The sinking of the TITANIC

 
                     It is hundred years the TITANIC sank and the tragic tale of this ocean liner on its maiden voyage sinking in the Atlantic ocean will haunt humanity for ever. On the night of the 14th of April 1912 after a struggle lasting around three hours this supposedly invincible creature created by man was helplessly devoured by the ocean a sight witnessed by some 700 odd people from the life boats into which they were hurriedly accumulated. This sight of horror must have haunted these people for the rest of their lives and what unfolded in front of them in the back drop of a moon less but starry night  would be some kind of a scene from a horror thriller and an logical end to a tragic situation put to an end all of a sudden. Titanic split into two halves and imagine the sudden noise and thunder it would have created a final roar before it went down silently into the ocean never to rise again and all its majesty and invincibility and aura silently trapped in the debris that lies at the bottom of the ocean.

                   What went wrong? was it carelessness, callousness , arrogance that was primarily the reason at the back-drop somewhere that dictated this tragedy. This ship built in Belfast was possibly the first of its kind during that time creating  60,000 horse power of energy from three steam engines with large exhaust vents that operated from even distance from each other and located at calculated points on the length of the ship to provide uniform thrust. On the 2nd of April 1912 the ship sets sail from Belfast where it was built to Southampton from where it was to sail to New York. The ship had a capacity of 3000 people and on that fateful voyage had more than 2000 people on board largely composed of Englishmen and other Europeans who were largely capitalizing on the economic boom that possibly happened in America at that time and many workers who paid 2 pounds for a berth on the Ship to reach the promised land searching for occupation and opportunity.

                 On its maiden voyage the Titanic had the best of the crew..Edward Smith a seasoned Captain not to mention the various officers who were the best in the trade. Note that with the onset of summer the various ice glaciers in Greenland under go  a cracking process and set sail southwards into the ocean melting very slowly as they pass thousands of kilometers and shrinking in size. Note that ice bergs found in the ocean are much stronger and lethal in their composition as they are formed out of solidified snow as against solidified water and they have more tensile strength than conventional ice making it a dangerous impediment in the event some obstacle were to crash into it. Even today ice bergs pose a threat to ships and ocean liners but technologies of various kinds exist today unlike the wireless-telegraph that existed in 1912.

                  The TITANIC received adequate warning as it entered the fourth day of its voyage covering 700 kilometers every day and possibly having a maximum speed of 40km/hr and cruising for most of the time at near  high speed. Note that there is a commercial angle to the episode. Note that the ship was only 2/3 full and the owners would have liked it to be full to the brim and if the ship were to cover the trans-Atlantic journey faster it could perform more number of voyages thereby contributing to economic gains. The Captain was possibly under some kind of orders to finish it as soon as he could. It was a Sunday and the waters were particularly cold owing to the icy waters drifting down  the ocean and the temperatures at various parts of the ocean as the Titanic traversed was distinctly deviant.

               There are two trans-Atlantic corridors..the shortest  northern corridor  which is almost a straight line drawn from Europe to new york but infested with a higher density of ice-bergs and a more elongated southern corridor which was a circuitous route and often undertaken when there are warnings of ice-bergs and the captain in all his wisdom put the ship few kilometers below the southern corridor and thought it befitting to cruise at full speed...a tragic error of judgement. the Captain retires to bed at around 8:30 pm leaving the fate of the ship with the underlings and there was no indication of the disaster that lay just ahead and two spotter boys on the top of the ship braving the cold and trying to identify any ice-berg that might be in the offing. Most of the passengers retire to bed and it is 10:25 pm and before long the spotters on the top of the ship see an ice berg the size of an elephant barely visible in the cold and signal to the engine room barely 30 seconds in advance. The engine room puts the engines on reverse and turns the ship leftwards but owing to the momentum arising from the speed  at which it was cruising dents 200 ft of its side the rivets giving away and water gushing into ship in a continuous flow. The bottom front of the ship is steadily getting over-loaded with water pulling the ship steadily downwards and after a three hour struggle the inevitable happens the ship splits into two and is devoured by the sea and with it go the lives of 1512 people all meeting a cold watery grave in the cold waters of the Atlantic.

This story has been said many times over by many people at many times and will continue to be told for ever. The debris or the remnants of this great ship rot on the floor of the ocean. Humanity must try to do one thing as an act of revenge to the seas that so gulped an ocean liner so fantastic to the pomp of the human eye and that simply is to reverse the process of sinking by pulling out the debris of the TITANIC from the ocean floor and setting it up as a monument in Belfast where it had its birth and sea of humanity can visit the once worsted TITANIC salvaged from the sea and would be for ever a tribute and honor to the 1512 who laid their lives for no fault of theirs on the waters of the ocean a hundred years ago and rest once and for all the anguish that goes with this incident that a ship that had once fallen to the seas has been extricated from its position of helplessness to be seen by all humanity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05o7sOAjtXE