titanic voyage itinerary

A Timeline of the Sinking of the Titanic

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From the time of its inception, the Titanic was meant to be gigantic, luxurious and safe. It was touted as being unsinkable because of its system of watertight compartments and doors, which of course proved to be just a myth. Follow the history of the Titanic, from its beginnings in a shipyard to its end at the bottom of the sea, in this timeline of the building of the ship through its maiden (and only) voyage. In the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, all but 705 of its 2,229 passengers and crew lost their lives in the icy Atlantic .

The Building of the Titanic

March 31, 1909: Construction of the Titanic begins with the building of the keel, the backbone of the ship, at Harland & Wolff's shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.

May 31, 1911: The unfinished Titanic is lathered up with soap and pushed into the water for "fitting out." Fitting out is the installation of all the extras, some on the exterior, like the smokestacks and the propellers, and a lot on the inside, like the electrical systems, wall coverings, and furniture.

June 14, 1911: The Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic, departs on its maiden voyage.

April 2, 1912: The Titanic leaves the dock for sea trials, which include tests of speed, turns, and an emergency stop. At about 8 p.m., after the sea trials, the Titanic heads to Southampton, England.

The Maiden Voyage Begins

April 3 to 10, 1912: The Titanic is loaded with supplies and her crew is hired.

April 10, 1912: From 9:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m., passengers board the ship. Then at noon, the Titanic leaves the dock at Southhampton for its maiden voyage. First stop is in Cherbourg, France, where the Titanic arrives at 6:30 p.m. and leaves at 8:10 p.m, heading to Queenstown, Ireland (now known as Cobh). It is carrying 2,229 passengers and crew.

April 11, 1912: At 1:30 p.m., the Titanic leaves Queenstown and begins its fated journey across the Atlantic for New York.

April 12 and 13, 1912: The Titanic is at sea, continuing on her journey as passengers enjoy the pleasures of the luxurious ship.

April 14, 1912 (9:20 p.m.): The Titanic's captain, Edward Smith, retires to his room.

April 14, 1912 (9:40 p.m.) : The last of seven warnings about icebergs is received in the wireless room. This warning never makes it to the bridge.

Last Hours of the Titanic

April 14, 1912 (11:40 p.m.): Two hours after the last warning, ship lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg directly in the path of the Titanic. The first officer, Lt. William McMaster Murdoch, orders a hard starboard (left) turn, but the Titanic's right side scrapes the iceberg. Only 37 seconds passed between the sighting of the iceberg and hitting it.

April 14, 1912 (11:50 p.m.): Water had entered the front part of the ship and risen to a level of 14 feet.

April 15, 1912 (12 a.m.): Captain Smith learns the ship can stay afloat for only two hours and gives orders to make first radio calls for help.

April 15, 1912 (12:05 a.m.): Captain Smith orders the crew to prepare the lifeboats and get the passengers and crew up on deck. There is only room in the lifeboats for about half the passengers and crew onboard. Women and children were put into the lifeboats first.

April 15, 1912 (12:45 a.m.): The first lifeboat is lowered into the freezing water.

April 15, 1912 (2:05 a.m.) The last lifeboat is lowered into the Atlantic. More than 1,500 people are still on the Titanic, now sitting at a steep tilt.

April 15, 1912 (2:18 a.m.): The last radio message is sent and the Titanic snaps in half.

April 15, 1912 (2:20 a.m.): The Titanic sinks.

Rescue of Survivors

April 15, 1912 (4:10 a.m.) : The Carpathia, which was about 58 miles southeast of the Titanic at the time it heard the distress call, picks up the first of the survivors.

April 15, 1912 (8:50 a.m.): The Carpathia picks up survivors from the last lifeboat and heads for New York.

April 17, 1912: The Mackay-Bennett is the first of several ships to travel to the area where the Titanic sank to search for bodies.

April 18, 1912: The Carpathia arrives in New York with 705 survivors.

April 19 to May 25, 1912: The United States Senate holds hearings about the disaster; the Senate findings include questions about why there were not more lifeboats on the Titanic.

May 2 to July 3, 1912: The British Board of Trade holds an inquiry into the Titanic disaster. It was discovered during this inquiry that the last ice message was the only one that warned of an iceberg directly in the path of the Titanic, and it was believed that if the captain had gotten the warning that he would have changed course in time for the disaster to be avoided.

Sept. 1, 1985: Robert Ballard's expedition team discovers the wreck of the Titanic .

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The Titanic Voyage

When arranging a tour around the United States I had decided to cross on the Titanic. It was rather a novelty to be on the largest ship yet launched. It was no exaggeration to say that it was quite easy to lose one’s way on such a ship.  Lawrence Beesley, Titanic Survivor

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After the success of Titanic’s sea trials in Ireland, she made the short journey to Southampton, England for what would be both the maiden and final titanic voyage.

Titanic arrived in Southampton only two weeks before her maiden voyage which meant there was an incredible amount of pressure from White Star Lines to turn her from an Irish built ship into their most elegant British Royal Mail Steamer.  Food, Linen and Furniture were thousands of other items were hauled aboard the Titanic around the clock and staff were selected and trained accordingly for their roles.

Captain Edward James Smith would be the man to steer Titanic to New York and was the perfect fit for the role due to his presence and stature for the media, experience from his crew and was a particular favourite of J.B Ismay the head of White Star Lines for all of these reasons. 

TITANIC VOYAGE MAP

As a crowd waited in anticipation at the Southampton wharf, Captain Smith reared his head around and looked at the first officer, Robert Murdoch, who was at the wheel. The Captain walked to the bridge and asked if the tugs were ready. Just then, the phone on the wall behind him rang. The First Officer walked over and picked it up. “Tugs all fast, sir,” was the message he heard. He said, “Thank you,” and walked to the wheel. He looked at the Captain and nodded. The Captain looked at him and said, “Take her to sea Mr Murdoch.” He reached past the Captain to the bridge telegraph and pushed it till it rang and went to ¼ ahead.

Like nearly all other elements of Titanic’s life thus far its departure was a successful event that was witnessed in large numbers by both the media and interested parties of all shapes, ages and walks of life.

“I enjoyed myself as if I were on a summer palace by the seashore surrounded by every comfort. I was up early before breakfast and met the professional racquet player in a half hour’s warming up prepority for a swim in the six-foot deep tank of saltwater heated to a refreshing temperature.” Colonel Archibald Gracie, Titanic Survivor

Passengers on the  Titanic  paid significantly different prices for different accommodation options. The suites and cabins on the  Titanic  cost the passengers no small sum for the time. At approximately $100,000 in today’s dollars, you can see why the world’s richest and most elite sailed on the  Titanic  — only they could afford the parlour suites. For the immigrants who travelled in third class, a berth cost was no small sum either. The immigrants were poor, and raising that kind of money (approximately $350 to $900 in today’s dollars) for passage to America was difficult in the early 1900s. 

First-class passengers sipped wine and enjoyed cigars and hors d’oeuvres, whilst those on the lower decks were overcome with happiness and sadness at the prospect of entering a new life in the United States but also knowing they may never see their families or beloved England again.

The Titanic seemed to have everything on board, including its own newspaper. The Atlantic Daily Bulletin was printed every day on board the Titanic . The newspaper included news, advertisements, stock prices, horse-racing results, society gossip, and the day’s menu.

To learn more about the accommodation and events of a first-class passenger read our article here.

Titanic had stopped in Cherbourg, France, to pick up additional passengers. Here, one of the most famous people on the ship boarded, Colonel John Jacob Astor and his young, pregnant wife, Madeline. Madeline was nineteen, and there was some dispute about this among the passengers who knew him.  That evening she sailed for Queenstown, Ireland, and at 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 11, she headed out into the Atlantic.

Originally, a lifeboat drill was scheduled to take place on board the  Titanic  on April 14, 1912 – the day the  Titanic  hit the iceberg. However, for an unknown reason, Captain Smith cancelled the drill. Many believe that had the drill taken place, more lives could have been saved.

“Each night the sun sank right in our eyes along the sea, making an undulating glittering pathway, a golden track charted on the surface of the ocean which our ship followed unswervingly until the sun dipped below the edge of the horizon, and the pathway ran ahead of us faster than we could steam and slipped over the edge of the skyline – as if the sun had been a golden ball and had wound up its thread of gold too quickly for us to follow.” — Lawrence Beesley, Titanic Survivor

On the night of April 14, wireless operator Phillips was very busy sending chatty passenger’s messages to Cape Race, Newfoundland, whence they could be relayed inland to friends and relatives. He received a sixth ice-warning that night, but didn’t realize how close Titanic was to the warning position and put that message under a paperweight at his elbow. It never reached Captain Smith or the officer on the bridge.

The R.M.S. Titanic was a Royal Mail Ship, a designation which meant the Titanic was officially responsible for delivering mail for the British postal service. Onboard the Titanic was a Sea Post Office with five mail clerks (two British and three American). These mail clerks were responsible for the 3,423 sacks of mail (seven million individual pieces of mail) onboard the Titanic . Interestingly, although no mail has yet been recovered from the Titanic wreck, if it were, the U.S. Postal Service would still try to deliver it (the USPS because most of the mail was being sent to the U.S.).

The night was uncommonly clear and dark, moonless but faintly glowing with an incredible sky full of stars by all accounts. The stars were so bright that one officer mistook the planet Jupiter (then rising just above the horizon) for a steamship light. The sea was, likewise, unusually calm and flat, “like glass,” said many survivors. The lack of waves made it even more difficult to spot icebergs since no tell-tale white water broke at the bergs’ edges.  The lookouts were questioning White Star personnel as to where their binoculars were. They were told that they were misplaced, which would play a role in destroying the ship.

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Titanic Maiden Voyage

Introduction.

Following her prestigious launch in front of a crowd of around 100,000 spectators and a throng of excited reporters, Titanic began her maiden journey, first collecting the passengers sailing – and even migrating – to America. It was a voyage that would end in disaster amidst the ice-strewn waters of the Atlantic. Read on for a comprehensive summary of the facts about this tragic trip.

Above: Footage of RMS Titanic leaving for her maiden voyage in 1912.

471 miles – the distance of the journey to deliver Titanic from Belfast – the city in which she was built – to Southampton, England – the city from which her maiden voyage would commence.

Where did the Titanic leave from?

Although Titanic initially sailed from Belfast (where she was built) to Southampton, her maiden voyage is considered to have begun in Southampton.

02 April 1912 – the date that Titanic set sail from Belfast to Southampton.

Southampton

6 – the number of days that the Titanic was at rest in Southampton, before the start of her maiden voyage to New York.

Above: The Titanic at Southampton at the beginning of her maiden voyage.

