These were the last words uttered by Titanic’s Captain Smith just before the mighty, unsinkable ship hit an iceberg in 1912. The ice sheared off some bolts securing her starboard bow; although only 12 square feet of material ripped from the hull in the collision, it was enough to sink the vessel and kill 1500 passengers, nearly half of whom was crew, and two-thirds of whom hailed from the same, small English town.
I watched Titanic: Birth of a Legend on the Discovery Channel last night (I’d TiVo’ed it from the night before), and I thought it was outstanding. The show pieced together old snapshots of the Titanic, audio recordings of survivors of the crash, and recently obtained footage gathered by the submarine, Nautile, and her ROV, Robin. At 2½ miles below the ocean’s surface, the ship is still in relatively good shape – it was possible to discern many of the exquisite carvings on her wooden columns – but she’s deteriorating quickly. This was an excellent history of her construction, her sailing, her sinking, and her exploration. As it’s the Discovery Channel, they’ll re-run the show infinitely, so if you missed it this weekend, you can always catch it another time. I consider it an hour well-spent.
1. I just wish it were somewhere closer to shore and in about 20-50m of water so I could take a swim through the lobby, restaurants, piano bar etc. ;)
Posted at 12:19PM on Jul 26th 2005 by Jernej