In what year did the Titanic sink? The place of the tragedy of the Titanic, what and how (14 photos)

Hello my dear readers! Today I would like to talk about serious things, even tragic ones. On April 15, the whole world celebrates an unfortunate event ... This is the date of the death of the Titanic, which contemporaries considered an unsinkable liner.

Surprising is the fact that so far, despite official version catastrophe, there are different opinions and versions of what happened on that ill-fated night.

The place where the Titanic sank

The Titanic was rightfully considered the most luxurious ship of the beginning of the last century, so the news of its death shocked the entire world community. According to official figures, about 1,500 people died, including passengers and crew members. Despite the fact that the twentieth century brought many disasters, catastrophes and wars, the tragedy of the Titanic remains an equally tragic event, interest in which has not subsided to this day. The event that took place near the island of Newfoundland on the night of April 14-15 was overgrown with many rumors and conjectures that have a sufficient number of followers.

The place where the Titanic sank on the map has the following coordinates - 41046' north latitude and 50014' west longitude.

However, it was later established that the declared data were incorrect, so even now there is no exact information regarding the exact coordinates of the crash site. This is not the only oddity that accompanied this whole story, so let's try to figure out some versions of what happened, because the tragedy itself is not limited to a collision with an iceberg, it is more extensive and complex.

Versions of the tragedy

Perhaps we will not know until the end of the whole truth of that night, despite the investigations. Of course, they brought some clarity to what happened, but there are still a lot of "blank spots" that still remain a mystery. Some evidence contradicted others, some evidence, if checked and studied in more detail, became more than doubtful - all this gave rise to many speculations and legends on this topic, which have their followers today.

Some of these versions may look incredible, but history shows us that a rational explanation of what is happening may not always be possible. Be that as it may, we need to talk about it, seek the truth, and then the truth will make us stronger. Another question is that the truth can hardly be known to you and me - to ordinary inhabitants who draw information from the Internet. In any case, we can study various versions and reasons for what happened, and everyone will decide for himself which one is close to him personally.

The first version is a conspiracy of the powers that be

We all love conspiracy theories, some of which smack a bit of schizophrenia and paranoia. However, some facts look so indisputable that you involuntarily move from the category of skeptics to a group of doubters, at least. In the story of the Titanic, everything is also very mysterious and controversial. But let's start in order.

Many people agree that the disaster with the Titanic was planned in advance. No matter how wild it may sound, but this is indicated by several curious facts. For example, John Morgan, a well-known American billionaire and, concurrently, the owner of the company that owned the liner, canceled his ticket exactly one day before the expected departure.

You probably say that this is nothing more than an ordinary coincidence? Maybe, but Morgan's example was followed by another 55 people who were supposed to swim in the first class. I think it is not worth mentioning that only rich people travel in the first classes, and if you consider that among these 55 there are such people as John Rockefeller, Henry Frick and Alfred Vandelfield, who were close friends of Morgan himself, then this suggests certain reflections.

I understand that the cancellation of the cruise cannot be considered the only evidence of this version.

But there are several other points that indirectly confirm this interpretation of events, or at least make us take a fresh look at them.

So, in 1907, an agreement was signed on the creation of a new cruise ship, which had no analogues in the world. Two sides - Bruce Ismay (by the way, a close associate of Rockefeller and Morgan) and Lord Pirrie started a truly large-scale production, the result of which should be the same unsinkable ship. Then they said that the liner had a heavy-duty bottom, and the Titanic itself could stay afloat, even if four of its compartments were flooded.

However, in the 90s of the last century, Russian experts took samples of the Titanic's metal at depth in order to conduct a study. The results shocked many. It turned out that this is not just an ordinary metal, but also with a large addition of sulfur, which made it very brittle at low temperatures. Many wonder why the production of the Titanic, an advanced liner at that time, the advertising campaign for which was in full swing, used such poor quality steel. The explanation that a design error was made does not stand up to scrutiny.

There is a version that in this way the company saved its money, but they could not help but know that such steel would not withstand even the slightest collision in icy water, so such negligence is also in doubt. It also remains unclear why there were no searchlights on the Titanic, because this liner was considered the most modern and advanced. Also a miscalculation of the designers?

Indeed, there are many oddities.

By the way, one of the first who escaped that tragic night was our old friend Bruce Ismay. It was he who was among the first who boarded the lifeboat, after which he waited for the arrival of the RMS Carpathia steamer, which also belonged to the White star line, who made the Titanic. An order was even given to rescue first-class passengers first, and the lower deck was ordered to be locked up. It was there that there were 1,500 people, among whom were many women and children who died that fateful night.

The second version is a substitution

The next version, which can also be attributed to a conspiracy theory, is the story of the Olympic. Few people know, but this is an exact copy of the Titanic, which was only two inches shorter than it, i.e. the length of the usual matchbox. Feel what I'm getting at?

The fact is that it was visually impossible to distinguish one ship from another. In addition, a separate book can be compiled about the misadventures of Olympus. So, immediately after launching, he collided with a dam. Then it happened to him a large number of minor and major accidents, so it's safe to call it an "unlucky ship."

That is why many insurance companies did not want to deal with such an unlucky liner, not wanting to insure it, which the owners of the ship so zealously sought. It was decided to put the Olympic in the docks until a decision was made on its future fate.

We have a plan

Here, a version began to emerge, according to which the White Star Line company wished to get rid of the Olympic in a very original way, passing it off as the Titanic, which, by the way, was insured. Considering that they are structurally and outwardly very similar, it was not difficult to do this at all.