05 April 1912 – the date Titanic was briefly opened for viewing by the paying public, two days after sailing to Southampton. The ship was “dressed overall”, with flags and pennants hung from the rigging in a salute to the people of the city.

07:30 am – the time Captain Smith arrived on board on the morning of the maiden journey, along with the crew. The officers were already on board, having spent the previous night on the ship.

2 – the number of lifeboats employed in a brief safety drill, conducted at 08:00 am; starboard lifeboats 11 and 12.

Where was Titanic going?

The Titanic was on her maiden voyage, a return trip from Britain to America. The outward route was to be Southampton, England – Cherbourg, France – Queenstown, Ireland – New York, USA. The return route was going to be New York – Plymouth, England – Cherbourg – Southampton.

09:30 am – the time the second- and third-class boat trains began to arrive and passengers started to board the Titanic.

11:30 am – the time that the first-class boat train arrived from London.

Did You Know?

At the time of her maiden voyage a coal strike was on, and so coal for Titanic had to be scavenged from other company ships.

06 April 1912 – the date that the strike was ended, however there would not be time to deliver enough coal to Southampton docks before Titanic set sail on her maiden voyage.

84 miles – the length of the first leg of the journey, from Southampton to Cherbourg, France.

12.00 pm – the time Titanic cast off from Southampton Dock, towed out into the River Test by tugboats.

4 feet – the margin by which a collision with the USMS New York was averted, when the undertow from the much larger Titanic caused the smaller boat to be sucked toward the ship, snapping the six mooring ropes holding the New York in place.

60 minutes – the approximate time that departure was delayed by this incident, sailing finally resuming at 1pm.

04:00 pm – the time the boat train from Paris arrived in Cherbourg, around 90 minutes before passengers could be ferried out to the delayed Titanic.

22 – the number of cross-channel passengers who disembarked in Cherbourg.

274 – the number of passengers who boarded at Cherbourg.

08:10 pm – the time Titanic departed Cherbourg and set sail for Queenstown (now known as Cobh) in Ireland.

307 miles – the length of the next stage, from Cherbourg to Queenstown, Ireland.

Queenstown (Cobh)

11:30 am – the time Titanic dropped anchor in Queenstown, on the morning of 11th of April 1912, about 2 miles offshore.

7 – the number of passengers who disembarked in Ireland.

123 – the number of passengers who boarded at Queenstown (3 first-class, 7 second-class and 113 third-class ticket-holders).

63 – the number of male passengers who boarded in Ireland.

60 – the number of female passengers who came aboard.

2 – the number of tenders that ferried the passengers from Heartbreak Jetty to Titanic; they were named PS Ireland and PS America.

1,385 – the number of bags of mail delivered on board during the Queenstown stop.

01:30 pm – the time Titanic raised anchor and set sail on her first and last transatlantic crossing.

The Atlantic Ocean

2,825 miles – the intended distance of the longest leg of the voyage, from Queenstown to New York, USA.

137 hours – the anticipated journey time sailing from Queenstown to New York City.

How many people boarded the Titanic?

There were 2,223 people aboard Titanic for her maiden trip, 1,324 passengers and 908 crew.

116 – the typical number of hours taken to cover the same distance by the Titanic’s rivals, the Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauritania (the idea that the Titanic captain ignored the iceberg warnings because he was trying to set a new time record is just one of the many Titanic myths that endures).

Above: The route of the voyage of the Titanic and the location of her sinking.

4 – days into the crossing when the collision with the iceberg occurred.

How much were Titanic ticket prices?

The average cost for a First Class berth was $150 (£30). A parlour suite would have set you back the princelier sum of $4,350 (£875).

The average cost of a berth in Standard (Second) Class was $60 (£12).

The average cost of a Steerage (Third) Class berth was $15-$40 (£3-£8).

3 – the intended number of legs planned for Titanic’s return voyage (New York to Plymouth to Cherbourg to Southampton).

As she set sail on her maiden voyage, some interior work was still to be completed. For example, some areas of the ship were without heating, whilst others were too hot. A team of nine Harland & Wolff employees, including the ship’s designer, Thomas Andrews, sailed as members of a guarantee group, tasked with ensuring any problems were attended to. All died in the sinking.

More To Explore

Read about the passengers on the Titanic , about the iceberg that was her undoing, and about the spot in the Atlantic Ocean where the Titanic sank .

Map of the Titanic’s maiden and final voyage

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Encyclopedia Titanica

Titanic archive, related discussions.

RMS Titanic

• 1 Understand
• 3.1 Belfast
• 3.2 Liverpool
• 3.3 Southampton
• 3.4 Cherbourg
• 3.5 Queenstown / Cobh
• 3.6 Newfoundland
• 3.7 Halifax
• 3.8 New York
• 3.9 Elsewhere
• 3.10 The ships
• 4 Stay safe

RMS Titanic was a transatlantic liner which was considered luxurious and unsinkable, but sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912. Some 1514 people died and 710 survived. This page describes the sites associated with the ship, which has sailed into legend. It was at the time the world's worst maritime disaster, but in terms of lives lost, it now ranks about 80th - yes, eightieth - below more recent tragedies that have largely been forgotten. Yet over a century later, it's the story of Titanic that still resonates.

Titanic was built in Belfast. Her voyage was from Southampton across the Channel to Cherbourg, then to Queenstown (nowadays Cobh, the port for Cork), then out into the Atlantic towards New York. She struck an iceberg off Newfoundland and sank two hours later. After another two hours, survivors in lifeboats were picked up by Carpathia and brought to New York. But only a privileged minority found room in the lifeboats and the rest either went down with the ship or quickly perished in an icy sea. 333 bodies were subsequently recovered and taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but most were never found. 119 were buried at sea. The wreck lies in two pieces 12,500 ft deep, and 370 miles from Newfoundland.

Understand [ edit ]

Nowadays, most people cross the Atlantic by air. But the first transatlantic flight was not until 1919, and commercial flights only began in the late 1930s, only to be interrupted by wartime shortly thereafter. These early flights combined the expense of first-class liners with the comfort of third-class, and right up into the 1960s, most people crossed the Atlantic by ocean liner. Then jet aircraft range, reliability and capacity made them the preferred method, and shipping companies withered until re-inventing themselves for the cruise business .

In the late 19th and early 20th century, European shipping lines competed for the lucrative transatlantic trade. There was urgent mail and freight, and there were passengers in all price brackets, especially the thousands upon thousands of westbound emigrants. These were driven both by the push of harsh homeland conditions, and the pull of the dynamic North American economies. The Irish were a major part of this story, but there were so many others: Carpathia was on its way back east for its next consignment of Hungarian emigrants when it diverted to rescue the Titanic survivors.

White Star Line by 1900 was losing ground to competitors. They couldn't regain the advantage with speed, but could do so with a frequent service in comfort for the high-spenders and capacity for the emigrants. And of course by safety: their ships had already suffered tragedy. They therefore commissioned three very large liners: Olympic , Titanic and Britannic , all built in Belfast by Harland & Wolff, although registered to Liverpool. Olympic and Titanic were built side by side, then as soon as they were launched, work started on Britannic . All three were designated "RMS" - Royal Mail Ships, entrusted to carry the postbag.

Titanic was at the time the largest ship ever built, costing £1,564,000. She was nearly 900 feet long and 25 stories high, with a capacity of 46,000 tons and berths for 2435 passengers. She had 16 watertight compartments reaching 11 ft above the waterline, so in the unlikely event of being holed, she would remain afloat. Regulations required her to carry 16 lifeboats but she took four extra, with space for 1200 occupants: she was designed for 64 boats but those were hardly necessary. There was also state-of-the-art Marconi wireless telegraphs, though these were more of a passenger amenity than a safety feature.

The transatlantic fare was £870 for a First Class parlour suite, £30 for a First Class berth, £12 for Second Class and £3 to £8 for Third Class. Even Third had excellent facilities compared to rival liners (and vastly better than their occupants' homes), and Second matched any rival's First. Titanic' s First Class could enjoy squash courts, a gymnasium, Turkish bath, heated swimming pool, a well-stocked library, a variety of cafés and lounges, opulent dining, and of course the company of other rich and famous people. What none of this bought when it came to the crunch was survival.

31 passengers booked just the short crossings from Southampton to Cherbourg and Queenstown. The transatlantic crossing from Cobh carried 892 crew and 1320 passengers - about half her intended capacity, but it was low season. What shocked the world in the days ahead were the loss of such an advanced "unsinkable" ship, the scale of loss, the inadequacy of and failure to fill lifeboats, and the huge survival difference by class of passenger. 97% of women and 33% of men in First Class survived, versus 46% of women and 16% of men in Third, and 22% of the crew. And Titanic had ignored several warnings of icebergs, while another nearby ship ignored their cries for help. There was heroism, fortitude, incompetence, rigidity and cravenness. It was the stuff of saga: so many individual stories illustrated great themes that even today we look in awe.

Get in [ edit ]

Belfast has the main collection of sites, with its Titanic Quarter, so you need eligibility to enter the UK, also home to Liverpool and Southampton - see United Kingdom#Get in and embassy websites. For all but a few visitors, UK entry is valid for the Republic of Ireland and vice versa, so you could also visit Cobh the former Queenstown. But check the small print - the rules altered in 2021. Likewise check if you intend to visit France for Cherbourg, Canada for Halifax or the United States for New York. In 2021 and 2022 this also means checking their covid health requirements, which are fast-changing.

All the cities involved are major modern places with lots of amenities. See individual city pages for how to get there, what to see and do, and accommodation - even for Belfast, Titanic is only a small part of why you visit.

Destinations [ edit ]

Belfast [ edit ]

54.596389 -5.93 1 Belfast , the chief city of Northern Ireland , is where the story begins. In the early 20th century it was a confident Edwardian boomtown with busy shipyards. Foremost of those were Harland & Wolff, who built Titanic and other luxury ocean liners of the White Star Line. She was launched and fitted out here, and many of her crew were from Ulster. But for a century after her loss, "Titanic" was the T-word in Belfast, an unwelcome reminder of a great project gone wrong. In the late 20th century the city was deeply scarred by "The Troubles". But in 2012 Belfast was revitalised, and re-launched as a tourist destination, with the new Titanic Quarter in dockland and the museum as its anchor site. Titanic became a story that Belfast could tell with pride.

See Belfast for transport, accommodation and other amenities. It's a welcoming city, the logical base for a visit to Northern Ireland - top sights on the coast such as Giant's Causeway are within a 90-minute drive.

