Daily Post

Today I plan on continuing my research, to better prepare myself for my final project. I continued my research on the Titanic, and I mostly was looking at the background info, and who was in charge of building it etc. It is very interesting the great lengths they had to go through to build it. They had no computers like we do today, to assist us in building things, and was figured all out by man power! :) That is just really cool to me. :)

Ninth Index Card

http://library.thinkquest.org/17297/construc_titanic.htm

• The R.M.S. Titanic and the R.M.S. Olympic were built at the Belfast-based Harland & Wolff shipyard, which built all of White Star Line's ships.
• They were designed to compete with the Cunard Line ships Lusitania and Mauretania for the coveted Blue Riband, the prize awarded the fastest ship in existence.
• The two ships were built side by side in the Belfast yard.
• They were almost 900 feet long, and required 220 foot high gantries to build them. Olympic was started in December of 1908.
• On October 20, 1910, the Olympic slid down into the water while a select list of observers watched. She weighed 24,600 tons when she was launched, and would weigh over 46,000 tons when fully fitted out.
• The two ships were originally planned to have three funnels, but had a dummy funnel installed. This made them look safer and more powerful, and Lusitania and Mauretania had four funnels, too.
• Another luxury onboard was the four elevators.
• One elevator was reserved expressly for the use of the Second Class passengers, an unheard of luxury back then.
• She also had a swimming pool (the first ever on a ship), a restaurant called the Cafe Parisien, a Turkish Bath, and a gymnasium with a mechanical camel and rowing machines.

Eighth Index Card

http://www.dellamente.com/titanic/constr.htm

• Daniel Burnham once said, "Make no small plans. They lack the fire to stir men's dreams." Lord Pirrie and Bruce Ismay must have heard him from across the ocean, for they made the largest, most luxurious ocean liners that ever sailed.
• About to make her maiden voyage, she was expected to shatter the speed record for an Atlantic crossing and cement Cunard's lead in the race of the superliners. With their existing ships, White Star could not hope to compete.
• Pirrie and Ismay devised a plan to regain White Star's supremacy. They would not compete with speed, rather, they would build a pair of floating palaces, the like of which the world had never seen. A third ship would follow.
• These twin sister would be the largest vessels afloat and the most complex objects built by man.
• They would be so large that Harland and Wolff would have to build special gantries for their construction and the New York Harbor Board would be forced to build extra long piers to accommodate their arrival.
• An army of draughtsman and engineers worked tirelessly to create the drawings and specifications for everything from the massive four story tall engines to the place settings in the First Class Dining Room.
• Nearly eighteen months had passed since that dinner. On December 16, 1908, the first keel plate was laid for the Hull 400, later called the Olympic.
• Hull 401, the Titanic, was started on March 31, 1909.
• Construction of the legends had begun.

Seventh Index Card

http://titanicstation.blogspot.com/2007/05/titanics-construction.html

• As days grew into weeks, blue prints and plans were being made on a major scale.0
• Finally, the H&W designers brought a small model of the new class of ships for Ismay to inspect. Ismay did not show his emotions as he viewed the ship with satisfaction.
• The head designer at H&W must have been shaking slightly as the president of the White Star Line inspected the design of the ship. Finally as Ismay stood up from crouching over the model, he said, “I think it’s fabulous!” The ship designer let out a sigh of relief.
• They were at first known as ships 400, 401 and 402.
• The first to be named, was Olympic, after the Greeks. Such a name sounded fitting for such a ship! What would they call ship 401, the second in the group of three? What about the mighty Titans, rivals of the Olympians in the early days, surely this ship must be named TITANIC! Ship 402 would have a simple name, but fitting never the less, Gigantic. On July 31, 1908, the order was put in at H&W for the new class of ships, R.M.S Olympic, and Titanic.
• As John Bruce Ismay signed the contract with Harland & Wolff, these ships would be built no matter what happened. When Ismay put his pen to the contract, he had untold joy in his heart, finally these new ships were becoming a reality. For over a year he had dreamed of this moment.
• From the top of the funnels to the keel would be 175 feet tall, 35 feet of that would be under the water line.
• Titanic would have three massive propellers, two three bladed ones that were 23 feet and 6 inches tall, and a smaller four bladed propeller that would be 16 feet and 6 inches tall.
• The Titanic had 24 double-ended boilers and 5 single ended boilers that would be placed in 6 boiler rooms, the double-ended boilers would be 20 feet long and 15 feet and 6 inches high, the single ended boilers were 11 feet long and 9 inches.
• Altogether she would have 159 furnaces. Once on the sea, she would use 850 tons of coal each day.
• She had two reciprocating, four cylinder, triple expansion, direct acting inverted engines: creating 30,000 horse power, the left over steam would go to a third engine, a low pressure Parsons turbine: creating 16,000 horse power, this engine could not be put into reverse. Added all together would generate 46,000 hp.