It is enough just to replace the plate with the name of the liner, change some interior items, etc. The plan really looks logical, because no one will even suspect about the substitution, quite reasonably believing that in front of him is the very “unsinkable” Titanic, and not the “eternal loser” Olympic.

Naturally, no one was going to intentionally sink the liner, because it is unlikely that anyone was convinced by the version that modern Titanic could drown from a normal collision with an iceberg. It is reasonable to assume that

the plan was to provoke a collision of the ship, and then sail safely to New York, and the owners of the company, in turn, will receive an impressive amount that is due to them under insurance.

Considering that Edward Smith, the captain of the ship, literally deliberately drove at high speed along a dangerous route, ignoring all sorts of warnings about icebergs nearby, then this version becomes quite plausible.

But, in 1985, when the hull of a sunken ship was discovered at a depth, this version was officially refuted. The fact is that the number 401 was clearly visible on the propeller of the liner, i.e. the serial number of the Titanic, while the number of the Olympic was the number 400. One could question this fact, assuming that the company replaced the propeller after a collision with another ship (and there were many in the history of the Olympic), but the serial number of the Titanic is found on other parts of the ship, so this moment can be closed. Although I agree, the version is interesting.

The third version is the fight for the Blue Ribbon

If you are a pragmatic person, then you will probably be interested in the Blue Ribbon version. This award was given to those ships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean the fastest. Naturally, serious competition immediately flared up between the companies, because winning this award promised quite big advantages.

No, the winner did not receive a cash prize, but the ship itself received something more - this is a worldwide honor in the maritime industry, as well as an authority that can hardly be obtained in other ways. Such prestige inevitably led to material gain, because the vessel that received this award received a contract for the delivery of all kinds of mail - a very profitable business at that time. And judge for yourself, if you were a millionaire, which liner would you sail on? Of course, the one with the prestigious award.

At that time, the ship that owned the Blue Ribbon was Mauritania, owned by a longtime rival of the White Star Line. It is clear that the owners of the company were sleeping and saw how they would wipe their noses at the enemy, so they made a bet on the Titanic, hoping that it would cross the Atlantic Ocean faster than Mauritania. That is why, the captain of the Titanic walked through a dangerous area, deliberately cutting off the path.

Initially, the route assumed a small detour to avoid collision with icebergs, which are enough in that stretch of water. But Smith deliberately ignored the danger, driving at all times in a straight line, wanting to beat. This may seem crazy, but Smith naively assumed that even if a collision occurred, it would not lead to tragic consequences, and the record itself could only be postponed to a later date.

Such carelessness was very costly.

By coincidence, after the collision with the iceberg, five compartments were flooded, i.e. one more than the Titanic could carry. In addition, the captain counted on the fact that the iceberg would not break through the strong steel of the liner, because, in his opinion, this should not happen. Here we again return to the issue of the quality of the metal used in the production of the Titanic.

In addition, many supporters of this version lose sight of one important point. The fact is that the speed of Mauritania, the last owner of the Blue Ribbon before the Titanic, was 26 knots. The maximum speed of the Titanic itself was no more than 24 knots, so it is not clear how he could get ahead of Mauritania. Again, many will say that the captain knew this, so he deliberately did not slow down, moving along the shortest route, so there is no consensus. Riddles, riddles, riddles…..

Schizoteric reasons for the sinking of the Titanic

In a word, versions on the topic tragic death"Titanic" quite a lot. This I have not yet told about the German torpedo that allegedly sank the Titanic, and the curse of the Egyptian mummy! That's where the real schizophrenia I talked about at the beginning. So that you can appreciate the full scale of the rumors that still circulate around this tragedy

on the story about the mummy - I will dwell in more detail

In general, it was a very long time ago (we are talking about a mummy), a certain person lived in Egypt, who had the gift of foresight. Whether it really was so or not, I will not undertake, and this is not relevant to the case. So, our soothsayer died, after which they made a mummy out of her according to a long tradition. They found it during excavations that were carried out near Cairo at the end of the nineteenth century.

The mummy was buried with a large number of various treasures, among which was the image of Osiris. There was an inscription flaunting and its meaning was literally as follows - you will crush with your eyes anyone who dares to stand in your way. This therefore applied to the mummy and those likely offenders who would attempt on her.

The mummy was bought first by one collector, then by another, and so on, along the chain. All of them died from a terrible curse that swirled around the mummy, but who will understand the true causes of their death? If a person dies at the age of 90, then the mummy is unlikely to be the cause. In the end, the mummy is bought by an unnamed American millionaire who wishes to smuggle it from England to the US.

I don't think it's necessary to explain which vessel he chose for this.

According to legend, the mummy was kept in an ordinary wooden box in the immediate vicinity of the captain's bridge. Naturally, the rogue Smith, being a curious fellow by nature, looked into this cherished box. Meeting the eyes of the mummy, the captain immediately lost his mind. This forced him to drive through a dangerous stretch of water where icebergs drifted, while still not slowing down.

Surprisingly, there are supporters of this theory

However, they miss one point. The meaning of mummies is the ability to preserve the shell of the body so that the soul of the deceased can return. Return to the place from which she, in fact, fluttered. It would be logical to assume that the main task of the mummy would be to get rid of all kinds of risk and situations where her precious body could suffer.

It is clear that after she would have been in ice water, the mummy would have survived no more than a couple of days. Quite a dubious approach to self-preservation, frankly ... In general, this kind of version is the prerogative of the yellow press, so we will not judge them about it.

A thinking person simply will not take such a newspaper in his hands, but let the rest of them entertain themselves at their leisure with such tales.

