Page 5 - National Geographic - How We Found Titanic

lifeboat davit (l,ower lef) with sections of an ice-cube tray. One of our photographs the block still attached lies Yet Titanic stayed afloat more confirms the loss of the foremost alongside a collapsed bulkhead than an hour longer than most of Titqnic's four giant stacks, lrom the officers' quarters. experts on board predicted. not shown in the painting. The great liner tilts only Many of the 2,227 passen- Some accounts maintain that .econds before her plunge to gers and crew had abandoned the funnel collapsed violently rhe bottom-two hours and 40 ship or been swept away when when the ship upended; others ninutes after the iceberg tore a the vessel briefly upended in claim it worked loose as the sash some 300 feet long in her the water, then settled back at water engulfed it. Our pictures starboard side near the bow. an angle. All 20lifeboats and support the former conclusion. SLr of her 16 watertight com- rafts-less than half the During one sweep along the partments were flooded, and number needed-had been superstructure we took a a-: the sea rose above the wa- launched, many of them only photo graph (below) showing tertight bulkheads, adjoining partly filled. Nearly all had the huge circular opening compartments flooded like pulled away from the ship for where the funnel once joined safety. That action doomed the deck. Massive steel flanges most survivors afloat, for the have been wrenched open '' temperature of the sea was like the lid of a sardine can. 28oF and none could last more than an hour or so. The near- est ship to respond was still two hours away. / \ 2e o , A 2 fo % 2" f :T \T]NG BY WILLIAM H. BONO, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC r..I5T. CONSULTANTS: CHARLEs A. HAAS III AND .:T\ P, EATON, TITAIIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY THIS PAGE FOLDS OUT 701