• Titanic Belfast is the centrepiece museum, in a striking modern building. The exhibition takes you through the background of industrial Belfast, the ship's design and construction by Harland & Wolff, fitting out and test sailings, to events of the first and final voyage. It concludes with submersible images of the wreck.
• SS Nomadic is one of the tenders that brought passengers aboard at Cherbourg. Also next to the main museum are the massive dry-docks and pumphouse that drained them.
• Titanic Hotel next to the museum is in the former Harland & Wolff offices.
• City Hall in Donegall Square is emblematic of confident Edwardian Belfast, a 1906 baroque confection of white Portland limestone. Join the guided tour to see its gilded chambers, and august potraits of its merchants and shipwrights. Outside in the square is a memorial garden, with a cod-classical statue of Fate holding a laurel wreath above a drowned sailor, though he's more cheered up by the two mermaids. It was unveiled in 1920 and its pedestal named 22 victims from Belfast - nine were "snagging crew" aboard to fix any problems identified during the maiden voyage. The garden was opened for the centenary in 2012, with bronze plaques naming all 1,514 victims.
• Ulster Folk and Transport Museums are side-by-side at Cultra in Holywood 8 miles east of city centre: both are wide-ranging and need a couple of hours each. The Transport Museum has a permanent exhibition TITANICa, the story of the ship's construction and of those who sailed in her. The Folk Museum depicts the background of Ulster life in the early 20th century. They also run the Ulster American Folk Park near Omagh , though that's mostly about the 18th and 19th century emigrant experience.
• Titanic Studios are a group of film and TV studios in the former shipyard. Much of Game of Thrones was shot here.

Liverpool [ edit ]

53.4075 -2.991944 2 Liverpool is the principal port for the northwest of England. It grew from the 18th century when nearby Chester became silted up, and it was one of the nodes of the slave triangle. Metal goods including chains and manacles were exported to West Africa, whence slaves were transported to the Caribbean and Americas, and sugar and cotton returned to Liverpool, which reaped the profits of all three trips. That trade ended in the 19th century but the port still boomed from commerce and colonialism. It also had strong links with Ireland, as that population emigrated via the short sea crossing. It was an obvious base for shipping companies such as White Star Line. Meanwhile Southampton became preferred as a port, and in 1907 White Star transferred sailings there; but they retained their headquarters in Liverpool and it was the registered home port of Titanic even though she never visited.

Liverpool today is a lively interesting city, though it lost its UNESCO Heritage designation in 2021 because of modern development on its historic docks. It's full of visitor attractions and amenities, and is close to other centres such as Manchester, Chester and North Wales. Long-distance liners no longer call, but there are ferries to Dublin, Belfast and the Isle of Man; and of course the authors of "Yellow Submarine" launched their careers here.

• Merseyside Maritime Museum on Albert Dock has galleries devoted to the Titanic , Lusitania and Forgotten Empress .
• Titanic Memorial is next to the Royal Liver Building, and dedicated to the ship's engineers lost aboard.
• Titanic Hotel is in a converted brick warehouse, and 30 James St Hotel is in the former headquarters of White Star Line.

Southampton [ edit ]

50.906667 -1.404444 3 Southampton is England's chief commercial port on the Channel. It has a broad deep estuary sheltered by the Isle of Wight and suitable for sea-anchorage, and the tide dividing round the island creates a double high tide so ships have more opportunities to get in and out. It was already important in medieval times for ship-building, trade and as a navy base, though the navy later concentrated at nearby Portsmouth . In Victorian times it gained rail links to London, so freight and passenger shipping increasingly sailed from here rather from the congested Thames ports or more distant Liverpool. It also enabled transatlantic liners to cross the Channel and take on passengers in France, cocking a snook at rival French liner companies. White Star Line nevertheless continued to sail from Liverpool until 1906, then followed the trend and began operating from Southampton. Titanic set out on its maiden voyage at noon on 10 April 1912, heading for Cherbourg then Cobh then New York. Many of the crew were recruited locally, and 497 Sotonians died in the disaster.

Southampton is not pretty: it was heavily bombed in World War II then rebuilt in ticky-tacky style. Nevertheless it has many visitor amenities and attractions, with more nearby such as ancient Winchester and the historic dockyards of Portsmouth. It has good transport links and is still a major port on cruise itineraries. Its only short-haul ferries are to the Isle of Wight , so head to Portsmouth to cross the channel to Cherbourg.

• SeaCity Museum opened in 2012 has two permanent displays: the history of the city, and the voyage of Titanic .
• Memorials in East Park are to the ship's engineers and to the musicians of the band who stoically played on. The latter was unveiled in 1990 to replace the original bombed in the war.

Cherbourg [ edit ]

49.638889 -1.625 4 Cherbourg is a large port on the coast of Normandy; a series of municipal mergers has engulfed it within the commune of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. It's long been a harbour but its defensive limitations were cruelly exposed by fire ship attack in 1692. Louis XVI was determined to prevent any repetition so from 1783 great fortifications and breakwaters were built, continued under Napoleon. Cherbourg became France's main Channel port for both merchant and navy shipping, eclipsing others such as Le Havre. From 1858 it was connected by rail to Paris and developed as a ferry port, although Calais and Boulogne always had the edge with a shorter crossing and faster onward journey to London. However French shipping didn't keep pace with new travel markets, and Cunard and White Star were among the foreign companies that grabbed their transatlantic market. A luxurious liner SS France only entered service the week after Titanic was lost. And the harbour itself was too small for the new breed of four-funnel liners, so transfers had to be by tender.

Four hours after leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, Titanic reached Cherbourg. 24 passengers left, having booked only the cross-Channel passage, and 274 joined. This took 90 min and at 8 pm the liner was back under way for the overnight crossing to Queenstown.

Afterwards, the two White Star tenders remained in service for other liners. Traffic conveyed Third Class passengers and mail; she was scuttled, refloated then torpedoed in 1941. Nomadic conveyed First and Second Class passengers, retiring in 1934 when the harbour was extended. But Cherbourg's facilities were pulverised in the war and Nomadic had to return to service until 1968. She then looked destined for scrap, but was eventually taken to Belfast for restoration and display.

Cherbourg was heavily damaged during World War II, see D-Day_beaches#Cotentin_Peninsula , and rebuilt after the war. Its waterfront Place Napoléon is pleasant enough but is mostly reconstruction. Most visitors are just passing through for the ferries to Portsmouth; there are plenty of hotels and similar amenities.

• Cité de la Mer is a maritime museum in the art-deco transatlantic terminal building, with exhibits on Titanic and other local history.

Queenstown / Cobh [ edit ]

51.851 -8.2967 5 Cobh is pronounced "cove" and that's what it means: the sheltered deep-water harbour for the city of Cork . It grew as a naval and commercial port in the 19th century when shipping became too large for traditional small ports such as Youghal and Kinsale . In 1849 Queen Victoria visited and was suitably impressed, and the port was renamed "Queenstown". It became Ireland's main port of emigration, with some 1.5 million departing as the country was hollowed out by famine and other hardships. To paraphrase that notable Dubliner Oscar Wilde, "If this is how Queen Victoria treats her Irish, she doesn't deserve to have any." The royal name rankled so after Irish independence in 1921 it reverted to Cobh.

So it was at Queenstown that the White Star service called on 11 April 1912. As at Cherbourg, the ship didn't dock, but lay out in harbour while passengers transferred by tender: 123 joined here, seven passengers left, and a stoker deserted. (Among the lucky seven was Father Francis Browne, whose shipboard photographs soon became famous.) Two hours later at 1.30 pm Titanic was back under way into the Atlantic. Far fewer people were heading from America towards Ireland, so the ship was not scheduled to call on the eastbound return voyage. And sure enough, she didn't.

Cobh today is an attractive small town with accommodation and other facilities, but most visitors stay in Cork and day-trip on the frequent commuter trains. Cork has summer ferries from Europe (though not from Cherbourg), which dock at Ringaskiddy far side of the estuary. There are no scheduled transatlantic services but cruise liners often call, bussing their passengers to nearby Blarney Castle - these are round-trip package itineraries but a point-to-point ticket to Cork or Cobh may be possible.

• Cobh Museum displays the town's maritime history. Centrepiece of the Titanic section is the pilots' Log Book, clocking her arrival and departure on 11 April 1912.
• Cobh Heritage Centre depicts Irish history, the Great Famine and mass emigration, transportation of criminals to Australia and the visit of Titanic .
• Titanic Experience is in the original White Star offices on the waterfront. The tour recreates the steps of the final 123 passengers boarding here.
• Titanic Memorial is on Pearse Square in town centre. 50 m west is the Lusitania memorial: this Cunard liner was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Kinsale in 1915, with the loss of 1195 lives. Rescue was organised from Queenstown and many bodies were brought here.

Newfoundland [ edit ]

The snow that fell on Greenland in 1000 BCE became compacted into ice and very, very slowly over 3,000 years edged its way as a glacier towards the west coast. It sped up as it approached and the weight of ice lessened ahead of it. At some point it broke off into the sea, to become one of the thousands of icebergs thronging Baffin Bay - perhaps even on 31 May 1911, the day the Titanic was launched. Over the following months, the current shepherded the icebergs south into the Davis Strait and Labrador Sea, then the warmer waters of the Atlantic. Icebergs still calve here today, casting a chill over the coastal villages they pass, and creating a shipping hazard in the area dubbed "Iceberg Alley". Most melt quickly, but a few persist and are nowadays tracked by the Coast Guard. In April 1912, some quirk of weather and current brought an unusual concentration of ice into the shipping lanes.

• Myrick Wireless Interpretation Centre is a replica of Marconi's 1904 Cape Race station. It's a museum of communications and navigation history including the signals from Titanic .

The final warning came from Californian at 10:30 pm - because of the ice, she'd stopped engines for the night. This loud nearby message walked all over the Titanic transmissions, who signalled back to get out of their face. We know already! Much was later made of failure to pass warnings to the ship's command, but those officers saw as little threat in ice as a trucker sees in a pile of dead leaves. Let puny lesser vessels stop if they will, but Titanic would maintain speed and post lookouts; they'd rather not dent their shiny new ship but too bad for any iceberg that obstructed their unsinkable progress.

It was at 11:39 pm by the ship's local time (adjusted for longitude) on 14 April that the lookout spotted an iceberg dead ahead, and alerted the bridge. The night was moonless, very cold and still, so there had been no glimmer or breaking waves to give earlier warning. The ship was swung to port and engines stopped, but all of that took 30 seconds, and at 22.5 knots (42 kph) it only took 26 seconds to hit. Titanic had turned about 13 degrees and took a glancing blow below the waterline on the forward starboard side. This proved more serious than a head-on collision, as an underwater spur of ice chiselled open the hull. It was later described as a single gash, but is now thought to be a series of breaches as the plates were buckled, popping the rivets so the hull sprang open.