By the way, I would like to apologize to Edward Smith, whose image I portrayed somewhat frivolously. Despite the fact that he led the Titanic on a dangerous route, he was a man of honor to the end. He stayed on the already dying ship, making no attempt to escape. It is an old maritime tradition, when the captain does not leave the sinking ship, and every time it literally takes your breath away.

In general, you and I are unlikely to get to know everything about the events that took place on the night of April 15th. Therefore, our best act will be to honor the memory of all dead passengers and crew members, once again remembering them.

In contact with

The remains of the ship rest in silence and darkness - a giant puzzle of rusty steel fragments scattered across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It is readily eaten by bacteria and fungi, for them expanse is here. Bizarre colorless creatures roam around. Since the wreck was discovered in 1985 by a researcher at the National geographical society Robert Ballard and French oceanographer Jean-Louis Michel, deep-sea robots and manned vehicles periodically visited here. They sent a sonar beam to the Titanic, took a couple of photographs - and sailed away.

In recent years, American director James Cameron, French submariner Paul-Henri Narjolet, and other researchers have brought ever clearer and more detailed photographs from the crash site. And yet we looked at the Titanic as if through a keyhole - we could only see what was illuminated by the spotlights of the underwater vehicle. Never before have we been able to look at thousands of disparate debris as a single whole. Finally, the opportunity presented itself.

A state-of-the-art trailer is parked in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution parking lot. In the trailer, William Lang is hunched over a sonar map of the Titanic wreck. It took months of painstaking work to assemble this mosaic. The ghostly landscape resembles the surface of the moon - the bottom is dotted with crater-like depressions. These are traces of large fragments of melting icebergs that have been falling to the bottom for thousands of years.

“Never before have we been able to look at thousands of disparate debris as a whole. Finally, such an opportunity presented itself.

The owner of this 925 sterling silver men's pocket watch has set it to New York time in anticipation of a safe arrival.

The porthole on the right side of the page is one of 5,000 items salvaged from the wreck of the Titanic. Upon hitting the bottom, the steel sheets of the hull plating bent, and the portholes remained intact, popping out of their "eyes".

Most likely, this felt hat belonged to a businessman. In an era when people were "meet by clothes," the bowler hat was a sign of belonging to the class of doctors, lawyers, or entrepreneurs.

But if you look closely, you begin to distinguish the creations of human hands. On the computer screen, Lang moves the cursor over a fragment of a map created by superimposing photographs on acoustic images - sonar data. He enlarges the picture until the bow of the Titanic appears on the screen in all its "glory": where the first chimney once stood, now a black hole gapes. A hundred meters to the northeast, a torn hatch cover was buried in the muddy mud. All this can be seen in the smallest detail - on one fragment you can even see how a white crab is scratching its claws against the railing.

So, moving the mouse across the screen, you can see everything that remains of the Titanic - every mooring bollard, every davit, every steam boiler. “Now we know exactly where everything is,” says Lang. “One hundred years passed, and finally the light came on.”

Bill Lang runs the Imaging and Visualization Laboratory at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This is something like an ultra-modern photo studio specializing in underwater photography. Inside, the lab is lined with soundproof panels, and the room is chock-full of computers and high-definition TV monitors. Lang participated in the famous Ballard expedition that discovered the remains of the Titanic, and since then everything has been Newest technologies he certainly experiences deep-sea photography at this underwater cemetery.

Next to the giant propellers of the Olympic liner - an almost exact copy of the Titanic - the workers of the shipyard in Belfast look like midgets. Both twin ships were built in Belfast. The Titanic was photographed little, but we can judge the grandeur of its design from the Olympic. National Museums of Northern Ireland, Harland and Wolf Collection, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum

Guide to the sunken wreckage - the result of the work of the expedition, sinking to the bottom in August-September 2010. Millions of dollars have been invested in this ambitious project. The survey was conducted by three underwater robots that moved at different distances from the bottom surface along programmed trajectories. Packed with side-scan sonar, multi-beam sonar, and optical cameras that took hundreds of shots per second, the robots combed the bottom in a 5x8-kilometer stretch. The data obtained was subjected to careful computer processing, and here is the result: on a huge map high resolution wrecks and features bottom relief reflected in their mutual arrangement with indication of exact geographical coordinates.

"This is a breakthrough," said expedition leader, archaeologist James Delgado of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. - In the past, studying the remains of the Titanic was like exploring downtown New York at night in heavy rain with a flashlight. Now we have a certain area with clear boundaries, where everything can be viewed and measured. Perhaps, over time, thanks to this map, people who, as it seemed to us, were silent for all eternity, when the icy waters of the ocean closed over them, will find a voice.

What is the magnet that draws us to the remains of the Titanic? Why, even 100 years later, this pile of metal at a four-kilometer depth does not give people peace of mind? Some are fascinated by the scale of the catastrophe. Others are haunted by the thought of those who could not leave the ship. The Titanic sank for 2 hours and 40 minutes, and this time was enough for 2208 epic tragedies to unfold on its stage. Cowardice (they talked about a gentleman who tried to get into the boat, dressed in a woman's dress) side by side with courage and self-sacrifice. Many are real heroes. The captain remained on the captain's bridge, the orchestra continued to play, radio operators gave distress signals until the very end. And the passengers - almost all - behaved in strict accordance with the hierarchy of Edwardian society: social barriers were stronger than watertight partitions.

