Facts about the
Titanic
Number of persons aboard, 2340.
Number of life-boats and rafts, 20. Capacity
of each life-boat, 50 passengers and crew of 8.
Utmost capacity of life-boats and rafts,
about 1100.
Number of life-boats wrecked in launching,
4.
Capacity of life-boats safely launched,
928.
Total number of persons taken in life-boats,
711.
Number who died in life-boats, 6. Total
number saved, 705.
Total number of Titanic's company lost,
1635.
The cause of the disaster was a collision
with an iceberg in latitude 41.46 north, longitude 50.14 west.
The Titanic had had repeated warnings of the
presence of ice in that part of the course.
Two official warnings had been received
defining theposition of the ice fields.
It had been calculated on the Titanic that
she would reach the ice fields about 11 o'clock Sunday night.
The collision occurred at 11.40.
At that time the ship was driving at a speed
of 21 to 23 knots, or about 26 miles, an hour.
There had been no details of seamen assigned
to each boat.
Some of the boats left the ship without
seamen enough to man the oars.
Some of the boats were not more than half
full of passengers.
The boats had no provisions, some of them
had no water stored, some were without sail equipment or
compasses.
In some boats, which carried sails wrapped
and bound, there was not a person with a knife to cut the
ropes.
In some boats the plugs in the bottom had
been pulled out and the women
passengers were compelled to thrust their
hands into the holes to keep
the boats from filling and sinking.
The captain, E. J. Smith, admiral of the
White Star fleet, went down with his ship.
An excerpThe sinking of theTitanic and other great sea
disasters - Marshall Logan