Many felt the jolt but were not alarmed, but Captain Edward Smith immediately saw its gravity. Within minutes the bows began to dip as water rushed in. The pumps could clear half a ton of water per second, but it was entering at 7 tons / sec. Five forward watertight compartments were breached of the total 16. The dividing bulkheads reached at least to Deck E 11 ft above the waterline, but above that were open spaces or simple partitions that water pressure would smash through. When the five were flooded, the bow would be dragged down so much that water would overspill to flood the unbroached sixth compartment. Then the seventh . . . do the maths. The ship was doomed to sink in two hours time.

It was 5 min past midnight into 15 April that the Captain ordered the lifeboats prepared and the passengers mustered in lifevests. CQD was the distress signal - SOS wasn't yet in common use - and MGY identified the sender as Titanic . Its telegrapher Jack Phillips dutifully tapped away as the waters rose around his cabin: his last intelligible message invoked the new distress code SOS.

The ship was designed for 68 lifeboats yet only carried 20 - it was only foreseen that they would shuttle people to nearby vessels, never hold all aboard. Titanic only had 2224 aboard, half its capacity. Each lifeboat could carry 66 but most were launched half full, in scenes of chaos and din as the boilers were vented. The passenger mood darkened from disbelief and hilarity to sombre then horror. Staffing ratios meant that First and Second Class were helped to lifeboats, women and children first, and those who got into boats mostly survived. But Third Class got little more than a holler, and by the time they were up on deck all the boats had gone. Anyone plunging into the freezing sea had about 15 minutes to live . . . do the maths, 1500 people were doomed. The tilt of the ship didn't deepen much until 2 am, but then her two hours were up and the remaining compartments flooded. She sank by the bows at a steep angle, the first funnel came crashing down, and the stern was lifted clear out of the water until it broke with the strain. By 2:20 am Titanic was gone.

Halifax [ edit ]

44.647778 -63.571389 7 Halifax is the chief city of Nova Scotia . As the closest large port to the scene, it was the obvious receiving centre for the bodies of victims; the survivors were taken to New York. The city registrar of births, marriages and deaths was John Henry Barnstead, and he had the wits to realise that standard methods wouldn't do. He devised procedures for tagging, identifying and cataloguing bodies and their effects, and safeguarding them and the chain of evidence, that remain the basis of disaster responses to this day. A temporary morgue was set up at the ice rink on Agricola St: this rink and entire street were destroyed in 1917 when Titanic turned out to be only the second-worst maritime disaster in the history of Halifax.

Carpathia picked up all the survivors and didn't have room or time to retrieve the bodies. But when the magnitude of the loss became apparent, White Star commissioned the cable-laying ship CS Mackay-Bennett from Halifax to retrieve these. Three more Canadian ships joined the search, and all sailed with undertakers, clergy and embalming fluid, and of the 333 eventually brought ashore, 328 were found in this way. But Edwardian social hierarchy asserted itself at the outset when the Mackay-Bennett harvested so many bodies, they ran out of embalming fluid. Health regulations were that only embalmed bodies could be landed, so they prioritised recovery of first-class passengers, who would have wealthy estates to be wound up. Third-class and crew, pretty obvious by their clothing, were buried at sea. Over the following weeks further bodies were found in penny numbers, some over 200 miles away, and the search was called off in June when it was seen that the life-jackets were breaking apart and releasing bodies to sink.

Halifax has a great natural harbour, known to the Mi'kmaq First Nation as K'jipuktuk and fortified by the British in their quest to hold Canada against the French. It evolved into a merchant port, vying with St John New Brunswick for transatlantic trade, and had a strategic role in wartime. On 6 Dec 1917 during the First World War , a munitions ship exploded in the harbour: the blast killed 2000, injured 9000 and flattened large tracts of the city. So what you see now is a rebuilt Halifax, dominated by its citadel. It has many visitor amenities, good transport including transatlantic flights, and is the obvious springboard for exploring Nova Scotia.

• Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on the waterfront has large permanent exhibits relating to Titanic and the munitions disaster. On the water are Acadia a 100-year old survey vessel, and Sackville a corvette that escorted the wartime convoys.
• Fairview Lawn Cemetery holds 121 of the victims of the sinking. As it was new and large, victims could receive individual burial plots instead of a mass grave. These form three lines with low grey-granite markers, following the contour so it resembles the curved structure of a ship. About a third of the bodies were never identified, though one - the "Unknown Child" - turned out to be 19 month old Sidney Goodwin. As all his family were lost aboard, no-one had come to identify him. They'd actually booked an earlier ship's sailing, but it was cancelled so they were transferred to Titanic . And a curious form of recognition came to Joseph Dawson, one of the coal trimmers who laboured in dust and heat to supply coal to the ship's boilers. After the 1997 film, tourists flocked to the grave because they thought this was Jack Dawson, the lead character played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
• Mount Olivet Cemetery (RC) holds another 19 of the bodies, and Baron de Hirsch Cemetery (Jewish) holds ten. Some fifty others were taken for burial elsewhere in America and Europe.

New York [ edit ]

40.75 -74 8 Manhattan Island Lower West Side was New York's port for ocean-going shipping. Quays lined the Hudson River, which is a sheltered fjord even deeper than the sea it drains into; across the river is New Jersey. District names such as Chinatown and Little Italy show that it was long settled by immigrants. But by 1912 labor and housing opportunities lay further west and the immigrants looked to take the train out to the factories and lumber camps and construction sites that stretched from sea to shining sea.

All 710 survivors were taken aboard Carpathia and brought to New York. She struggled through ice and heavy weather but was able to pass word ashore, where the story broke on 15 April. Huge crowds of relatives, relief workers and onlookers gathered by the quays.

Manhattan is now the bustling heart of must-see New York City, with its raucous polyglot skyscraper-lined canyons, racing taxis, dozens of top sights, and attitude-laden citizens. It swiftly forgot the survivors as it does all other transients, and has more recent tragedies to reflect upon. Only a prosperous minority aboard Titanic were headed for New York itself and have memorials here.

• The Statue of Liberty , completed in 1886, stands on an islet and greets entrants to New York Harbor today as it did the survivors then. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me." Boat trips visit and you pass nearby on the ferry to Staten Island.
• Ellis Island a mile upstream from the statue was the US immigration "holding pen" from 1892: Annie Moore from Cork and her two young brothers were the first to be processed. It remained a primary centre until 1924: thereafter immigration checks were aboard ship, with the island only holding those detained or awaiting deportation. So had Titanic arrived safely, the first and second-class passengers would have been processed by the pier. Third Class would be toted away to Ellis Island in a barge, a sort-of disembarkation tender. Given the few survivors from Third and the outpouring of public sympathy, all had dockside procedures. Many had lost their documentation in the disaster but none were rejected, though some were now bereft of prospects in the New World and chose to return to Europe. The island has been preserved as a museum: you get there by ferry, as the bridge is closed to the public.
• Chelsea Piers is nowadays the name for the Lower West Side dockland of the liner companies. It's been vigorously developed over the intervening century and little remains of 1912. Carpathia arrived on a dismal wet evening on 18 April; she came first into Pier 59, the scheduled terminus for Titanic , and handed over 13 lifeboats as salvage. She then moved to Pier 54 where everyone disembarked. Only a memorial arch remains by Pier 54, which is derelict, and Pier 59 is now a sports and entertainment complex. The injured were taken to St Vincent's Hospital, which closed in 2010. The American Seamen's Friend Society, a hostel for seamen at 113 Jane St, became the Jane Hotel. The former New York headquarters of White Star Line at 9 Broadway, mobbed by crowds of people desperate for news of survivors, is now retail stores. The crew of Carpathia were briefly accommodated on another liner then their ship resumed her abandoned run to Rijeka, with a bounty from survivors and Cunard, and the heartfelt thanks of thousands.
• Titanic Memorial Park is on South Street next to the Seaport Museum, with the 60-foot gray lighthouse and memorial plaque relocated here in the 1970s.
• Battery Park at the south tip of Manhattan has several cenotaphs and memorials. One commemorates ship's wireless operators lost at sea, and among the nine names is Jack Phillips of Titanic .
• Isidor and Ida Straus exemplify the prosperous Americans lost. Isidor was born in 1845 in Bavaria, and aged 9 when the family emigrated. After the Civil War he persuaded the founder of Macy's stores to let him open a crockery department in the basement; by 1894 he and his brother Nathan owned the whole show. He married Ida Blun also from Germany and they had seven children; he also had a 14 month stint as US Congressman. In 1911 / 12 Isidor and Ida wintered in the South of France and returned on Titanic . Ida refused to get into a lifeboat without Isidor, while Isidor refused preferential treatment to accompany her. His body now lies in Straus Mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, while Ida's was never found. A memorial stands in Straus Park, corner of Broadway and West End Ave with West 106th Street. There's also a plaque at Macy's.
• Trinity Church Cemetery is between 153rd and 155th streets in Harlem . It's the resting place of John Jacob Astor IV, one of the richest men in the world through real estate. He divorced to marry a far younger woman, and they beat it to Europe until the scandal died down. The new Mrs Madeleine Astor got pregnant and they wanted the child to be born in the US, so they joined Titanic at Cherbourg with a grand entourage of servants and pets. Madeleine got aboard a lifeboat and survived to give birth to his posthumous son. His sumptuous Waldorf-Astoria hotel later housed the US inquiry into the sinking; the site is now the Empire State Building.

Elsewhere [ edit ]

From the quay, the survivors dispersed to their 700 various lives, so memorabilia, plaques and burial plots are found in many places. Here are just a selection.