But the Titanic did not only take human lives with it. Together with the giant ship, the illusion of order went to the bottom, faith in scientific and technical progress, the desire to live, to go towards the future. "Imagine you cheated soap bubble, and it burst - here's the wreck of the Titanic, - says James Cameron. - In the first decade of the 20th century, it seemed that an era of prosperity had begun on Earth. Elevators! Cars! Airplanes! Radio! People believed that nothing is impossible, that progress is endless, and life is like a fairy tale. But everything collapsed in an instant."

It is hard to imagine a more surreal picture: on the Las Vegas Strip, on one of the upper floors of the Luxor Hotel, next to the strip show, an exhibition of relics from the Titanic settled for a long time. They were retrieved from the depths of the sea by the RMS Titanic, Inc. corporation, which since 1994 has the exclusive right to raise items from the sunken giant. Similar exhibitions were arranged in 20 other countries of the world, and in total they were visited by more than 25 million people.

In mid-October last year, I spent a day at the Luxor wandering among the artifacts: a chef's hat, a shaving set, lumps of coal, several excellently preserved dishes from the service, countless boots and shoes, perfume bottles, a leather bag, a bottle of champagne with so and untouched cork. These ordinary items became unique after a long and terrible way to sparkling glass windows. I walked through a dark, cold room - it has an "iceberg" with a freon cooling system, which you can touch. From the speakers comes the rattle of torn metal, forcing a sense of unease. And here is the pearl of the collection - a huge, weighing 15 tons, fragment of the Titanic hull. In 1998, he was taken from the bottom of the ocean using a crane.

The Titanic's rudder is buried in the sand, propeller blades are visible on the sides. The badly mutilated stern rests on the ocean floor 600 meters south of the bow, which has been photographed much more frequently. This image is a mosaic photo collage of 300 high-resolution photographs taken during the 2010 expedition.

The exhibition in Las Vegas was done with dignity, but over the past years, submarine archaeologists have more than once spoken impartially about the RMS Titanic and its leaders. Robbers, defilers of graves, treasure hunters - they didn’t find any nicknames for them! “You don’t go to the Louvre and point your finger at the Mona Lisa,” Robert Ballard, the uncompromising fighter for the integrity of the Titanic, told me. “These people are driven by greed – look how much they have done!”

The open stern exposes the two engines of the Titanic. They are covered with orange growths - a waste product of bacteria that eat rusty iron. Once upon a time, these giants, the size of a four-story house, set in motion the most grandiose creation human hands.

However, in recent years, the RMS Titanic has undergone changes in leadership - and in the approach to business. The new leaders do not seek to raise as many objects as possible from the bottom - on the contrary, in the future it is planned to conduct archaeological research at the crash site. The corporation began to cooperate with research and development government organizations. The very expedition of 2010, during which scientists first surveyed the entire complex of sunken wreckage, was organized, led and financed by RMS Titanic. The company has sided with those who are calling for the Titanic wreck to be turned into a maritime memorial. In late 2011, RMS Titanic announced plans to auction off its entire collection and associated intellectual property worth $189 million - but only if a buyer can be found who agrees to abide by strict conditions set by a federal court. One of these conditions: the collection cannot be sold in parts.

RMS Titanic President Chris Davino invited me to the exhibit store. This treasure trove lurks next door to a dog groomer in an unremarkable neighborhood in Atlanta. The brick building is equipped with a climate control system, a forklift maneuvers between long rows of racks - everything is like in a regular warehouse. The racks are lined from top to bottom with boxes and crates with detailed descriptions of the contents. What is not here: dishes, clothes, letters, bottles, fragments of water pipes, portholes - everything that has been raised from the bottom of the ocean for three decades. Davino took over the RMS Titanic in 2009, taking on the arduous mission of helping the ill-fated enterprise get started. new life. “There are many stakeholders in the Titanic case, and there are many disagreements between them, but for many years they were all united by contempt for us. It's time for a reassessment of values. We realized that you can't just pick up artifacts and do nothing else. We should not fight with scientists, but cooperate,” says Davino.

"Titanic": the crash site

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And it is not just words. Not so long ago, government organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did nothing but sue the RMS Titanic. Now yesterday's opponents are working together on long-term research projects, the goal of which is to create a security guard at the crash site. protected area. “It's not easy to find a compromise between protecting the memorial and making a profit,” admits marine archaeologist Dave Conlin. - These businessmen had something to condemn. But now they deserve respect.”

The scientists also liked the corporation's decision to involve one of the world's leading experts in the analysis of the 2010 images. Bill Sauder is a walking encyclopedia of the Titanic-class ocean liners. Bill's position is project manager, but he himself prefers to call himself "the keeper of knowledge about all sorts of things."

When we met in Atlanta, he was sitting staring at a computer, wearing thick glasses and looking like a dwarf with a half-faced shaggy beard. On the screen were the wreckage of the stern of the Titanic. On previous expeditions, the focus has almost always been on the more photogenic prow, which lies to the north of the bulk of the remains. But Sauder suspects research will shift aft in the future. “The nose looks cool, no doubt, but we have been there a hundred times already,” the scientist admits. “I’m much more interested in this junk on the south side.”

Bill is trying to identify anything in the scrap heap. “Many people think that the wreckage looks like something picturesque ruins an ancient temple on a hill, he says. - No matter how! They are much more like an industrial dump: mountains of sheet metal, all kinds of rivets, spacers. Who will figure it out? Is that a fan of Picasso.

Sauder zooms in on the first image he sees, and within minutes, one of a thousand mysteries has been solved. At the very top of the pile of rubble lies the mangled copper frame of a revolving door, apparently from the first-class cabin. In general, you can sit on the “what is what” puzzle for more than one year. This is an incredibly time-consuming job that only someone who knows every inch of the ship can handle.

