An Australian billionaire wants to build a replica of the Titanic, so we take a look back at a few anecdotes about the famous liner.
With an exact replica of the Titanic due to see the light of day in 2018, Toolito invites you to (re)discover 25 surprising facts about the « unsinkable » ocean liner. Between legend and truth, there are many surprising facts about the mythical ship that sank in 1912.
1. Only a month after the sinking, a film about the Titanic was made. The lead actress was a survivor of the tragedy.
2. The ship consumed 600 tons of coal a day. 176 men were in charge of continuously supplying the furnaces.
3. The interior decorations of the First Class were inspired by those of the Ritz Hotel in London. The liner had its own newspaper: « Le Bulletin quotidien de l’Atlantique ».
4. There were 20,000 bottles of beer on board, 1,500 bottles of wine and 8,000 cigars. All intended for First Class passengers.
5. The « Grand Staircase » is Titanic’s best-known decorative feature. Made of magnificent, finely carved and ornamented oak woodwork, it served all the first-class facilities. It gave access to seven of the ship’s ten decks. This staircase had a twin aboard the Olympic, a copy of the liner that had a long and distinguished career until 1934.
6. Only 16 wooden lifeboats and four inflatable boats were built for the Titanic. Enough to accommodate 1178 people, just a third of the Titanic’s total capacity (but more than the legal limit). Also, many lifeboats were not used to full capacity.
7. The budget for the film « Titanic » was higher than that for the construction of the ship.
8. 20 horses were needed to pull the main anchor.
9. Of the 885 crew members, only 23 were women.
10. The last survivor of the disaster, Millvina Dean, died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97. At the time, she was two months old.
11. The last meal served to 1st class passengers consisted of 11 courses.
12. The iceberg struck by the Titanic was spotted at 11.40pm on April 14, 1912 by Frederik Fleet, who survived the tragedy. He then served on the Oceanic during the 1920s, before being drafted into the Second World War. In 2012, it was reported that a « funny guy » came to place a pair of binoculars on his grave with a note saying « sorry, but here’s a little present 100 years late anyway ».
13. Only 37 seconds elapsed between the sighting of the iceberg and the collision.
14. The ship reportedly received six iceberg warnings during its voyage.
15. At the time of sinking, the water temperature was – 2°C. One in five people died within two minutes of falling into the icy waters. The others survived no more than a quarter of an hour. Only the ship’s baker, Charles Joughin, managed to survive for 2 hours. He claimed not to feel the cold, due to the amount of whisky he had drunk…
16. When it was inaugurated in 1911, the Titanic was the world’s largest ocean liner. She measured 269 meters in length. Today, the world’s largest liner is the 362-meter-longAllure of the Seas.
17. Only three of the twelve dogs on board survived the tragedy.
18. It took 73 years to find the wreck.
19. The most expensive cabins of the time would cost around 91,000 euros today.
20. The Titanic was designed to float even with four of its sixteen compartments flooded. Unfortunately, the fifth and sixth compartments were flooded during the disaster, causing her to sink.
21. The Titanic took two hours and forty minutes to sink.
22. A lifeboat drill was scheduled for the day before the tragedy, but was eventually cancelled.
23. None of the 13 engineers on board survived. They remained on board to allow as many people as possible to leave the ship.
24. 13 couples celebrated their honeymoon on the boat.
25. A modern ship has a greater chance of encountering an iceberg than the Titanic did, due to the greater number of icebergs today.