Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

I’m Jans your Mnemonic Man and today's episode will be on the biggest ship of its time which was involved in one of the biggest disasters of all time, the Titanic.

It took approximately 3,000 workers around 26 months to build the Titanic. It was built by the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolf in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

It was the biggest of the three Olympic-class ocean liners built by White Star Line who were aggressively competing against Cunard for the prestigious transatlantic service.

Their aim was opulence over speed and that people would enjoy and want to spend more time on their luxurious ships. The Titanic set out from Southampton, England with a collision just barely avoided when the Titanic started its engines prematurely displacing a huge volume of water and dragging the SS New York from its moorings and towards the Titanic, where only 4 feet separated the ships and enabled the Titanic to continue its journey.

They picked up passengers in Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland before they headed into the Atlantic Ocean towards New York City.

On the night of 14th April around 11.40pm the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on the starboard side at a speed of 20.5 knots. This was to be a fatal blow and as a result would raise a myriad of questions over the next century and beyond, as to the factor or combination of factors that may have been responsible for its demise.

Was it the speed the were travelling, was it the construction of the hull that should have been triple rivetted, was it the poor quality of the wrought iron rivets, or was it the high concentrations of slag on the rivets, was it the coal fire in one of the bunkers on the ship which had weakened and warped the bulkhead steel and thus making it brittle, was it David Blair who failed to return the keys to the crow’s nest which contained the binoculars when he was reassigned to another ship at the last minute, or was it the moons tidal effect that increased the number of icebergs due to its propinquity to earth coupled with a spring tide.

Whatever the factor or factors which may have been, it was a humbling and tragic event that made even White Star Line reconsider their hubris when they renamed the Titanic’s sister ship “Gigantic” to “Britannic.”

Today’s mnemonic will be on the top seven facts about the Titanic.

So, with that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RMS_Titanic_3.jpg

Wikipedia Summary

RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. It was the second time White Star Line had lost a ship on its maiden voyage, the first being the RMS Tayleur in 1854.

Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, approximately 1,500 died (figures vary), making the incident one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship.[4] Titanic, operated by the White Star Line, carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The disaster drew public attention, spurred major changes in maritime safety regulations, and inspired a lasting legacy in popular culture.

RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat upon entering service and the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners built for the White Star Line. The ship was built by the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company in Belfast. Thomas Andrews Jr., the chief naval architect of the shipyard, died in the disaster. Titanic was under the command of Captain Edward John Smith, who went down with the ship.

The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury. It included a gymnasium, swimming pool, smoking rooms, fine restaurants and cafes, a Victorian-style Turkish bath, and hundreds of opulent cabins. A high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter was available to send passenger "marconigrams" and for the ship's operational use. Titanic had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, which contributed to the ship's reputation as "unsinkable".

Titanic was equipped with sixteen lifeboat davits, each capable of lowering three lifeboats, for a total capacity of 48 boats. Despite this capacity, the ship was scantly equipped with a total of only twenty lifeboats. Fourteen of these were regular lifeboats, two were cutter lifeboats, and four were collapsible and proved difficult to launch while the ship was sinking. Together, the lifeboats could hold 1,178 people — roughly half the number of passengers on board, and a third of the number of passengers the ship could have carried at full capacity.

The British Board of Trade's regulations required fourteen lifeboats for a ship of 10,000 tonnes. Titanic carried six more than required, allowing 338 extra people room in lifeboats. When the ship sank, the lifeboats that had been lowered were only filled up to an average of 60%.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smith_Titanic_bridge.jpg

Mnemonic

The Titanic – Top 7 Facts Mnemonic – BRAVEST

(Picture all the bravest passengers and crew on the Titanic that went out of their way to save the lives of others over their own)

1. Built by White Star Line after three years of construction in Belfast, Ireland

2. RMS Carpathia was the first ship to arrive

3. Around 1500 people lost their lives

4. Voyage was from Southampton, England, to New York

5. Eward John Smith was the captain

6. Sunk 14th & 15th April, 1912

7. Titanic wreck located 1st September 1985

Five Fun Facts

1. The Titanic was both luxurious and massive. It measured 28 metres wide, 53 metres tall and 269 metres long. It weighed 52,310 tonnes and cost $7.5 million in 1912 which is around $198 million today.