At the end of October 2011, I attended a round table where James Cameron invited the most authoritative experts in the field of marine research. Bill Souder, RMS Titanic researcher Paul-Henri Narjolay, historian Don Lynch, and marine painter Ken gathered in a movie studio the size of an airplane hangar in Manhattan Beach, California, among props left over from the filming of Titanic. Marshall, who has been involved in the Titanic for 40 years. They were joined by a naval engineer, an oceanographer from the Woods Hole Institute, and two US Navy architects.

First: full portrait legendary wreckage

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Cameron, by his own admission, "is so obsessed with the Titanic that he knows every rivet there." Behind the director's shoulders are three expeditions to the crash site. He pioneered the development of a new class of small-sized remote-controlled robots that can survey by separating from an underwater base and maneuvering through the wreckage. This was the first time we were able to photograph the interior of the Titanic, with its luxurious Turkish bath and magnificent suites (see “Walking on the Titanic”)

10 years ago, Cameron made a documentary about the remains of the German battleship Bismarck sunk in 1941, and at the time of our meeting, he was preparing to go down to the bottom alone, armed with a 3D camera. Mariana Trench. But the spell of the Titanic is not weakening. “There, at the bottom, we see a strange mixture of biology and architecture - I would call it a biomechanical environment,” says Cameron. - I think it's fantastic. Feeling as if the ship plunged into Tartarus - into the realm of shadows.

With two days at his disposal, Cameron decided to arrange something like a forensic examination. Why did the Titanic break in half? Where exactly did the hull crack? At what angle did the debris hit the bottom? “This is a crime scene,” Cameron says. - Once you realize this, you want to get to the bottom of the truth: how did this happen? Why is the knife here and the gun there?

As expected, the experts immediately begin to speak the language of birds. Without being an engineer, from all these "angles of incidence", "shear forces" and "turbidity of the environment", one thing can be understood: the last moments of the life of the Titanic were cruel, excruciating agony. One often hears that the waves “closed” over the liner, and it “sank to the bottom of the ocean”, as if quietly and peacefully plunged into eternal sleep. Nothing like this! Based on the experience of many years of research, the experts produced computer simulations based on the finite element method. Now we have a detailed understanding of the death throes of the Titanic.

Late in the evening, at 23:40, the ship ripped open the starboard side on the edge of the iceberg. As a result, a 90-meter “lacerated wound” formed on the hull, six front waterproof compartments received holes and began to fill with water. From that moment on, the Titanic was doomed. But it is quite possible that his death was accelerated by an unsuccessful attempt to put passengers into boats from a lower deck: the crew members opened the door to lower the gangway on the left side. As the ship began to list to port, it was no longer possible to overcome the force of gravity and close the massive door again. The bow part gradually descended, by 1:50 the water reached open door and rushed in.

By 2:18 a.m., the bow of the Titanic had filled with water, and the stern had risen so high in the air that the propellers were exposed. Unable to withstand the monstrous pressure, the hull broke in half in the central part - just 13 minutes after the last boat left the Titanic.

Here Cameron stands up and demonstrates how it all looked. Picking up a banana, the director begins to break it open: "Look how it bends and swells in the middle before breaking - see?" The last to give in was the peel at the bottom - the double bottom of the ship.

Breaking away from the stern, the bow went to the bottom at a rather sharp angle. As it dived, it gained speed, losing various parts: chimneys fell off, the wheelhouse collapsed. Five minutes later, the bow hit the bottom with such force that clods of silty mud fanned out in all directions, traces of which are still visible today.

The stern lost the bow in hydrodynamics. Going to the bottom, she tumbled and rotated in a spiral. Near the fault line, the hull gave another crack, and soon a large fragment of the hull broke off from the stern and completely collapsed, all its contents spilled out. The compartments ruptured under air pressure. The decks were falling on top of each other. The steel plating of the hull came apart at the seams. The poop deck was bent by a propeller. Heavier objects like steam boilers went down like a stone, and everything else was scattered in different directions. Before reaching the bottom, the stern turned into a pile of scrap.

Mark on history

Cameron sits down and puts a banana in his mouth. “We are all sorry that the Titanic fell apart in such an unworthy way,” he sums up. “I would like it to rest at the bottom safe and sound, like a ghost ship.”

"Hundreds of living people could have remained inside. 100 years have passed since then, but it is still unbearable to imagine this picture in the imagination."

St. John's, Newfoundland. On June 8, 1912, a rescue ship returned here, picking up the last body of a passenger from the Titanic. For many months after the tragedy, waves washed deck chairs, pieces of wood paneling and other items from the ship to the shores of the island.

I hoped that from here I would be able to fly to the crash site on the plane of the International Ice Patrol. This organization was created after the sinking of the Titanic to track icebergs on the routes of ships in Atlantic Ocean. But, alas, due to the storm, all flights were canceled, and instead I went to the pub, where they began to regale me with local vodka, which is made on water from a melted iceberg. To heighten the effect, the bartender threw a piece of ice into my glass, saying that it was from the same Greenland glacier that gave rise to the ice block that sank the Titanic.

South of St. John's, a desert rock cuts into the sea - Cape Race. A few years before the Titanic disaster, Guglielmo Marconi built a radio station here. According to local legend, Jim Myrick, a 14-year-old assistant radio operator, was the first to receive the distress call from the sinking ship. At first, there was a generally accepted call for help at that time - CQD. After some time, Cape Race received a new signal, which had hardly been used before - SOS.

