Titanic is a very well covered and known topic, especially with the popularity of the 1997 movie. Though there are still some lesser-known facts about the ship its self. Here are 5 of them:
1. The fourth funnel was actually fake: while the first 3 funnels were used for coal smoke from the boiler rooms Titanic’s fourth funnel was added during the design phase and actually used for ventilation for the kitchens and engine rooms. This meant that Titanic had less deck ventilators, so that the deck space was freed up for passengers.
2. There were four more lifeboats than the recommended quantity: During the time of Titanic’s sinking, the board of trade regulations mandated that ships over 10,000 gross tonnes carried 16 life boats. The Titanic was around 46,000 tonnes so carried 3320 people. This was much greater than the 1178 people that the life boats could hold. However, this was seen as enough because the lifeboats were seen as way to transfer people from a slowly sinking vessel to another vessel. They were not intended to evacuate a ships hole population. This idea was further reinforced by the idea that Titanic was unsinkable.
3. The standard 1st class rooms were not that expensive: Only £30 in 1912. While that is £2712 in today’s money, that is very similar to a business class transatlantic flight. It was also about 5 times more than a Lego Titanic which is £590. This meant that people in first class would have been very affluent but not all millionaires of the day, like is portrayed in the movie.
4. Titanic would only have been the largest ship in the world for a few months: In May 1912 the SS Imperator was launched – this would have taken away Titanic’s crown as largest ship in the world. So Titanic would have only sailed as the largest ship for 1 month.
5. Titanic had 2 identical sister ships: the Olympic and Britannic: The Olympic was launched the year before Titanic and survived the first world war. It was scrapped in 1935. The only notable difference between them was the enclosed promenade at the front of A deck on Titanic. Britannic was launched in 1914 and it was immediately requisitioned for war service. It hit a mine in the Aegean Sea in November 1916 and sank, even though it had changes implemented to make Britannic not sink in the same scenario as Titanic encountered when it the iceberg. These changes included raising the watertight bulkheads and adding a double hull on the side of the boiler rooms.