The R.M.S. Titanic was called the "ship of dreams", and some
called her the "unsinkable ship". It was the largest steam
engine ever built in the world. She was the most beautiful
and biggest ship ever to set sail to the sea. In the summer of
1907, Lord Pierrie, Harland & Wolf, J. Bruse Ismay, and
White Star Line planned to build three giant ships (Olympic,
Titanic, and Britannic). They were to be designed as the
most luxurious ships in the world, and to be built with the
finest woods and furnishings. They would cater to the rich
and affluent that traveled the North Atlantic. The three ships
would give customers luxury and they would travel at greater
speeds than ever before. In March 1909, the keel was laid
down for yard number 401, where the Titanic would be built.
It took two years to complete the construction of the ship
and cost approximately $7,500,000. She was 882.9 feet long,
92.6 feet wide, and weighted 46,329 tons. Titanic was the
largest ship ever to be built by man in the world. Twenty- two
tons of tallow, soap, and train oil were used to grease the
slipway bed to coat and protect it against the enormous
three-tons-per-square-inch pressure of the freshly painted
In January of 1912, sixteen lifeboats were installed,
which later became a total of twenty lifeboats in all. There
were three different types of lifeboats on the Titanic:14 wood
lifeboats, 2 wood cutters, and 4 Englehardt collapsible
boats. The capacity of the twenty lifeboats total was 1178,
which would not save all the ship's passengers if it were fully
loaded (3547 passengers). In addition to the life boats the
Titanic carried 3560 life jackets and 49 buoys.
On the 3rd of February 1912, the gigantic ship
dry-docked at the Belfast's Thompson Graving Dock. In
March the engineering crew began to assemble in Belfast
and some lived abro...