I came to Cape Race to talk to David Myrick, Jim's great-nephew, among the remains of Marconi's old apparatus and detector radios. David is a marine radio operator, the last representative of a glorious dynasty. According to him, grandfather did not like to talk about that tragic night, and only in extreme old age did he begin to reminisce. By that time, Jim was deaf, so family members had to communicate with him using Morse code.

"Titanic" outside and inside: virtual tour on the famous liner

We went out to wander near the lighthouse and, stopping at the edge of the cliff, looked down for a long time at the icy waves breaking on the rocks. A tanker was in the distance. Even further, on the Great Newfoundland Bank, according to ice reconnaissance, new icebergs appeared. And already quite far, beyond the horizon, rested the remains of the most famous ship in history. I thought about the thousands of signals that had cut through the ether over the past 100 years. In this silent ocean of radio waves, innumerable voices merged into one long cry. I imagined that I could hear the voice of the Titanic itself. The crown of the creation of human hands, bearing such a proud name, he rushed at full speed towards a brave new world. But the ancient element stood in the way of the ship to inflict a mortal blow on it.

The Titanic is a British transatlantic steamship, the second Olympic-class liner. Built in Belfast at the shipyard "Harland and Wolf" from 1909 to 1912 by order of the shipping company "White Star Line".

At the time of commissioning, it was the largest ship in the world.

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, during the first flight, it crashed in the North Atlantic, colliding with an iceberg.

Vessel information

The Titanic was equipped with two four-cylinder steam engines and steam turbine.

• All power point had a capacity of 55,000 liters. With.
• The ship could reach speeds of up to 23 knots (42 km/h).
• Its displacement, which exceeded the twin steamer Olympic by 243 tons, was 52,310 tons.
• The ship's hull was made of steel.
• The hold and lower decks were divided into 16 compartments by bulkheads with sealed doors.
• If the bottom was damaged, the double bottom prevented water from entering the compartments.

Shipbuilder magazine called the Titanic virtually unsinkable, a statement widely circulated in the press and among the public.

In accordance with outdated regulations, the Titanic was equipped with 20 lifeboats, with a total capacity of 1,178 people, which was only a third of the ship's maximum load.

The cabins and public areas of the Titanic were divided into three classes.

First class passengers were offered a swimming pool, a squash court, an A la carte restaurant, two cafes, and a gym. All classes had dining and smoking lounges, open and closed promenades. The most luxurious and refined were the first-class interiors, made in various artistic styles using expensive materials such as mahogany, gilding, stained glass, silk and others. Cabins and salons of the third class were decorated as simply as possible: steel walls were painted white or sheathed with wooden panels.

1 On April 0, 1912, the Titanic left Southampton on her first and only voyage. Having made stops in French Cherbourg and Irish Queenstown, the ship entered the Atlantic Ocean with 1,317 passengers and 908 crew members on board. Captain Edward Smith commanded the ship. On April 14, the Titanic radio station received seven ice warnings, but the liner continued to move almost at top speed. To avoid meeting floating ice, the captain ordered to go a little south of the usual route.

• At 23:39 on April 14, the lookout reported to the captain's bridge about the iceberg directly ahead. Less than a minute later there was a collision. Having received several holes, the ship began to sink. First of all, women and children were put on the boats.
• At 2:20 am on April 15, the Titanic sank, breaking in two, killing 1,496 people. 712 survivors were picked up by the steamer "Carpathia".

The wreckage of the Titanic rests at a depth of 3750 m. They were first discovered by the expedition of Robert Ballard in 1985. Subsequent expeditions recovered thousands of artifacts from the bottom. The bow and stern parts have sunk deep into the bottom silt and are in a deplorable state; it is not possible to bring them to the surface intact.

The wreck of the Titanic

The disaster claimed the lives of, according to various sources, from 1495 to 1635 people. Until December 20, 1987, when the Philippine ferry Dona Paz sank, killing more than 4,000 people, the death of the Titanic remained the largest in terms of the number of deaths at sea in peacetime. Informally, it is the most famous disaster of the 20th century.

Alternative versions of the death of the ship

And now - alternative versions, each of which has its adherents in the world club of mystery lovers.

Fire

A fire in the coal compartment that arose even before sailing and provoked an explosion first, and then a collision with an iceberg. The owners of the ship knew about the fire and tried to hide it from the passengers. This version was put forward by the British journalist Shenan Moloney, writes The Independent. Moloney has been investigating the causes of the sinking of the Titanic for over 30 years.

In particular, he studied photographs taken before the ship left the shipyard in Belfast. The journalist saw black marks along the right side of the ship's hull - just where the iceberg had pierced it. Subsequently, experts confirmed that the traces were probably caused by the fire that had started in the fuel storage. “We looked at exactly where the iceberg got stuck, and it seems that this part of the hull was very vulnerable in this place, and this happened even before it left the shipyard in Belfast,” says Moloney. A team of 12 tried to put out the flames, but they were too big to quickly bring under control. It could reach temperatures up to 1000 degrees Celsius, which made the Titanic's hull very vulnerable in this place. And when he hit the ice, experts say, he immediately broke. The publication also added that the management of the liner forbade passengers to talk about the fire. “This is a perfect match of unusual factors: fire, ice and malpractice. No one has investigated these marks before. It completely changes history,” says Moloney.

