The Sinking of the Titanic, and Great Sea Disasters | Page 7

knots.
The Titanic could accommodate 2500 passengers. The steamship was
divided into numerous compartments, separated by fifteen bulkheads.
She was equipped with a gymnasium, swimming pool, hospital with
operating room, and a grill and palm garden.
CARRIED CREW OF 860
The registered tonnage was 45,000, and the displacement tonnage
66,000. She was capable of carrying 2500 passengers and the crew
numbered 860.
The largest plates employed in the hull were 36 feet long, weighing 43
1/2 tons each, and the largest steel beam used was 92 feet long, the
weight of this double beam being 4 tons. The rudder, which was
operated electrically, weighed 100 tons, the anchors 15 1/2 tons each,
the center (turbine) propeller 22 tons, and each of the two "wing"
propellers 38 tons each. The after "boss-arms," from which were sus-
pended the three propeller shafts, tipped the scales at 73 1/2 tons, and
the forward "boss-arms" at 45 tons. Each link in the anchor-chains

weighed 175 pounds. There were more than 2000 side-lights and
windows to light the public rooms and passenger cabins.
Nothing was left to chance in the construction of the Titanic. Three
million rivets (weighing 1200 tons) held the solid plates of steel
together. To insure stability in binding the heavy plates in the double
bottom, half a million rivets, weighing about 270 tons, were used.
All the plating of the hulls was riveted by hydraulic power, driving
seven-ton riveting machines, suspended from traveling cranes. The
double bottom extended the full length of the vessel, varying from 5
feet 3 inches to 6 feet 3 inches in depth, and lent added strength to the
hull.
MOST LUXURIOUS STEAMSHIP
Not only was the Titanic the largest steamship afloat but it was the
most luxurious. Elaborately furnished cabins opened onto her eleven
decks, and some of these decks were reserved as private promenades
that were engaged with the best suites. One of these suites was sold for
$4350 for the boat's maiden and only voyage. Suites similar, but which
were without the private promenade decks, sold for $2300.
The Titanic differed in some respects from her sister ship. The Olympic
has a lower promenade deck, but in the Titanic's case the staterooms
were brought out flush with the outside of the superstructure, and the
rooms themselves made much larger. The sitting rooms of some of the
suites on this deck were 15 x 15 feet.
The restaurant was much larger than that of the Olympic and it had a
novelty in the shape of a private promenade deck on the starboard side,
to be used exclusively by its patrons. Adjoining it was a reception room,
where hosts and hostesses could meet their guests.
Two private promenades were connected with the two most luxurious
suites on the ship. The suites were situated about amidships, one on
either side of the vessel, and each was about fifty feet long. One of the
suites comprised a sitting room, two bedrooms and a bath.

These private promenades were expensive luxuries. The cost figured
out something like forty dollars a front foot for a six days' voyage.
They, with the suites to which they are attached, were the most
expensive transatlantic accommodations yet offered.
THE ENGINE ROOM
The engine room was divided into two sections, one given to the
reciprocating engines and the other to the turbines. There were two sets
of the reciprocating kind, one working each of the wing propellers
through a four-cylinder triple expansion, direct acting inverted engine.
Each set could generate 15,000 indicated horse-power at seventy-five
revolutions a minute. The Parsons type turbine takes steam from the
reciprocating engines, and by developing a horse-power of 16,000 at
165 revolutions a minute works the third of the ship's propellers, the
one directly under the rudder. Of the four funnels of the vessel three
were connected with the engine room, and the fourth or after funnel for
ventilating the ship including the gallery.
Practically all of the space on the Titanic below the upper deck was
occupied by steam-generating plant, coal bunkers and propelling
machinery. Eight of the fifteen water-tight compartments contained the
mechanical part of the vessel. There were, for instance, twenty-four
double end and five single end boilers, each 16 feet 9 inches in
diameter, the larger 20 feet long and the smaller 11 feet 9 inches long.
The larger boilers had six fires under each of them and the smaller three
furnaces. Coal was stored in bunker space along the side of the ship
between the lower and middle decks, and was first shipped from there
into bunkers running all the way across the vessel in the lowest part.
From there the stokers handed it into the furnaces.
One of the most interesting features of the vessel was the refrigerating
plant, which comprised a huge ice-making