Sixth Index Card

http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/titanic2.htm

• Boat Deck - contained the Captain's Bridge, from which the ship was navigated, the gym and the open, pine-paneled deck
• Promenade Deck (Deck A) - encompassed the two first-class staircases (placed between the four giant funnel stacks), reading/writing room, lounge, all-male first-class smoking room and the Verandah Café/Palm Court (an indoor area designed to look like an outdoor patio)
• Bridge Deck (Deck B) - included first-class cabins/suites, an à la carte restaurant and Café Parisien, all-male second-class smoking room and the third-class poop deck (a platformlike deck where third-class passengers strolled and played games among some larger cargo equipment)
• Shelter Deck (Deck C) - site of the purser's office, third-class smoking room and the second-class library/lounge
• Saloon Deck (Deck D) - first-class reception room, first-class dining saloon (located strategically between the second and third funnels to ensure the least noise and movement disturbance possible to elegant diners), first- and second-class galleys and the second-class dining saloon
• Upper Deck (Deck E) - contained second- and third-class cabins
• Middle Deck (Deck F) - location of the third-class dining saloon and the Turkish baths (a hot, dry room with electric baths and tubs with cold water for soaking)
• Lower Deck/Orlop Deck - included the squash courts; post office; carpentry, plumbing and electrical workshops; and "refrigerated" rooms cooled by a series of miles-long copper pipes where foodstuffs and other perishables were contained. (Orlop is just a fancy term for the lower decks in sailing vessels with at least four decks.)
• Tank Top - housed the boiler and engine rooms.

Fifth Index Card

http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/titanic1.htm

• Ismay and Pirrie's early sketches of the ships included two masts and four smokestacks -- the ships would only need three to function, but a fourth was added to make the design symmetrical and was later repurposed into a ventilation system.
• To build a safe ship 882.5 feet (268.8 meters) long and 92.5 feet (28.2 meters) wide with a gross weight of nearly 45,000 tons (40,824 metric tons), some innovative shipbuilding techniques and materials were required [source: RMS Titanic].
• John Brown's shipbuilding firm obliged Ismay and Pirrie with steel and turbines.
• The Parson's turbine was an essential development in the construction process -- it operated off the exhaust steam produced by the ship's two reciprocating engines, which were nearly four stories tall.
• This arrangement, combined with two three-blade propellers measuring 23.5 feet (7.2 meters) in diameter and a four-blade propeller of 17 feet (5.2 meters) located near the ship's rudder, produced enough horsepower to attain speeds up to 24 knots [source: Halpern].
• The ships required an immense amount of power, and these powerhouse compartments were located in the hull of the ship.
• A turbine room, an engine room, six boiler rooms, 11 stokeholds and rooms for heaters and refrigeration equipment were separated by bulkheads -- reinforced partitions.
• Another innovation aboard the ships was watertight doors that could be dropped automatically or by manual controls.
• He designed the ships to stay afloat with two of the 16 compartments flooded; the ship could even manage to sail on with up to three or four water-filled compartments.
• Above the machinery in the hull, decks lettered A through F contained everything from cabins and dining halls to Turkish baths.
• No construction arena or launching site could accommodate the ships. So before the ships could be built, the White Star Dock and the Great Gantry were.
• The Great Gantry was a series of 10 cranes that could lift laborers and materials to the height of the deck to which they were assigned to build.
• The Titanic was completed in 1912, after the construction efforts of nearly 11,000 men [source: RMS Titanic].

Fourth Index Card

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic

• The RMS Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by the White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom. For her time, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world.
• On the night of 14 April 1912, during her maiden voyage, Titanic hit an iceberg and sank two hours and forty minutes later, early on 15 April 1912.
• The sinking resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people, making it one of the most deadly peacetime maritime disasters in history.
• The ship had a total lifeboat capacity of 1,178 persons even though her maximum capacity was 3,547 people.
• The Titanic used some of the most advanced technology available at the time and was, after the sinking, popularly believed to have been described as “unsinkable”. It was a great shock to many that, despite the extensive safety features and experienced crew, the Titanic sank.

