87 The Titanic

The word "unsinkable" sunk the Titanic. How? Because everyone believed it. The ship left Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912. She sailed for five days on calm seas, steaming at about 26 miles per hour. Pretty fast for a ship of over 46 thousand tons.

On April 14, wireless reports from other ships warned of icebergs ahead. Actually, six reports came in that day. But the "unsinkable" ship steamed on. No slowing down.

There was no moon that night. At 11:40 p.m. lookout Frederick Fleet saw the iceberg and phoned the bridge. A mountain of ice loomed against the dark sky. The berg was about 100 feet high. This means it extended about 900 feet below the surface. The ship veered at the last second. From above, it looked like a close shave. But at the bottom a scraping sound was heard. Water was pouring in. At 12:05, "Get the lifeboats ready" was ordered. By 2:20 A.M. the ship had sunk below the surface. It took 25 minutes to assess the damage. The ship carried 2,207 people. Fully loaded, the lifeboats could take only 1,178. Already there was guaranteed doom for many. Most boats pulled away partially loaded. Boat #1, made for 40, carried only 12. Ultimately, only 705 people survived.

Just 10 miles away was the Californian, stopped since 10:30 p.m. Each ship down its wireless at 11:30. But they could not communicate. Its cry for help was unheard. The Carpathia, many miles away, heard. Arriving after four hours, it picked up the survivors.

87 泰坦尼克号

“永不沉没”这个词让泰坦尼克号沉没了。为什么呢？因为所有人都相信它不会沉没。这艘船于1912年4月10日从英国南安普敦出发，在平静的海面上航行了五天，以每小时约26英里的速度航行。对于一艘超过4.6万吨的船来说，这个速度相当快。

4月14日，其他船只的无线电报告警告前方有冰山。实际上，那天收到了六份报告。但这艘“永不沉没”的船继续航行，没有减速。

那天晚上没有月亮。晚上11点40分，瞭望员弗雷德里克·弗利特看到了冰山，并打电话到驾驶台。一座冰山在黑暗的天空下若隐若现，冰山大约有100英尺高，这意味着它在水面下延伸了约900英尺。船在最后一秒转向，从上面看，似乎是侥幸躲过。但在船底传来了刮擦声，水开始涌入。12点05分，“准备好救生艇”的命令被下达。到凌晨2点20分，船已经沉入水面以下。评估损失花了25分钟。这艘船搭载了2207人，满载时救生艇只能容纳1178人。已经有很多人注定要遭遇厄运。大多数救生艇在装载不足的情况下就被开走了，1号救生艇可容纳40人，却只载了12人。最终，只有705人幸存。

仅10英里外的“加利福尼亚号”自晚上10点30分起就停航了，每艘船在11点30分关闭了无线电，因此它们无法通信，它的求救声无人听到。数英里外的“卡帕西亚号”听到了，四小时后抵达，接走了幸存者。