• Indian Orchard is a northern district of Springfield Massachusetts that's home to the Titanic Historical Society. Their museum has a collection of survivor artefacts, models and ephemera.
• Washington DC National Mall is the fabulous two mile strip between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial that's lined with museums, all of them part of the Smithsonian and all of them unmissable. The National Museum of American History midway along the Mall has great exhibits of the things that forged this nation and people, including Titanic , the African experience, and Kermit the Frog.
• Titanic Memorial in Washington is at the tip of Southwest Waterfront Park, at Fourth and P Sts SW, two miles south of the National Mall. The couple linked to this site are Major Archibald Butt, military adviser to President Taft, and Frank Millet his partner (but don't ask, don't tell), the artist who'd helped design the Mall. Butt was never found, Millet's body was recovered by the MacKay-Bennett and buried in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
• Las Vegas Nevada is obviously where you go for highbrow culture and stuff to do with ocean liners, especially along its garish Strip. Luxor Hotel, the one shaped like a pyramid, has a large exhibit around Titanic . Never mock Vegas, its entrepreneurs have put the comfort and entertainment of transatlantic First Class within the reach of millions.
• Atlanta Georgia is the base of a submarine company that recovered many artefacts, which you can buy from their online store . Authentic toothpaste tube, we goddit. Authentic ship's coal, yes, for that special gift. Better still for carbon neutrality, replica authentic coal. By 1912 the economy of the US had eclipsed Britain and Germany to be the world's largest, and these can-do guys show the reason why.
• Pigeon Forge Tennessee has a large museum within a half-scale replica of Titanic . You're allocated a passenger ID and get to learn your fate.
• Rijeka in Croatia was the destination of Carpathia . One of its waiters donated a Titanic lifejacket to the city's Maritime and History Museum.
• Alnwick in Northumberland, England, is a charming village with a castle, near Lindisfarne and Hadrian's Wall. The Olympic Restaurant at the White Swan Hotel has been fitted out as the First Class lounge of Titanic's sister ship Olympic - they bought the original fittings when that ship was scrapped in Jarrow in 1936. They serve breakfast, lunch, Sunday afternoon tea and dinner to residents and non-residents.
• Branscombe in Devon, England is best known for the stricken freighter Napoli , which in 2007 beached to try save its 2400 containers. These were enthusiastically looted: folk drove away in brand new sports cars, posted internet pictures of their trophies, then were astonished when the police came a-calling. But Branscombe was for many years the home of Millvina Dean (1912-2009), a two month old babe in arms on Titanic and its last living survivor. Her family had booked onto a different sailing that was cancelled; they were heading for Wichita Kansas, but with the loss of their breadwinner opted to return. The history industry only re-discovered Dean in the late 1990s, and her memorabilia became valuable, but she had to sell them to meet the spiralling cost of her care. Her body was cremated and the ashes scattered at sea off Southampton pier, the ship's departure point.
• Ramsgate in Kent, England is the home of Sundowner , the launch of Captain Charles Lightoller (1874-1952), the most serially shipwrecked fellow in maritime history. "Lights" had already survived two maritime calamities when he was appointed Second Officer to Titanic - unfortunately ousting the officer with the keys to the binocular case, so the lookouts were hampered. After the collision he was in charge of lowering lifeboats to port, rigidly hewing to "women and children only" so they left half-empty. He was washed away by rising waters but struggled into a boat, to become the most senior officer to survive. He came out of the inquiry smelling of roses and commanded other ships, two of which were wrecked, and thereafter he was shunned as a Jonah. He retired and bought Sundowner , and in 1940 joined the flotilla of small vessels at the evacuation of Dunkirk, where he brought off 127 servicemen. Bombs and bullets all around them, but "Lights" that day did not sink.

The ships [ edit ]

SS Californian was a British Leyland freighter on the way to Boston, and had come within 5 miles of Titanic . But after being rebuffed, they shut up shop for the night, and took no notice of the sinking ship's flares. Some of the lifeboats had even tried to row to them. Next morning they learned of the sinking, briefly joined the search and found only bodies and debris, then continued to Boston. When called in evidence, their accounts were shifty and self-contradictory, and Captain Lord's inaction was condemned as reprehensible, but that was the only sanction. Californian stayed in commercial service until requisitioned for the war, transporting troops to Gallipoli, but was torpedoed in Nov 1915. She sank in deep water 60 miles off Cape Matapan in Greece and her wreck has not been found.

SS Frankfurt was a Norddeutscher Lloyd liner on a triangular run from Bremenhaven to Baltimore Maryland then Galveston then back east. She was eastbound and only 20 miles away when she received the distress call, but there was confusion over the messages and positions so only around 1:30AM did she make for the area. By the time she reached it there was nothing to do, so she resumed her voyage. After the First World War Frankfurt was seized by Britain and awarded to White Star Line. In 1922 she was sold to a Hong Kong company, and scrapped in Japan in 1931.

49.5 -10.717 1 RMS Carpathia was a Cunard liner plying from New York to Rijeka, then known as Fiume in Austria-Hungary. She was 67 miles away when the distress signal was received shortly after midnight. Captain Rostron turned her around, made all speed dodging icebergs, and Carpathia was on scene by 4AM, 90 min after the sinking and with dawn breaking. She spent the next four hours taking on all the survivors and 13 of the lifeboats then brought them to New York, arriving on the evening of 18 April. A few days later she resumed the abandoned trip to Rijeka. Come the war she was a troop carrier, and in July 1918 Carpathia was in a convoy from Liverpool to Boston when she was torpedoed. Only in 2000 was the wreck found, in 500 ft of water 120 miles west of Fastnet.

CS Mackay-Bennett which recovered the bodies was retired in 1922 and used as a storage hulk in Plymouth, England. She was sunk during the Blitz, refloated then scrapped in 1965.

SS Birma was a Russian American liner sailing from New York to Rotterdam and picked up the distress signal when 110 mi (180 km) away, arriving at the position given by 6:30AM - but Titanic gave out a wrong position 13 miles away. By the time Birma picked her way through the ice to the scene, Carpathia had rescued all the survivors and curtly declined assistance, so Birma resumed her journey. She had a series of owners and names on the transatlantic run and was scrapped in Genoa in 1924.

SS Mount Temple was a Canadian Pacific freighter-passenger plying from Antwerp to St. John, New Brunswick, with 1466 steerage-class emigrants. She picked up the distress call when 70 miles away and began steaming towards the positions given: but both the initial and subsequent broadcast marks were well wrong. Like Birma she found herself wrong side of a dense ice field, so it was towards 9AM before she could reach the scene; Carpathia then called off the search. Later Mount Temple continued her routine Canada runs, then served as a troopship in the First World War. In Dec 1916 she was captured by a German gunship 700 miles west of Fastnet; passengers and crew were taken off then the ship was scuttled, taking down 700 horses and 22 crates of dinosaur eggs. The wreck has not been found.

The lifeboats were 14 primary lifeboats, two cutters for quick response to "man overboard", and four collapsible rafts. All 20 were launched, though for Collapsible B this was by being washed overboard, whereupon those in the water struggled onto it, including Second Officer "Lights" Lightoller. Carpathia took aboard 13 of the boats and returned them to New York, where they were pillaged by souvenir hunters. Their later fate is unknown but their artefacts and photos exist, some of these genuine.

41.732 -49.947 2 RMS Titanic lies 370 miles southeast of Newfoundland at a depth of 3800 m (12,500 ft). There were numerous proposals to salvage her, many of them dingbat, all of them absurdly expensive, drawing the jibe that it would be cheaper to drain the Atlantic. In any case no-one knew where she lay, since her stated position was wrong and there was a wide sea area to search. But Robert Ballard found her in 1985, using leading-edge technology and a smarter strategy: to look for the debris field rather than the wreck. The wreck has since been extensively photographed and mapped, and many items recovered. Titanic lies in two pieces a third of a mile apart: the bow section is largely intact and has become a haunting well-known image, while the stern is smashed up. A century on, the wreck is fragile and cannot be salvaged - and what would you do with it? - since paperweights and fridge magnets are so 20th century passé . It's likely that the bow will fall apart in a few years time. Tourist submarine trips to the wreck have taken place sporadically in the early 2020s, but following the widely publicized loss of one such submersible Titan and its five passengers while diving to the wreck in June 2023, it remains unclear if and how this practice can safely continue.

The iceberg was photographed and sketched as it lay in the offing, bearing a red paint scrape big enough to convince any insurance assessor. It wasn't seen again after the search vessels dispersed. Given its size and position, and warming of spring, it might have lasted another 3 weeks, dwindling to bergy-bits, growler and brash then dissolving into the Atlantic. The summer sun warmed the surface waters, sending them up as fog banks and clouds to go every which way. Some portion must have fallen back onto Greenland as snow, which a century later is compacted into ice and beginning its 3000 year progress towards the coast. Or maybe sooner? There is concern that the Greenland ice cap is not just dwindling but de-stabilising; this would cause a huge and rapid rise in sea levels to engulf the most densely populated and productive regions of the planet. So if the iceberg comes back at us in this guise, only a privileged minority will find room in the lifeboats.

Stay safe [ edit ]

Many maritime safety improvements followed the loss of Titanic - some prompted by the disaster, such as extra lifeboats, others more related to technological advance, such as navigation aids and telecoms. Per passenger mile, commercial shipping is nowadays very safe, yet ships still come to grief almost daily. The most recent disaster in a well-developed country is MV Sewol off Korea in 2014; the Congo River disaster of 2021 had an official death toll of 60 but another 400 were never found.

The best estimate of lives lost on Titanic is 1,514, but it was far from the worst in the 20th century. The worst losses were in wartime, and even in peacetime a recurring theme was uncertainty over how many were aboard. They were shocking at the time but most quickly dropped from public ken. You may find artefacts and memorabilia in museums.

• RMS Empress of Ireland was a Canadian Pacific liner which collided with a collier and sank on 29 May 1914, in the mouth of the St Lawrence. She had watertight compartments like Titanic , and was fitted with extra lifeboats after that disaster, yet she sank within 14 min and 1,012 were lost. The wreck lies at 40 m and is diveable.
• RMS Lusitania was a Cunard liner torpedoed by a German U-boat on 15 May 1915, 11 miles off Kinsale in Ireland. There was a secondary explosion and she sank within 18 min, with the loss of 1,195. Many of those lost were US citizens, and the US was urged to join the First World War, but remained neutral until 1917. The wreck lies at 93 m, at the limit of technical diving.
• SS Mont-Blanc was the freighter laden with explosives that exploded in Halifax on 6 Dec 1917, as described earlier. Large tracts of town were flattened and some 2,000 died. Several of the ship's fragments are on display: some landed 3 miles away.
• RMS Lancastria was a Cunard liner requisitioned by the British government in World War II. On 17 June 1940, two weeks after the Dunkirk evacuations, she was evacuating troops from St Nazaire, but was bombarded from the air and sank within 20 min. Estimates of the death toll range from 3,000 to 6,500. The wreck is in 12-26 m but is a war grave and may not be dived.
• Japan lost at least 65 ships, each with death tolls of 1,000 to 5,000, to US submarine attack, mostly in 1944.
• MV Wilhelm Gustloff , formerly a cruise liner, was also part of the Gdańsk evacuation. On 30 Jan 1945 she was torpedoed and sank 50 min later, with the loss estimated as 9,343. (Ten days later, the same Russian submarine S-13 sank SS General von Steuben, another evacuation ship, with the loss of 4,500.) The wreck of Wilhelm Gustloff in 44 m is a war grave and may not be dived.
• MV Goya was a Norwegian freighter seized for use as a German troop transport during World War II. In 1945 Gdańsk and other German positions along the Baltic coast were cut off by the Red Army, so they were evacuated by sea. Goya was one of many evacuation ships; on 16 April she was torpedoed and sank within four minutes, and some 7,000 died. The wreck is in 76 m, and is a war grave and may not be dived.
• MV Doña Paz was an overcrowded ferry in the Philippines which hit an oil tanker on 20 Dec 1987. An explosion and fire engulfed both ships, killing 4,385. Both ships sank a few hours later in 545 m depth.
• MV Le Joola was a Senegalese roro ferry, overloaded and caught in a storm, that capsized off the Gambia coast on 26 Sept 2002. The rescue was very slow and some 1,863 died.

