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RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning of 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK, to New York City, US. The sinking resulted in the loss of more than 1,500 passengers and crew, making it one of the deadliest commercial peacetime maritime disasters in modern history. The RMS ''Titanic,'' the largest ship afloat at the time it entered service, was the second of three ''Olympic'' class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, and was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast with Thomas Andrews as her naval architect. Andrews was among those lost in the sinking. On her maiden voyage, she carried 2,224 passengers and crew. Under the command of Edward Smith, the ship's passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere throughout Europe seeking a new life in North America. A high-power radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger "marconigrams" and for the ship's operational use. Although ''Titanic'' had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, there were not enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard due to outdated maritime safety regulations. ''Titanic'' only carried enough lifeboats for 1,178 people—slightly more than half of the number on board, and one-third her total capacity. After leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, ''Titanic'' called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland before heading west to New York.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.chriscunard.com/titanic.php )〕 On 14 April 1912, four days into the crossing and about south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. ship's time. The collision caused the ship's hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea; the ship gradually filled with water. Meanwhile, passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partly loaded. A disproportionate number of men were left aboard because of a "women and children first" protocol followed by some of the officers loading the lifeboats.〔Second Officer Lightoller insisted on excluding men, while First Murdoch, on the other side of the ship, admitted both men and women to the lifeboats.〕 By 2:20 a.m., she broke apart and foundered, with well over one thousand people still aboard. Just under two hours after ''Titanic'' foundered, the Cunard liner RMS ''Carpathia'' arrived on the scene of the sinking, where she brought aboard an estimated 705 survivors. The disaster was greeted with worldwide shock and outrage at the huge loss of life and the regulatory and operational failures that had led to it. Public inquiries in Britain and the United States led to major improvements in maritime safety. One of their most important legacies was the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), which still governs maritime safety today. Additionally, several new wireless regulations were passed around the world in an effort to learn from the many missteps in wireless communications—which could have saved many more passengers. The wreck of ''Titanic'' remains on the seabed, split in two and gradually disintegrating at a depth of . Since her discovery in 1985, thousands of artefacts have been recovered and put on display at museums around the world. ''Titanic'' has become one of the most famous ships in history, her memory kept alive by numerous books, folk songs, films, exhibits, and memorials. == Background == The name ''Titanic'' was derived from Greek mythology and meant gigantic. Built in Belfast, Ireland, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as it then was), the RMS ''Titanic'' was the second of the three ''Olympic''-class ocean liners—the first was the RMS ''Olympic'' and the third was the HMHS ''Britannic''. They were by far the largest vessels of the British shipping company White Star Line's fleet, which comprised 29 steamers and tenders in 1912. The three ships had their genesis in a discussion in mid-1907 between the White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, and the American financier J. P. Morgan, who controlled the White Star Line's parent corporation, the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM). The White Star Line faced a growing challenge from its main rivals Cunard, which had just launched the and the —the fastest passenger ships then in service—and the German lines Hamburg America and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Ismay preferred to compete on size rather than speed and proposed to commission a new class of liners that would be bigger than anything that had gone before as well as being the last word in comfort and luxury. The company sought an upgrade in their fleet primarily in response to the Cunard giants but also to replace their oldest pair of passenger ships still in service, being the SS ''Teutonic'' of 1889 and SS ''Majestic'' of 1890. ''Teutonic'' was replaced by ''Olympic'' while ''Majestic'' was replaced by ''Titanic''. ''Majestic'' would be brought back into her old spot on White Star's New York service after ''Titanics loss. The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, who had a long-established relationship with the White Star Line dating back to 1867. Harland and Wolff were given a great deal of latitude in designing ships for the White Star Line; the usual approach was for the latter to sketch out a general concept which the former would take away and turn into a ship design. Cost considerations were relatively low on the agenda and Harland and Wolff was authorised to spend what it needed on the ships, plus a five percent profit margin. In the case of the ''Olympic''-class ships, a cost of £3 million for the first two ships was agreed plus "extras to contract" and the usual five percent fee. Harland and Wolff put their leading designers to work designing the ''Olympic''-class vessels. The design was overseen by Lord Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line; naval architect Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff's design department; Edward Wilding, Andrews' deputy and responsible for calculating the ship's design, stability and trim; and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager. Carlisle's responsibilities included the decorations, equipment and all general arrangements, including the implementation of an efficient lifeboat davit design. On 29 July 1908, Harland and Wolff presented the drawings to J. Bruce Ismay and other White Star Line executives. Ismay approved the design and signed three "letters of agreement" two days later authorising the start of construction. At this point the first ship—which was later to become ''Olympic''—had no name, but was referred to simply as "Number 400", as it was Harland and Wolff's four hundredth hull. ''Titanic'' was based on a revised version of the same design and was given the number 401. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「RMS Titanic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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