Why Lorie? Part II

Chapter 41: Titanic

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, on April 10th, 1912 in the French port of Cherbourg. The weather was windy and overcast. Josette kept her arm linked through Viktor's as they were waiting to board a tender that would transport them to White Star's RMS Titanic. Ana was holding on to Lorie's hand, to the best of her abilities. The little girl kept jumping up and down, unable to contain her excitement.

They were all dressed like proper first class passengers should be: Josette wore an ankle length dove-gray tailleur by Lucile, with black velvet piping and buttons, and a matching broad-brimmed hat adorned with black and white ostrich feathers that she angled over her updo; at her shirt's high neck, she had pinned an ivory cameo depicting a delicate woman's profile, surrounded by an intricate onyx-beaded frame. Viktor wore a pinstriped dark grey suit, a cream-colored shirt, a lavender silk tie and matching pocket handkerchief, and a black bowlers hat. Lorie had on a midi, ruffled, pink velvet dress and matching patent leather Mary Janes. She tied a pink satin ribbon with a large bow over her blonde curls. Ana wore a typical maid's uniform, consisting of a long black skirt, a stiffly starched white shirt, and a white bonnet. Altogether, they made quite a respectable group, as they waited alongside the other 270 passengers to board one of the two tenders serving Titanic: the SS Traffic and the SS Nomadic.

Titanic had just arrived from Southampton, England, from where she had departed earlier that day, around ten in the morning. From Cherbourg, she was headed toward Queenstown, Ireland before crossing the Atlantic all the way to New York City. She was due to leave Cherbourg by eight in the evening, and was expected to arrive in Ireland the next day around noon. The trip would then last until the morning of April 17, when Titanic was expected to dock at New York Harbor's Pier 59.

Cherbourg did not have big enough docking facilities for the enormous ocean liner. At close to 883 feet long, 92 feet wide and 104 feet high, and weighing over 46,000 tons, Titanic was the largest ship in existence. The maximum number of passengers Titanic could hold was 2,453, in addition to over 1000 crew. On her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, she carried a total of 2,224 souls on board, 1,317 of whom were passengers, and the rest, crew.

Titanic was ten decks high. The upper eight decks were for passenger use, while two lower decks, located below the water line, were used respectively to store cargo, and to hold Titanic's engine and boiler rooms. Her three engines (two four-cylinder steam engines and one steam turbine) had a combined power output of 46,000 horsepower. Each engine drove an enormous propeller: the outer ones were 17 feet in diameter, and the middle one was 15 feet in diameter. The ship's rudder was so large (78 feet high and 15 feet long, weighing 100 tons) that it needed its own steering engines to move it.

Besides her gigantic size, Titanic was also a modern technological wonder. Her waterworks could heat and pump water to every part of the vessel via pipes and ducts, as well as provide heated air through vents. The ship's electric plant produced more power than the average city power station did, and every state room had electricity and cabin-to-cabin phone service.  Titanic was equipped with a Marconi wireless telegraph service that continuously operated for passenger use (to send and receive telegrams), as well as for navigation messages (to exchange weather and ice alerts with other ships).  It's rotating transmitter and elevated T-antenna could communicate via Morse Code with any vessel within a 350 mile radius, using a musical tone unique to Titanic to ensure it was easily distinguished from all other signals.

Along with her sister ships, RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic, Titanic was the pride and joy of the British shipping company White Star Line, and of its chairman, Bruce Ismay, who was a passenger on her maiden voyage. The three ships were built in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Harland and Wolff shipbuilders, under the supervision of chief naval architect Thomas Andrews, also on board during that first trip.  Construction costs were financed by the American steel magnate, J.P. Morgan, who cancelled his pre-existing reservations on Titanic at the last minute. The luxurious sister ships were built to compete with the RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauritania, owned by Cunard, White Star's rival ocean liner company. Designated RMS for Royal Mail Ship, Titanic also served to transport letters and parcels in its hold area, in addition to passenger luggage and regular ship cargo.