Third Index Card

http://www.lessons-from-history.com/Level%202/Titanic_page.html

• Some theories of the sinking of the Titanic are poor project management which allowed major compromises to be made in every project stage - from design to construction to testing, and right into implementation and operation.
• Some compromises were more significant like those in the design and the shortened height of the bulkheads, or the reduced number of lifeboats.
• Through Titanic's construction project the elevation of expectations that this was "the greatest ship ever built" instilled a sense of supreme confidence. This led to further compromises in the implementation stage and allowed for catastrophic mistakes to be made like pushing the ship to its operational limits in a bid to beat Olympic's best crossing time.
• A calamitous failure in key feedback mechanism (ice bucket test, wireless operators overloaded with commercial traffic, confusion by the lookouts) resulted in grounding the ship onto an ice shelf.
• Failing to adequately analyze the situation and succumbing to business pressures to save face the crippled ship was restarted and limped off the ice shelf in the belief it could be returned to Halifax.
• This forward motion further ruptured Titanic's double hull and the design flaws compromised the ship as it could not handle the increased rate of flooding.
• Too truly understand the disaster we need to examine the construction project.
• (the bullet above makes me happy, cause I thought the same thing, while brainstorming what my question should be about the Titanic :))

Third Day's Post

I plan on researching the construction of the Titanic, and how that relates to the sinking of the ship, and if it even does. Today i continued to research the building of the ship, and i came across a lot of interesting information worth knowing. Points and theories that have to do with the construction, and later sinking of the Titanic. One interesting fact i found was that the Titanic was constructed with sixteen waterlight compartments. These compartments had electronically run doors, that in case of high enough water levels, could close to prevent the large ship from sinking. The Titanic was capable of floating if any two, or the first four conpartments became flooded. It was later found out that very shortly after the Titanic hit the ice bergs, the first six compartments were flooded. This shows you that the makers of the ship weren't educated enough to correctly prepare the ship for the worst scenario that the ship, and many people on board could face.

Second Index Card

http://www.historyonthenet.com/Titanic/construction.htm

• Titanic was built in Belfast by the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff.
• Construction of the Titanic began in 1909
• olympic was the titanics sister ship.
• Titanic was constructed with sixteen watertight compartments.
• Each compartment had doors that were designed to close automatically if the water level rose above a certain height.
• Weirdly, shortly after Titanic hit the iceberg it was revealed that the first six compartments were flooded.
• Only three of the funnels were used to expel smoke and waste gasses. The fourth was added to make the ship look more powerful.
• The three propellers on he Titanic were powered by steam.The rotation of the propellers powered the ship through the sea.
• The Titanic was finally launched two years after its' construction first began in the year of 1911.
• After that, they moved on to work on the interior of the ship. They worked on the interior for roughly ten months.
• The total cost of the RMS Titanic was $7.5 million (1912)

First Index card

http://www.euronet.nl/users/keesree/construc.htm

• Originally the Titanic's design was for three funnels and four masts
• Lord James Pirri felt that four funnels would make her look much better.
• also some people felt that it would be safer
• The number of masts was reduced to two, one fore and one aft
• The first-class dining room was to have a large dome but this was changed to a normal ceiling
• The spa was reduced in size and the gymnasium was moved to the boat-deck.
• The titanics keel was laid down on March 31st, 1909 at Harland and Wolff Shipbuilding in Belfast.
• The rudder weighed 101 tons and was made from six separate parts.
• The 3 anchors weighed a total of 31 tons. It took 20 horses to haul one anchor.

This site also has very good pictures, that help you understand how it was put together.

Second Day's Post

My next action, entering into the day is to begin researching the general facts on the Titanic. The Titanic is a very interesting topic, with a lot of information out there availale, just waiting to be learned. By first learning the general information, helps me to answer my research question because before I start looking for specific questions, i need the background information as a good base. Next, i should research the construction of the titanic.

Product Prospectus

1. How was the Titanic built?
2. Our final project will be a model of the wood work, and construction, of the titanic.
3. We chose to do it in this form, because it allows you to view the construction of the titanic three-dimensionally.
4. You will be able to tell when it's completed. We will have a partially completed model, so you can still see the inside (without all of the fancy furnishings)
5. The finished project demonstrates mastery, because we will need to research, and find out how to replicate it.
6. We will research the project often, and use our class time wisely. After obtaining all of the information needed, we will begin creating our model.
7. The next action that we need to take would be to start researching the construction.

First Day's Post

Today was the first day of our research project. We had to create a blogger account (which is this), and also create a delicious account. The delicious account helps us to share and manage the sources that we have found while researching, and enables us to share them with others. It is much more efficient to write things on blogs for our teacher, Mr. Nilsen, and all of us students.