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].