CONSPIRACY

Conspiracy theory: this is not the Titanic at all! This version was put forward by Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Watt, experts in the study of the reasons for the death of the ship, published in the book “The Titanic Mystery”. According to this theory, the wreck is not the Titanic at all, but its twin brother, the Olympic. These boats were virtually indistinguishable from each other. On September 20, 1911, the Olympic collided with the British Navy cruiser Hawke, resulting in severe damage to both ships. The owners of Olimpik suffered heavy losses, since the damage that was inflicted on Olimpik was not enough to cover the insurance payment.

The theory is based on the assumption of a possible fraud in order to obtain insurance payments by the owners of the Titanic. According to this version, the owners of the Titanic intended to send the Olympic to the area of ​​​​possible ice formation and at the same time convinced the captain not to slow down so that the ship would be seriously damaged when it collided with an ice block. This version was initially supported by the fact that a sufficiently large number of objects were raised from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where the Titanic lies, but nothing was found that would carry the name Titanic. This theory was refuted after the details were raised to the surface, on which the side (building) number of the Titanic was stamped - 401. The Olympic side number was 400. In addition, the minted side number of the Titanic was also found on the propeller of the sunken ship. And even despite this, the conspiracy theory still has a number of followers.

German attack

1912 The First World War is two years away, and the prospect of an armed conflict between Germany and Great Britain is becoming more and more likely. Germany is the owner of several dozen submarines, which during the war will unleash a ruthless hunt for enemy ships trying to cross the ocean. For example, the reason for America's entry into the war will be that the U-20 submarine will sink the Lusitania in 1915 - the twin of the same Mauritania that set the speed record and won the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic - remember?

Based on these facts, in the mid-nineties, some Western publications offered their own version of the death of the Titanic: a torpedo attack by a German submarine that secretly accompanied the liner. The purpose of the attack was to discredit the British fleet, famous for its power throughout the world. In accordance with this theory, the Titanic either did not collide with the iceberg at all, or received very minor damage in the collision and would have remained afloat if the Germans had not finished off the ship with a torpedo.

What speaks in favor of this version? Honestly, nothing.

There was a collision with an iceberg - this is beyond doubt. The deck of the ship was even covered with snow and ice chips. Cheerful passengers started playing football with ice cubes - that the ship is doomed, it will become clear later. The collision itself was surprisingly quiet - almost none of the passengers felt it. A torpedo, you see, could hardly have exploded completely silently (especially since some claim that the submarine fired as many as six torpedoes at the ship!).

Supporters of the theory of the German attack claim, however, that people in the boats heard a terrible roar just before the Titanic sank - well, that was two and a half hours later, when only the stern lifted into the sky remained above the water and the death of the ship did not raise any doubts. It is unlikely that the Germans would have fired a torpedo at an almost sunken ship, would they? And the roar that the survivors heard was due to the fact that the stern of the Titanic rose almost vertically and huge steam boilers fell from their places. Also, do not forget that at about the same minutes the Titanic broke in half - the keel could not withstand the weight of the rising stern (although they only find out about this after finding the liner at the bottom: the break occurred below the water level), and this is also unlikely to have happened silently . And why would the Germans suddenly begin to drown two years before the start of the war passenger liner? This seems, to put it mildly, doubtful. And to put it bluntly, it's absurd.

A curse

Mystical version: the curse of the pharaohs. It is known for certain that one of the historians, Lord Canterville, transported on the Titanic in a wooden box a perfectly preserved Egyptian mummy of a priestess - soothsayer. Since the mummy had a fairly high historical and cultural value, it was not placed in the hold, but placed directly next to the captain's bridge. The essence of the theory is that the mummy influenced the mind of Captain Smith, who, despite numerous warnings about ice in the area where the Titanic sailed, did not slow down and thereby doomed the ship to certain death. In favor of this version they say famous cases the mysterious death of people who disturbed the peace of ancient burials, especially mummified Egyptian rulers. Moreover, the deaths were associated precisely with a clouding of the mind, as a result of which people committed inappropriate actions, there were often cases of suicide. Pharaohs had a hand in the sinking of the Titanic?

Steering error

One of latest versions The sinking of the Titanic deserves special attention. It appeared after the novel by the granddaughter of the second mate of the captain of the Titanic, Ch. Lightoller, Lady Patten, “Worth its weight in gold”, was published. According to the version put forward by Patten in his book, the ship had enough time to dodge the obstacle, but the helmsman, Robert Hitchens, panicked and turned the helm in the wrong direction.

A catastrophic error caused the iceberg to inflict fatal damage on the ship. The truth about what really happened on that fateful night was kept secret in the family of Lightoller, the oldest surviving officer of the Titanic and the only survivor who knew exactly what caused the sinking of the ship. Lightoller withheld this information for fear that the White Star Line, which owned the ship, would go bankrupt and his colleagues would lose their jobs. The only person to whom Lightoller told the truth was his wife Sylvia, who passed on her husband's words to her granddaughter. In addition, according to Patten, such a large and reliable liner as the Titanic sank so quickly because, after a collision with an ice block, it was not immediately stopped, and the rate of water entering the holds increased hundreds of times. The liner was not immediately stopped because the manager of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, persuaded the captain to continue sailing. He feared that the incident could cause considerable material damage to the company he leads.

Chasing the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic

There were and still are many supporters of this theory, especially among writers, since it appeared precisely in writers' circles. “ blue ribbon Atlantic” is a prestigious shipping award given to ocean liners for the fastest crossing of the North Atlantic.

