the Titan. It was about a ship called the Titan that set sail from England to New York with many rich and famous passengers on board. On its journey, the Titan hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sunk. Many passengers did not survive because there were not enough lifeboats for everyone. Ironically, The Wreck of the Titan was written 14 years before the actual Titanic sank and they have many similarities. I will discuss the Titanic itself, the sinking of the ship, and lastly the movie that was made in 1997.
When the Titanic was being built it was supposed to be one of the safest ships ever created. At the current time the Titanic was the biggest existing ship and the biggest moveable object ever built. It was 882 feet long and weighed about 46,000 tons. It was made to hold about 3,205 people. All first class parlor suites came with wardrobe room and private baths. Second class passengers had to share bathrooms and privacy was hard to come by. Third class passengers slept on bunk beds. Just like the second class passengers they too had to share a bathroom except the number of people sharing was much higher in third class. They were provided only two bathtubs, one for the men and one for the women. The bottom of the ship was divided into six-teen watertight compartments that were equipped with automatic water tight doors.
These automatic doors could be immediately closed if water were to enter the compartments. These safety features concluded that the Titanic would be the safest sailing ship calling it “unsinkable”.
I will now go into detail about the tragedy that occurred and how the ship sunk the morning of April 1912. The departure of the ship left Ireland on April 10 and was headed towards New York. It was said the weather was perfect for sailing light winds and calm ocean. Just four days on the journey the trip took a turn for the worst. On Sunday, April 14, 2012 the Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Some of the ships watertight compartments were punctured and the first five compartments quickly filled with water. The distress rockets were fired but there were no ships close enough to arrive on time. As the ship started sinking some passengers had no place to go because there were only 20 lifeboats on the ship. The lifeboats were filled with woman and children first. It was reported that 1,522 passengers lost their lives that day. On Monday, the ship had broken in half and started slowly slipping under water. The Titanic’s distress call was answered and they arrived to rescue the floating lifeboats.
I will now discuss the movie that was made about the Titanic. The movie was written, produced and directed by James Cameron. Cameron set out to write a film that would bring the event of the Titanic to life. He spent much time researching so the film would be realistic. The movie had a 250 million dollar budget. Cameron has a full sized replica of the ship made in Mexico. The Titanic was nominated for a record eight Golden Globe Awards just a few weeks after it had been released. It was also nominated for a record of fourteen Academy Awards. The movie turned out to be a success.
In conclusion, it is crazy to believe that fourteen years before the Titanic ship hit an iceberg and left to sink Morgan Robertson had written The Wreck of the Titan. I really hope you enjoyed my discussion about the Titanic itself, the sinking of the ship, and the movie that was made about it. The titanic remains one of the most famous tragedies in history.