2. The full name of the Titanic was the RMS Titanic. RMS stands for “Royal Mail Steamer” and along with passengers, the ship carried approximately 3,500 sacks of letters, packages, and documents. It is believed that some letters may have survived in the dark chilly waters of the North Atlantic and as the delivery of mail is the obligation of the postal system should any mail be salvaged the Royal Mail or United States Postal Service could take steps to recover and deliver the mail, no doubt raising a legal Pandora’s box.

3. The Titanic was divided into three classes. First Class were the wealthiest located at the at the top of the ship. They had spacious suites, fine dining, and access to a range of facilities. Second-class accommodation consisted of cabins with a sink and a mirror, along with a library and dining room. While Third Class was located at the bottom of the ship where the cabins slept up to ten people, each cabin with a sink and a mirror. There was a dining room but the biggest downside was that all 700 third-class passengers had to share two bathtubs!

4. Now to the lifeboats. The Titanic had 20 lifeboats that in total could accommodate 1,178 people, which was a little over half of the 2,224 people on board. 18 of these lifeboats were used while the two collapsable lifeboats, unfortunately, floated away. Many of these lifeboats were launched half empty costing many lives, and once they had rowed away from the ship were reluctant to return for fear of being swamped by drowning victims or the suction of the sinking ship. Only two lifeboats returned to search for survivors. Though the number of lifeboats was woefully short the Titanic had complied with maritime safety regulations at the time.

5. The Titanic was designed with 16 separate sections in the hull. This way if up to four sections were breached, she would still be able to stay afloat and sail to safety. Unfortunately, just before midnight that faithful night an iceberg gouged along the side of the ship tearing open six sections of the hull. The Titanic sank two hours and 40 minutes later, the exact same time as the scenes set in 1912 in James Cameron’s movie “Titanic.”

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Titanic_sinking,_painting_by_Willy_St%C3%B6wer.jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. How many funnels did the Titanic have?

Q.2. What three colours was the Titanic? Options are white, black, and blue or white, black, and red

Q.3. What were the Titanic’s two sister ships?

Bonus Q. How many propellers did the Titanic have?

Bonus Q. What was the nearest ship to the Titanic when it first sent out distress calls? Options are “The Sampson,” “The Californian,” or “The Carpathia”

Bonus Q. Why don’t ships play cards?

Mnemonic Recap

The Titanic – Top 7 Facts Mnemonic – BRAVEST

(Picture all the bravest passengers and crew on the Titanic that went out of their way to save the lives of others over their own)

1. Built by White Star Line after three years of construction in Belfast, Ireland

2. RMS Carpathia was the first ship to arrive

3. Around 1500 people lost their lives

4. Voyage was from Southampton, England, to New York

5. Eward John Smith was the captain

6. Sunk 14th & 15th April, 1912

7. Titanic wreck located 1st September 1985

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. How many funnels did the Titanic have?

A. Four

Q.2. What three colours was the Titanic? Options are white, black, and blue or white, black, and red

A. White, black, and red

Q.3. What were the Titanic’s two sister ships?

A. The Olympic and the Britannic

Bonus Q. How many propellers did the Titanic have?

A. Three

Bonus Q. What was the nearest ship to the Titanic when it first sent out distress calls? Options are “The Sampson,” “The Californian,” or “The Carpathia”

A. The Californian. It could have possibly been the Mount Temple but was ruled out by the inquiry

Bonus Q. Why don’t ships play cards?

A. Because the deck is always stacked! Definitely above board and anchored in humour!!

Word of the Week

epochal

[ ep-uh-kuhl ]

adjective

extremely important, significant, or influential

Example

The sinking of the Titanic was an epochal moment in maritime safety history with several acts and laws passed to avoid further disasters.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]

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