The Titanic: myths and truths

The Titanic is surely the most famous ship the world has ever seen - and no ship is as surrounded by legend and myth, some true and many false. Metin Tolan, a professor of experimental physics at Dortmund Technical University, who has written a book on the topic published last year, helps to separate fact from fantasy in an interview with dpa.
The Titanic was competing for the Blue Riband, awarded to the passenger liner crossing the Atlantic in regular service at the highest speed.
FALSE: The Mauretania held the award for the fastest Atlantic crossing, and the Titanic could not compete. With its 51,000 horsepower, rather than 78,000, the Titanic was a whole day slower. "The owners of the Titanic were relying on luxury. The trip was intended to be so pleasant that passengers were happy to be aboard for a longer period," Tolan says.
The Titanic's course lay too far to the north.
FALSE. There were in fact different courses for the winter and the summer. The latter was shorter and more northerly, and thus closer to any icebergs. But the Titanic sailed the southern winter course - and following an iceberg alert even further south than normally.
The Titanic was made of poor-quality steel.
FALSE. The Titanic was the highpoint of luxury for the passengers and completely up to date from the point of view of the crew. "The steel was just as good or bad as for any other ship of the day," Tolan says.
The Titanic's fourth funnel was for show.
CORRECT. The hindmost funnel was added simply because a ship of that size needed a fourth funnel in the eyes of people of the day. But it was not purely for show, as it was used for ventilation.
The iceberg cut a gash in the Titanic running over dozens of metres.
FALSE. "If you drive past an icicle with a car, you get scratches but not a hole, not even a dent. Ice is much too soft," Tolan says. There was no big leak, but a whole lot of small ones spread over 30 metres along the first six compartments of the ship. The riveted steel plates were opened up. The leaks in the Titanic covered just one square metre, not much more than a broadsheet newspaper opened up.
There were fewer lifeboats aboard than laid down in the regulations.
FALSE. "There were more on board," Tolan says. But they were still too few to provide space for everyone. The regulations of the day were obsolete with so many passengers aboard.
Mainly First Class passengers were saved.
FALSE. Mainly women and children were saved, irrespective of the class they were travelling. A higher proportion of men in First Class were saved than in Third, but there were different reasons for this. They were high up on the ship, were educated and understood English. By the time people below decks had realised what was going on, it was too late for some of them. "But to speak about deliberate preference shown to the higher classes is nonsense. Only 8 per cent of the men in Second Class survived, the lowest proportion. Even in Third Class twice as many survived at 16 per cent."
The Titanic broke up.
CORRECT. "There was no other possibility physically. After two hours, the bow was filled with water weighing 40,000 tons, while the stern weighed as much as 10,000 tons. And so it broke in half. The ship simply was not built for stresses like that." Nevertheless, the ship sank in the best way possible, with the bow first. "If she had capsized, far few people would have been saved."
The down-draught generated by the huge vessel sinking could have sucked people down with it.
FALSE. "The ship filled up slowly. No down-draught could occur. If the Titanic had been dropped from a height of 10 metres, there would have been a huge down-draught, but the ship filled slowly and sank slowly. It could not have generated down-draught," Tolan says.
The Titanic could have been saved.
CORRECT. At least theoretically. If First Officer William Murdoch had given the order to ram the iceberg head-on, only two or three compartments would have flooded, and the Titanic would not have sunk. But this would have been an extremely odd order.