The Unsinkable Ship

Sunday 14 April 1912. Titanic is five days into her maiden voyage to New York. Many of the 2,208 people on board are emigrating to America in search of a better life. Others are travelling for business or pleasure. They tell us they’re having the trip of a lifetime, safe in the knowledge that they’re sailing on the ‘safest ship’ ever built.

But at 11.29 pm, lookout crew member Fred Fleet spots a ‘black mass’ right ahead of Titanic. When he realises it’s an iceberg, he alerts the navigation crew, who order the quartermaster to swing the ship around it.

Fleet thinks they’ve narrowly missed the berg, but down in one of the boiler rooms, fireman Fred Barrett describes a torrent of water pouring through the hull.