Titanic met its tragic fate on its maiden voyage when it hit an iceberg more than a century ago while sailing through the North Atlantic. The ship was scheduled to arrive at Pier 59 in New York on April 17, having departed on April 10 from London. The largest ship at the time, it was traveling at a speed of 22 knots when it struck the iceberg at 11:40 pm on April 14, 1912.
The ship’s journey from London to New York had mostly been uneventful, the weather had been fair for almost the entirety of the journey till the ill-fated day. However, it was on April 14th that the ship faced cold weather with strong winds. There were several reports of drifting ice in the area, but icebergs rarely ever caused major damage to ships as majestic in size as the RMS Titanic. The course of events of that night is well known, having become a major attraction for films, books, museums, consumer products, and TV specials. This, however, is not the story of the majestic ocean liner but the block of ice that led to its untimely doom.
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What Was The Size Of The Iceberg That Sank The Titanic?
Icebergs colliding with ships had been a phenomenon as long as there had been ships to collide with, but the iceberg that felled the largest passenger liner ever was counting its days till it melted into water. Another week or two, and the iceberg would have never been the one that made it to the pages of history books. Bernice Palmer took a picture of the iceberg that was believed to have sunk the Titanic and was identified by her and the other survivors that boarded RMS Carpathia.
There are various reports on the size of the iceberg that sank the ship, according to the survivors it was about 50 to 100 feet tall and approximately 400 feet long. On the way to the rescue the following day, RMS Carpathia spotted an iceberg that was about 200 ft tall. The ratio of an iceberg that ought to be above water generally is 5:1 which indicates that the iceberg could not have been more than 328 ft tall and approximately 50 to 60 ft of it was above water.
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What Happened To The Iceberg?
Scientists believe that the iceberg had broken off from a bigger ice sheet around Qassimiut on Greenland’s southwest coast. After drifting for at least for 12 to 36 months, the iceberg would have lost half its original size. The Titanic iceberg was an exception as most icebergs melt before reaching that far south. The temperature of the water the night RMS Titanic sank was just below freezing. While this temperature is lethal for passengers who had to take open water to escape the sinking ship, it was far too warm to sustain icebergs for a long time.
The average life expectancy of an iceberg in the North Atlantic is two to three at most from calving to melting. The iceberg, based on its trajectory would have eventually melted away as soon as it reached the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream, approximately two weeks after its collision with the Titanic. Therefore, the iceberg that sank RMS Titanic in all likelihood did not even last until the outbreak of the First World War.Any other week, the Titanic would’ve not only completed its maiden journey but would’ve also turned around for its second. However, as we all know, that fate intervened and the largest passenger liner to have ever been built succumbed to an icy death at the bottom of the ocean.
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