83 feet long, 92 feet wide, and weighed 46,328 tons. She was 104 feet tall from keel to bridge, almost 35 feet of which were below the waterline. Even so, she stood taller above the water than most urban buildings of the time. There were three real smokestacks and a fourth, a dummy, added largely to increase the impression of her gargantuan size and power, and to vent smoke from her kitchen and galleys. She was the largest moveable object ever made by man. The ship’s immense size and complexity is demonstrated by an incident recalled by Second Officer Lightoller. There was a gangway door on the starboard side aft. Moreover, she was designed to be a marvel of modern safety technology. She had a double hull of one inch thick steel plates and a system of 16 water-tight compartments, sealed by massive doors which could be instantly triggered by a single electric switch on the bridge, or even automatically by electric water sensors. The original design called for 32 lifeboats. However, White Star Management felt that the boat-deck would not look cluttered, and reduced the number to twenty, for a total lifeboat capacity of 1178. This actually exceeded the regulations of the times, even though the Titanic was capable of carrying over 3500 people. The journey began at South Hampton on Wednesday, April 10, 1912 at noon. By sundown, Titanic stopped in Cherbourg, France, to pick up additional passengers. That evening she sailed for Queenstown, Ireland, and at 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 11, she headed out into the Atlantic. The seasoned transatlantic passengers were deeply impressed by the new ship. She was so massive that they barely felt the movement of the sea at all. Her huge, powerful engines produced almost none of the annoying vibration common to other steamers, and their noise was barely perceptible. In addition, she achieved this extraordinary level of comfort while traveling at 22 knots, not the fastest boat on the r...
