Week 1

April 15, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the world's most famous ship.

Today as we look back to the year April 14, 1912, one of the greatest disasters of the world was the fail of the Titanic. This event, which nearly inspired a nearly claustrophobic 1997 film adaption is world famous but surprisingly, many of the people today do not know the reason behind the fall of the Titanic. On today post, I will give 3 reasons on why might the Titanic hit the iceberg during that time.

Question 1: How did the Titanic hit the iceberg ?

#1 The RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on the evening of 14 April, 1912, and sank early in the morning of 15 April, 1912. Titanic's CQD or SOS (distress call) position was 41-56 degrees North and 50-14 degrees West. Titanic's final resting position, over 2000 meters below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean, is 41-44 degrees North and 49-56 degrees West

In 1912, navigation at sea could be very imprecise. Obviously, today we have satellite navigation. Back then they used celestial navigation and dead reckoning. The night they struck the berg, there was no moon. In order to accurately compute your position using the stars or the moon, you need to be able to see the horizon through a sextant. Captain Smith may have tried to do this, but he would have been guessing as to the exact sighting of the horizon.

He may have just used what is called the dead reckoned position. Their last accurate fix was probably at twilight when a distinct horizon is available and the stars were visible (we know the sky was clear that night). That means they had to rely on their recordings of ship course and speed to compute their position from their last accurate position (which was probably 5 hours old).

What Captain Smith probably did was use a combination of the two methods. He probably split the difference between a celestial fix and a dead reckoned position. This is only conjecture. 

*Titanic Iceberg . The exact size of the iceberg will probably never be known, but according to early newspaper reports the height and length of the iceberg was approximated at 50 to 100 feet high and 200 to 400 feet long.

#2 Canceled Lifeboat Drill
Originally, a lifeboat drill was scheduled to take place on board the Titanic, the day the Titanic hit the iceberg. However, for an unknown reason, Captain Smith canceled the drill. Many believe that had the drill taken place, more lives could have been saved.

#3 Only Second

From the time the lookouts sounded the alert, the officers on the bridge had only 37 seconds to react before the Titanic hit the iceberg. In that time, First Officer Murdoch ordered "hard a-starboard" (which turned the ship to port -- left). He also ordered the engine room to put the engines in reverse. The Titanic did bank left, but it wasn't quite enough.