Legacy [ edit ]

As with so many disasters, we may never know the true number of books, poems, ballads and "accounts" of the sinking, most of which deserve to be sunk deep in the Atlantic. There was a catchpenny outpouring immediately afterwards, a revival of interest from the 1950s, and then another resurgence from the late 1990s when the wreck was discovered, boosted by the internet and then the centenary. But for most people nowadays, film is the medium in which they first encounter Titanic , and each of these films has its own take on the legend. To date there have been 18 feature-length films, here's just a selection.

Saved from the Titanic (1912): you can sink yet make a movie. The film actress Dorothy Gibson survived through playing cards late at night, so she was among the first to head to the lifeboats. Her film premiered just 31 days later, but she was traumatised by events, never worked again, and all prints of this film are lost.

La Hantise (1912): never trust a fortune-teller. Jacques postpones his transatlantic trip because he's warned by snail mail about icebergs hunting in packs. He re-books on Titanic from Cherbourg though a palm-reader warns his wife Jeanne that she will suffer a bereavement. A few days later she sees the newspaper headlines. Aucun problème , Jacques is among those rescued and comes home safe. So now Jeanne worries that it's their son who might die.

Titanic (1943): the British Empire is sailing to disaster. This was the one personally green-lit by Hitler, with extensive military assets at the maker's disposal. The German characters are prescient and heroic while the British are greedy cowards. But by the time the film was complete the tide of war had changed, the director was disgraced and hanged, and disaster faced Germany. As for the film's subtext of overconfident authority - hell no! It had a handful of screenings then was suppressed.

A Night to Remember (1958): the British are decent, plucky and win through. This is the one where Kenneth More plays Second Officer Lightoller, swimming and rowing around with great derring-do. The Irish sink but have priestly absolution.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964): stand by your man. There had to be a musical comedy eventually. Molly schmoozes with European society, returns home on Titanic , and personally saves many aboard. She herself survives, and even more importantly realises that her rough miner husband in Denver is worth more than all these aristocrats and socialites.

Titanica (1992): lest we forget. This was the IMAX documentary about the finding of the wreck that triggered the latest round of public interest.

Titanic (1997): don't jump overboard, the rich will push you under anyway, but lerv conquers all. Here Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) wins his transatlantic passage in a poker game, wins the heart of Rose (Kate Winslet) who is affianceed to a rich creep, but the creep frames Jack for theft of a diamond. Rose, creep and diamond make it ashore, but Jack is the finer and happier albeit submerged man.

The Legend of the Titanic (1999): it was all a plot to hunt more whales, but an octopus pushes an iceberg in the way while sharks jam the ship's rudder. A resourceful mouse sacrifices himself to signal for help. Of all the versions of Titanic , this one seems to have resonated the most profoundly, as it ran to two sequels.

Holmes & Watson (2018): don't try to assassinate Queen Victoria a decade after she's died of old age. This clumsy farrago was panned by the critics and flopped at the box office. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson defeat the plot against Victoria by throwing the bomb out of the porthole of Titanic , though it lands on Mrs Hudson. The villains might have succeeded if only they'd shoved the ship over Reichenbach Falls.

The Six (2020): documentary film about the six Chinese survivors of the Titanic and their struggles with racism during a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act was still in force in the United States.

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The Titanic’s Route – From Shipyard to Sinking (Via Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown)

The Titanic has become famous as being the ‘unsinkable’ ship that did unfortunately sink. The Titanic made many successful port stops on her trip before the accident happened where she picked up passengers and supplies.

A common misconception is that the Titanic set sail from Southampton heading to New York and didn’t visit any other ports, this is not the case. In this post we will explore where the Titanic went, what she did in each port and where she was scheduled to go.

Where Did Titanic Set Sail From?

The Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, on April 10th 1912. She was built in Belfast, Ireland, and sailed to Southampton in England for her maiden voyage. She stopped in Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland to pick up passengers, crew and supplies. Her final destination was to be New York, USA but she never completed the journey.

The Southampton – Cherbourg – New York route had become very popular by the early twentieth century. The crossing should have taken around 6 days in total.

The return journey should have been from New York to Plymouth in England, back to Cherbourg, and finally to Southampton.

The Titanic’s Scheduled Route

Many modern cruise ships complete transatlantic crossings regularly although the route has changed slightly. To learn more about how modern cruise ships compare to the Titanic, check out this post:

Titanic vs a Modern Cruise Ship Fleet – Comparison with Photos!

White Star Line (the company that owned the Titanic) planned to offer weekly sailings in each direction, leaving Southampton on Wednesdays and New York on Saturdays. 

Both the Titanic and her sister The Olympic were scheduled to sail throughout the year, with trips booked until December.

Titanic’s First Journey – From Belfast to Southampton

The Titanic left Belfast on Tuesday 2nd April at 8pm. She arrived into Southampton at 12:00am on Thursday 4th April.

Work on the White Star Line’s state-of-the-art luxury steamship began in March 1909 in Belfast, Ireland, at the Harland and Wolff shipyards, the Titanic was designed by Alexander Carlisle. It took two years to complete the ship, the hull of which was the largest movable manufactured object in the world at the time.

On 31 May 1911, the Titanic was officially launched, first entering the water at the River Lagan.

After a series of sea trials, the Titanic, with only a skeleton crew, set sail for Southampton on 2 April 1912, seen off by thousands lining the Belfast Lough.

On the journey to Southampton Titanic recorded a record speed of 23.25 knots. The journey to Southampton was 570 nautical miles .

I Was Amazed by The Titanic Belfast Museum

Today, the Titanic Belfast visitor attraction, based next to the Harland and Wolff shipyards, tells the story of the Titanic from its conception and construction.

I visited the museum in 2021 and was blown away by the experience. The museum even has a ride in the middle! A ride! I talk more about my excursion to the museum in the video below:

Titanic’s Second Journey – From Southampton to Cherbourg

The Titanic left Southampton on Wednesday 10th April at 12pm. She arrived into Cherbourg at 8.10pm on Wednesday 10th April.

Around midnight on 4 April 1912, the Titanic arrived in Southampton , where she remained docked for a week. The crew were the first to come aboard.

Most of the crew were from Southampton, of the 685 crew members who died in the tragedy, 549 were from the city. Captaining the ship was the most senior White Star commodore, Captain Edward J. Smith seen below.

A Ship Visit With a Difference

On 5 April, the public had an opportunity to visit the Titanic, she was decorated for the occasion with flags and other pieces.

After the public had visited the ship, passengers were welcomed aboard.

At the time there was a coal strike in Britain which meant that coal had to be borrowed from other ships, including the sister ship, Olympia, so that the Titanic could begin her voyage. 

At 9am on the 10th Titanic had her one and only lifeboat drill.

100,000 well-wishers and journalists, watched as the Titanic officially set sail from Southampton on 10 April 1912, at noon. George W.Bowyer was the pilot in charge as the Titanic left Southampton.

In what was later seen as a bad omen for the voyage, the Titanic narrowly missed colliding with the SS City of New York.

The larger ship displaced so much water that the New York’s mooring lines snapped as it rose and fell, swinging it round towards the Titanic. The swift action of a tugboat in towing the New York out of the way avoided tragedy.

This incident delayed the official maiden voyage’s departure by about an hour.

Titanic’s Second Journey – From Cherbourg to Queenstown

The Titanic left Cherbourg on Wednesday 10th April at 8:10pm. She arrived into Queenstown at 1:55pm on Thursday 11th April.

The Titanic sailed into Cherbourg, the world’s largest artificial harbor and dropped anchor near the Central Fort. Due to the fact that the water in the port was not deep enough the Titanic could not dock. Tenders transferred the 281 passengers (151 First Class, 28 Second Class, and 102 Third Class) to the luxury steamship, as well as 24 passengers who disembarked.

Among the passengers who embarked in France were some of the most famous and wealthy on the Titanic. These included:

• Millionaire John Jacob Astor IV and his pregnant wife Madeleine Talmage Astor
• Billionaire Margaret Brown.
• Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff Gordon and his wife Lady Lucy Christiana Duff Gordon

Also brought aboard in France were luxury food items, including champagne, wine, cheese, and mineral water.

Today, the Cité de la Mare Museum in Cherbourg has a dedicated Titanic exhibition in memory of the famous ship, where you visit the Art Deco Luggage Hall.

I visited the museum on a cruise with Royal Caribbean a few years ago, to learn more about the museum, check out this post. (The cruise ships dock right besides the museum):

Cherbourg Port: Destination Guide

By 8.10 pm, the Titanic was on her way, she sailed overnight to the south of Ireland and the harbor of Queenstown.

Titanic’s Third Journey – From Queenstown to New York

The Titanic left Queenstown on Thursday 11th April at 1:55pm.

The Titanic arrived in Queenstown (today known as Cobh) to pick up its last passengers before beginning the trans-Atlantic voyage. The ship dropped anchor at Roches Point.

Before the first world war Queenstown was Irelands most important mail and passenger port.

Two tenders were responsible for transporting the passengers from Cork Harbor, the PS Ireland, and the PS America.

Seven passengers disembarked, including Father Francis Browne, a Jesuit trainee, whose photographs are the last ever taken of the Titanic.

At 1.30 pm, to the sound of a whistle blast and bagpipes, the Titanic lifted her anchor and started her journey.

One final stop was necessary. At the Daunt Light-ship to drop off the pilot who had guided the ship in and out of Cork Harbor.

The Sinking of The Titanic

The ship made good time for the next two days but the Titanic was never able to complete her maiden voyage. 

On the 14 April 1912, after four days at sea, the Titanic struck an iceberg that tore a hole in the ship’s hull below the waterline. The hull began filling with water, and within three hours, the vessel had sunk. Because of a lack of lifeboats and the proper emergency procedures, only 705 people survived the disaster.

To learn more about why the Titanic sunk (there were lots of factors) check out this post:

It Wasn’t Just The Iceberg That Sank The Titanic – Survivor Accounts

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Visiter l'épave du Titanic : un tourisme aussi lucratif que controversé

Depuis plus de 20 ans, il est possible (moyennant 250 000 dollars) de découvrir l'épave du titanic de ses propres yeux. une activité dangereuse aussi bien pour la conservation du site que pour la sécurité des personnes qui s'y rendent..