At the time of the Titanic, this prize was given to the Mauritania ship of the Cunard company, which, by the way, was the founder of this award, as well as the main competitor of the White Star Line. In defense of this theory, the opinion is put forward that the president of the company that owned the Titanic, Ismay, encouraged the captain of the Titanic, Smith, to arrive in New York a day ahead of schedule and receive an honorary prize. This allegedly explains the high speed of the ship in the dangerous area of ​​the Atlantic. But this theory can easily be refuted, because the Titanic simply physically could not reach the speed of 26 knots at which the Mauritania of the Cunard company set a record, which, by the way, lasted more than 10 years after the disaster in the Atlantic.

But how was it really?

Regrettably, but, studying the history of the most famous maritime disaster, one has to admit that the Titanic owes its death to a long chain of fatal accidents. If at least one link of the sinister chain had been destroyed, the tragedy could have been avoided.

Perhaps the first link was the successful start of the journey - yes, yes, that's right. On the morning of April 10, during the departure of the Titanic from the quay wall of Southampton port, the superliner passed too close to the American ship New York, and a phenomenon known in navigation as the suction of ships arose: the New York began to be attracted to the moving nearby "Titanic". However, thanks to the skill of Captain Edward Smith, a collision was avoided.

Ironically, if an accident had happened, it would have saved one and a half thousand lives: if the Titanic had lingered in the port, the ill-fated encounter with the iceberg would not have happened.

This time. It should also be mentioned that the radio operators who received the message from the ship "Mesaba" about the ice fields of icebergs did not pass it on to Edward Smith: the telegram was not marked with a special prefix "personally to the captain", and was lost in a pile of papers. This is two.

However, this message was not the only one, and the captain knew about the ice danger. Why didn't he slow down the ship? Chasing the Blue Ribbon is, of course, a matter of honor (and, more importantly, of big business), but why did he risk the lives of passengers? Not that much of a risk, really. In those years, the captains of ocean liners often passed dangerous ice districts without slowing down: it was like crossing the road at a red light: sort of, and you can’t do that, but it always works out. Almost always.

To the credit of Captain Smith, it must be said that he remained true to maritime traditions and remained on the dying ship to the very end.

But why was the bulk of the iceberg not seen? Here everything turned out one to one: a moonless, dark night, windless weather. If there were at least small waves on the water surface, the lookouts could see white lambs at the foot of the iceberg. Calm and moonless night are two more links in the fatal chain.

As it turned out later, the chain was continued by the fact that the iceberg, shortly before the collision with the Titanic, turned its underwater dark part upside down, saturated with water, due to which it was practically invisible from afar at night (an ordinary, white iceberg would be distinguishable for a mile ). The sentinel saw him only 450 meters away, and there was almost no time for maneuver. Perhaps the iceberg would have been seen earlier, but another link in the fatal chain played a role here - there were no binoculars in the "crow's nest". The box where they were stored turned out to be locked, and the second assistant to the captain, taken from the ship just before departure, hastily took the key to it with him.

After the lookout nevertheless saw the danger and reported the iceberg to the captain's bridge, a little more than half a minute remained before the collision. The officer of the watch, Murdoch, who was on watch, gave the helmsman the order to turn left, at the same time transmitting the command "full astern" to the engine room. Thus, he made a gross mistake by adding another link in the chain that led the liner to death: even if the Titanic had crashed into the iceberg head-on, the tragedy would have been less. The bow of the ship would have been crushed, part of the crew and those passengers whose cabins were located in front would have died. But only two watertight compartments would be flooded. With such damage, the liner would have remained afloat and could wait for the help of other ships.

And if Murdoch, turning the ship to the left, ordered to increase, and not decrease the speed, the collision might not have happened at all. However, frankly speaking, the order to change the speed is unlikely to play a significant role here: in thirty seconds it was hardly possible to execute it in the engine room.

So the collision happened. The iceberg damaged the ship's fragile hull along the six starboard compartments.

Looking ahead, we can say that only seven hundred and four managed to escape: the next link in the chain of failures was that some sailors took the captain's order to put women and children into the boats too literally, and did not let men go there, even if there were empty seats. However, at first no one was particularly eager to get into the boats. The passengers did not understand what was the matter, and did not want to leave the huge, comfortably lit, such a reliable liner and it was not clear why they would go down in a small unstable boat down to the icy water. However, pretty soon, anyone could notice that the deck was tilting forward more and more, and panic began.

But why was there such a monstrous discrepancy in the places on the lifeboats? The owners of the Titanic, praising the merits of the new ship, stated that they even overfulfilled the instructions of the code: instead of the prescribed 962 rescue places, there were 1178 on the ship. Unfortunately, they did not attach any importance to the discrepancy between this number and the number of passengers on board.

It is especially bitter that not far from the sinking Titanic, another passenger steamer, the Californian, stood, waiting out the danger of ice. A few hours ago, he notified neighboring ships that he was locked in ice and forced to stop so as not to accidentally run into an ice block. The radio operator from the Titanic, who was almost stunned by the Morse code from the Californian (the ships were very close, and the signal of one was too loud in the headphones of the other), impolitely interrupted the warning: “Go to hell, you are preventing me from working!”. What was the radio operator of the Titanic so busy with?

The fact is that in those years, radio communication on a ship was more of a luxury than an urgent need, and this miracle of technology aroused great interest among the wealthy public. From the very beginning of the voyage, radio operators were literally inundated with messages of a private nature - and no one saw anything reprehensible in the fact that the radio operators of the Titanic paid such attention to wealthy passengers who wished to send a telegram to the ground directly from the ship. So at that moment, when colleagues from other ships reported on floating ice, the radio operator transmitted another message to the continent. Radio communication was more like expensive toy than for a serious instrument: the ships of that time did not even have a round-the-clock watch at the radio station.