Le Titanic se dégrade depuis plus d'un siècle : des structures importantes se sont effondrées alors que des bactéries mangeuses de fer dégradent la coque. Les visites touristiques du navire risquent d'accélérer cette détérioration.

Huit heures et 250 000 dollars (230 000 euros) : c’est ce qu’il faut pour aller à la découverte de la célèbre épave du RMS  Titanic , située à environ 610 km de la côte de Saint-Jean de Terre-Neuve, au Canada.

Ce dimanche, cinq personnes sont montées à bord d’un petit submersible touristique destiné à effectuer ce voyage jusqu’aux profondeurs de l’Atlantique. Baptisé le Titan , celui-ci a perdu le contact seulement 1 heure et 45 minutes après le début de l’expédition qui devait durer huit jours. Les recherches sont encore en cours.

Malgré le danger que représente une telle excursion à plus de 3 800 mètres sous la surface, pour certains, cette opportunité semble irrésistible. En effet, rares sont les personnes qui ont l’occasion de voir le fameux paquebot de leurs propres yeux. 

Plus d’un siècle après son naufrage, le Titanic continue de susciter un grand intérêt et, bien que la plupart d’entre nous nous contentions de visiter des musées, expositions et collections permanentes consacrés à l’épave, toute personne qui est prête à y mettre le prix a la possibilité de partir à sa découverte.

Les préoccupations éthiques d’un tel voyage sont néanmoins nombreuses, et le risque d’endommager encore davantage cette épave centenaire n’est pas à négliger, et pourtant, ces excursions sous-marines vers le Titanic sont organisées depuis plus de vingt ans. Voici tout ce qu’il faut savoir sur cette activité touristique très lucrative et controversée.

LA COURSE À LA RÉCUPÉRATION DES ARTEFACTS

Ce n’est qu’en 1985, plus de 70 ans après le naufrage, qu’une expédition menée par Robert Ballard, grand explorateur National Geographic , et Jean-Louis Michel, océanographe français, a permis de découvrir la dernière demeure du Titanic .

Peu après, l’explorateur a témoigné devant le Congrès américain dans le but de faire du site un mémorial maritime protégé et, en juillet 1986, il a entrepris de déposer une plaque près de l’épave en honneur des plus de 1 500 personnes qui y ont trouvé la mort.

Cependant, rien de tout ça n’a pu empêcher ce qui a suivi. La concurrence pour le droit à récupérer les artefacts du navire s’est intensifiée dans un objectif de conservation, mais également de profit, grâce à la vente et à l’exposition de ces derniers auprès du public.

Le premier effort officiel de récupération a été lancé en 1987 par la Titanic Ventures Limited Partnership (TVLP) et l’Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer ; environ 1 800 objets ont été collectés et conservés. En 1992, un tribunal fédéral américain a statué que TVLP était la seule société habilitée à récupérer des objets sur le Titanic , bien que dans les décennies qui ont suivi, celle-ci ait fait pression pour obtenir davantage de droits.

Désormais connue sous le nom de RMS  Titanic  Inc., elle a mené huit expéditions sur l’épave et a vendu aux enchères plus de 5 000 objets prélevés sur le site, dont des bijoux et un morceau du grand escalier du navire.

Alors que les batailles pour les droits de visite et de récupération faisaient rage devant les tribunaux, les expéditions sur le paquebot se poursuivaient, et ont donné lieu à un marché touristique restreint et coûteux.

DES DÉCENNIES DE TOURISME LUCRATIF

Des chercheurs, des sauveteurs et même des cinéastes comme James Cameron, réalisateur du célèbre film Titanic sorti en 1997, ont effectué d’innombrables excursions sur l’épave ; et pour une somme conséquente, des touristes ont eux aussi pu vivre cette expérience sous-marine historique.

En 1998, la société britannique Deep Ocean Expeditions a été l’une des premières à vendre, au prix de 32 500 dollars (29 500 euros) l’unité, des billets permettant de découvrir les vestiges du navire. En 2012, Rob McCallum, chef de l’expédition, a déclaré que, après être déjà descendue 197 fois , la société allait organiser une dernière série d’excursions cette même année. Ces expéditions ont duré 12 jours chacune et ont permis d’emmener 20 passagers sur le site pour 59 000 dollars (53 500 euros) le billet.

Dès 2002, l’agence de voyages Bluefish, établie à Los Angeles, a également organisé des plongées sur le Titanic , mais n’a embarqué que huit personnes dans les quatre années suivantes, avant d’arrêter ses expéditions. En 2012, l’entreprise a recommencé à accepter des réservations, avec des billets à 59 680 dollars (54 200 euros).

La société londonienne Blue Marble a elle aussi proposé des billets pour 105 129 dollars (95 500 euros) en 2019, un montant équivalent à la valeur ajustée d’un billet de première classe à l’époque du naufrage. Blue Marble s’est associée à OceanGate Expeditions (la société dont le submersible a disparu ce dimanche) pour organiser les excursions.

OceanGate a mené des expéditions avec succès en 2021 et 2022, et dix-huit sont prévues pour 2023.

PROTÉGER LE TITANIC

Ces visites ont-elles un impact sur l’épave du navire, qui habite les eaux de l’Atlantique depuis 111 ans ?

Le Titanic a été considérablement endommagé lors de son impact avec le fond marin après son naufrage et, lentement, des bactéries mangeuses de fer ont commencé à consommer ce qu’il en restait. Une détérioration rapide a été constatée moins de dix ans après la découverte de l’épave et, en 2019, une plongée a permis de confirmer que d’énormes parties du paquebot étaient en train de s’effondrer .

Aujourd’hui, le site est jonché de déchets , tels que des bouteilles de bière et de soda, des poids, des chaînes et des filets de cargaison provenant des opérations de récupération . Les visiteurs ont également apposé des plaques et des monuments commémoratifs. En 2001, un couple a même célébré son mariage dans un submersible reposant sur la proue du Titanic .

Même s’ils ne touchent pas volontairement l’épave, les submersibles sont tout de même susceptibles de l’endommager. Une expédition se serait par exemple écrasée sur le Titanic en 2019, et aurait omis de communiquer les informations relatives aux dégâts causés par cet accident.

Les tentatives de protection de l’épave se poursuivent. Du fait de son emplacement dans les eaux internationales, le site peut bénéficier des protections de base prévues par la Convention sur la protection du patrimoine culturel subaquatique de l’UNESCO, qui lui ont été accordées en 2012 . En 2020, le Royaume-Uni et les États-Unis ont convenu de collaborer afin de donner ou de refuser des permis aux personnes qui souhaitent pénétrer sur le site afin d’y prélever des objets.

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Cet article a initialement paru sur le site nationalgeographic.com en langue anglaise.

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Titanic, L'Exposition à Paris

Un voyage émouvant et historique

Titanic, L'Exposition à Paris Un voyage émouvant et historique

Dans la nuit du 14 au 15 avril 1912, le Titanic , le plus grand navire jamais construit au monde, véritable palace flottant et prouesse technologique sombra suite à une collision avec un iceberg causant la mort de plus de 1500 personnes. Plus d'un siècle après, Paris rend hommage à cette tragédie qui résonne encore aujourd'hui dans la mémoire collective en accueillant « Titanic - l'Exposition ». Découvrez les secrets du Titanic sur plus de 2000 m². Une expérience unique à la rentrée ! Un voyage inoubliable vous attend !

Vous aimerez...

L'exposition Titanic à Paris, un voyage inoubliable vous attend ! Audioguide inclus. Temps libre dans la capitale.

Votre région - Paris

Départ matinal en autocar vers Paris. Arrivée en fin de matinée Porte de Versailles. Visite audioguidée de L'Exposition, Titanic . Cette exposition familiale et pédagogique est axée sur les récits marquants d'hommes et de femmes à bord du légendaire RMS Titanic . La présentation de plus de 260 reliques et la reconstitution des cabines et des lieux emblématiques du navire retracent la vraie histoire de ce terrible naufrage. Après l'exposition, départ en autocar au pied de la Tour Eiffel avec temps libre pour profiter de la capitale : flânerie, shopping, ou visites avec notamment le Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac à proximité... Déjeuner libre. Retour en soirée dans votre région.

Bon à savoir :

Transport + visite audioguidée de l'exposition Titanic. Remise enfant -12 ans : -5€. Horaires : départ vers 5h00 - Retour vers 22h00. Horaires sous réserve, donnés à titre indicatif pour un départ de Chalon sur Saône. Autres villes de départ disponibles à la réservation.

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The Titanic Experience

Average Duration  |  1.5 - 2.5 hours

Last Admission  |  1 hour 40 mins before closing

Experience Type  |  Self-Guided

Admission  |  £24.95 Adult, £11 Child

Also includes a self-guided tour of SS Nomadic

Belfast was Titanic’s home, it still is.

Discover the world-famous story through the eyes of those whose hard work and ambition built her.

In the self-guided Titanic Experience you will uncover the sights, sounds, smells and stories of the ship, as well as the people and city that made her.

Follow our themed one-way route as you journey through boomtown Belfast and the shipyard where the liners were built, to the launch, fit out and maiden voyage, before discovering more about the sinking, aftermath, the quest to find Titanic and her final resting place. All whilst exploring the hopes and dreams of those whose lives were impacted by the great ship and wondering at our collection of unique Titanic artefacts.

What You'll See...

How to book your ticket.

The Titanic Experience contains many original Titanic and White Star Line artefacts as well as other fascinating items of cultural and historical interest.

Offers and Events

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What is submersible tourism? The Titanic expedition, explained.

How common are deep-sea expeditions like the titan’s where else do submersibles go.

Seeing the wreck of the Titanic firsthand is a journey.

One must board a submersible vessel about the size of a minivan built to withstand the pressure of descending nearly two and a half miles into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean . It takes about two hours to reach the sunken ship and another two to get back to the surface, plus time for exploration.

And even with a price tag of a quarter of a million dollars, there has been no shortage of people with interest for such an adventure. Philippe Brown, founder of the luxury travel company Brown and Hudso , said there’s a long wait list for the OceanGate Expeditions submersible experience at the center of the world’s attention. The vessel, called the Titan, vanished Sunday in the North Atlantic with five onboard , triggering a wide-reaching search mission that ended Thursday, when the Coast Guard said a remotely operated vehicle discovered debris from the vessel on the ocean floor. Pieces of the submersible indicated it had imploded in a “catastrophic event," Coast Guard officials said. A spokesperson for OceanGate said the pilot and passengers “have sadly been lost."

For the world’s richest and most intrepid travelers, a submersible trip is not so far-fetched, says Roman Chiporukha, co-founder of Roman & Erica, a travel company for ultrawealthy clients with annual membership dues starting at $100,000.

“These are the people who’ve scaled the seven peaks, they’ve crossed the Atlantic on their own boat,” Chiporukha said. The typical vacation of the ultrawealthy, like a beach getaway on the Italian Riviera or St. Barts, “really doesn’t do it for them,” he added.

That description fits tycoon Hamish Harding , who was among the five people on Titan. An avid adventurer who’s thoroughly explored the South Pole and the Mariana Trench, Harding was also on the fifth spaceflight of Blue Origin , the private space company founded by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Capt. Hamish Harding (@actionaviationchairman)

Harding and the Titan journey represent the extreme end of the submersible tourism industry, which has been growing in popularity since the 1980s. Ofer Ketter , a longtime submersibles pilot and co-founder of SubMerge , a firm that provides consulting and operations of private submersibles, says such deep-sea journeys are rare in comparison to those in more tropical locations. For example, the luxury tour operator Kensington Tours offers a $700,000, 10-day yacht trip that includes a 600-plus-foot dive in a submersible in the Bahamas to explore the Exumas ocean floor.

Here’s what else to know about the industry.

Deep water, high pressure: Why the Titanic sub search is so complex

Missing Titanic submersible

The latest: After an extensive search, the Coast Guard found debris fields that have been indentified as the Titan submersible. OceanGate, the tour company, has said all 5 passengers are believed dead.

The Titan: The voyage to see the Titanic wreckage is eight days long, costs $250,000 and is open to passengers age 17 and older. The Titan is 22 feet long, weighs 23,000 pounds and “has about as much room as a minivan,” according to CBS correspondent David Pogue. Here’s what we know about the missing submersible .

The search: The daunting mission covers the ocean’s surface and the vast depths beneath. The search poses unique challenges that are further complicated by the depths involved. This map shows the scale of the search near the Titanic wreckage .

The passengers: Hamish Harding , an aviation businessman, aircraft pilot and seasoned adventurer, posted on Instagram that he was joining the expedition and said retired French navy commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet was also onboard. British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman, 19, were also on the expedition, their family confirmed. The CEO of OceanGate , the submersible expedition company, was also on the vessel. Here’s what we know about the five missing passengers.

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Titanic : une expédition sous-marine pour visiter l'épave du célèbre paquebot, ça vous tente ?

Une compagnie américaine organise des expéditions vers l’épave du Titanic. Un voyage hors-norme, tant au niveau de son intérêt historique que de son coût.

Partager sur :

Alors que les foules se jettent sur Avatar, le dernier film de James Cameron, il faut savoir qu’un autre de ses chefs-d'œuvre attire encore l’attention : Titanic . Et pour cause, comme l’a repéré Ouest-France le 3 février dernier, une entreprise américaine propose d’aller visiter le vrai navire, victime d’un iceberg il y a plus d’un siècle.

⋙ "Titanic" : une étude scientifique révèle si Jack aurait pu survivre, à la demande de James Cameron

Visiter l'épave du Titanic : un voyage à 250 000 dollars

Si le projet vous intéresse, il vous faut d’abord contacter OceanGate Expeditions , en charge du voyage. L’entreprise vous demandera tout de même la coquette somme de 250 000 dollars, soit 227 000 euros. Une fois la facture réglée, rendez-vous (à vos frais), jusqu’à Saint-Jean de Terre-Neuve, au large du Canada . C’est là que vous pourrez vous engager dans une mission d’une semaine, pour laquelle vous serez à bord d’un navire peuplé de scientifiques et d’experts de l’expédition marine.

La descente jusqu’à l’épave, elle, ne durera que quelques heures : il s’agira d’embarquer dans un sous-marin qui vous emmènera à 3800 mètres de profondeur, de faire quelques tours à proximité de ce navire historique qui a vu la mort de 1500 personnes en 1912.

⋙ Titanic : une nouvelle expédition livre des images inédites de l'épave du célèbre paquebot

>> Créez votre voyage sur mesure au Canada avec notre partenaire

Une manière de financer la science

L’intérêt historique (et économique) d’une telle expédition est évident, et la compagnie l’a bien compris ! Mais les participants contribuent ainsi au financement des opérations scientifiques qui sont menées près du Titanic. Des recherches qui ne devraient pas durer très longtemps car l’épave est en train de disparaître, lentement rongée par une bactérie. Il faut donc se dépêcher pour admirer les derniers vestiges du Titanic.

Découvrez les circuits sur mesure de notre partenaire :

• Titanic : une nouvelle expédition livre des images inédites de l'épave du célèbre paquebot
• L'épave du navire qui avait tenté d'avertir le Titanic retrouvée en mer d'Irlande
• Titanic : 5 choses que vous ne savez pas sur le paquebot insubmersible

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Retour sur le jour où l'épave du titanic a été découverte par un commando secret de la marine américaine, en turquie, les épaves des dardanelles se dévoilent dans un parc sous-marin, les recherches du sous-marin disparu près du titanic sont aussi difficiles que "dans l'espace", cet été, visitez le premier musée sous-marin de grèce, un traité encadre désormais l'exploration de l’épave du titanic, titanic : des images inédites de l'épave révélées au public, bretagne : une mystérieuse épave fouillée par des spécialistes de l'archéologie sous-marine, une expédition autorisée à découper la coque du titanic pour extraire son télégraphe, époustouflant : une expédition plonge au cœur des volcans sous-marins en mer méditerranée, vaste mission de sauvetage pour le titan, le sous-marin disparu alors qu'il cherchait le titanic, de nouvelles images du titanic révèlent la détérioration avancée de l'épave, les 9 épaves accessibles en plongée sous-marine à découvrir à travers le monde, cette mystérieuse boule bleue gélatineuse intrigue les scientifiques d'une expédition sous-marine, le mont la pérouse, une mystérieuse montagne sous-marine au cœur d'une expédition inédite, une rare vidéo d'un calmar à longs bras capturée par une expédition sous-marine, des touristes pourront bientôt explorer l'épave du titanic dans les profondeurs de l'atlantique, un écosystème insoupçonné découvert à 2900 m de profondeur près de l'épave du titanic, les états-unis s'opposent à une nouvelle expédition et razzia autour des restes du titanic.

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Clin d'œil - Invitation au voyage

Couvrez ces cheveux que je ne saurais voir

Invitation au voyage (15/09/2023).

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Les poissons boivent-ils l’eau de mer ?

Invitation au voyage (08/09/2023).

Qui est le roi des animaux ?

Invitation au voyage (07/09/2023), le titanic et ses frères invitation au voyage.

Avant de devenir le naufrage le plus connu de la planète, le Titanic a eu une vie. Elle commence à Belfast en 1907, quand l’entreprise de chantier naval Harland and Wolff reçoit une commande. Construire le Titanic, mais aussi ses deux frères, l’Olympic et le Gigantic. 

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Titan submersible: timeline of vessel’s voyage

As the US Coast Guard announces the vessel suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’, we chart its journey over the last week

• Titanic sub: latest updates

The expedition sets off from St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

The British billionaire and adventurer Hamish Harding , one of those onboard the submersible, posts on Facebook: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”

8am GMT/ 4am ET: Time the submersible originally aimed to start its descent, according to a post by Harding on Instagram. It actually started its descent later, according to the US Coast Guard.

12pm GMT/ 8am ET: The submersible starts what should be a two-hour descent to the Titanic wreck, nearly 4,000 metres down, according to the US Coast Guard.

1 .45pm GMT/ 9.45am ET: Communications between the submersible and the surface vessel are lost 1 hour and 45 minutes after starting its descent.

7pm GMT/ 3pm ET: Titan is scheduled to return to the surface, the US Coast Guard says, but fails to appear.

9.40pm GMT/ 5.40pm ET: US Coast Guard receives report about an overdue submersible from the research vessel Polar Prince about 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod on the US coast.

US and Canadian ships and planes are swarming the area , some dropping sonar buoys that can monitor to a depth of almost 4,000 metres, US Coast Guard R Adm John Mauger says. Officials have also asked commercial vessels for help.

2.50pm GMT/ 10am ET: France says it will help with search by deploying Atalante, a ship equipped with a deep-sea diving vessel. It is expected to arrive late on Wednesday.

During the day: Sounds detected over several hours by Canadian Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft, equipped with gear to trace submarines. CNN and Rolling Stone magazine report banging sounds at 30-minute intervals had been detected.

US Coast Guard, US Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and OceanGate Expeditions establish a unified command to handle the search.

6 am GMT/ 2am ET: US Coast Guard confirms Canadian P-3 aircraft detected underwater noises . It says remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches are directed to the area of the sounds and the data is also sent to US Navy experts for analysis.

5pm GMT/1pm ET: US Coast Guard says more underwater noises were detected and that the search area had increased to “two times the size of Connecticut”.

Late on Wednesday: More vessels, including a French research ship, equipped with a deep-sea diving vessel, were due to arrive to assist the “complex response effort”, which covers an area twice the size of Connecticut.

10 am GMT/ 6am ET: Approximate deadline for when the air in the submersible was expected to run out, based on the US Coast Guard’s estimate that the Titan could have up to 96 hours of air supply from the time it was sealed.

Around 12pm GMT/8am ET: Two remotely operated vehicles have been deployed as part of the search effort. Experts say it is still unclear whether the submersible is on the surface or on the seabed, and warn “weeks of intense survey” may be required to locate it.

Around 3pm GMT/11am ET: Canadian navy ship carrying a medical team specialising in dive medicine arrives on the scene.

3.48pm GMT/ 11.48am ET: The US Coast Guard say a debris field was discovered within the search area by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) near the Titanic wreck.

7pm GMT/ 3pm ET: US Coast Guard to hold press conference after announcing discovery of debris.

8pm GMT/4pm ET: Five crew members aboard the submersible Titan were probably killed instantly in a “catastrophic implosion”, the US Coast Guard said. Rear Adm John Mauger, the First Coast Guard District commander, said a remotely operated vehicle discovered the tail cone of the Titan sub and the debris is “consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber”. A large debris field containing five major pieces of the vessel wasspotted by a remotely operated vehicle scouring the seabed near the Titanic wreck site 400 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, officials said.

This article was amended on 22 June 2023 to correct the time conversion from GMT to ET.

• Titanic sub incident
• The Titanic

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Ross Kemp turned down trip on Titanic submersible over safety fears

Titan submersible: why was its implosion not announced sooner?

Investigations under way into loss of Titan sub as questions grow over its design

US navy says it picked up ‘anomaly’ hours after sub began mission – as it happened

Titanic sub crew believed to have died instantly in ‘catastrophic implosion’

Titanic sub: what we know about the victims of deep-sea tragedy.

Titan submersible: 19-year-old was a student at university in Glasgow

Titan sub implosion: what we know at a glance

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