We Are Sinking

Authors Note: After just finishing a book about the Titanic, I found it easy to write an essay on a topic I am very familiar with. I hope those who read it enjoy it.

The deck slanted, boiler rooms filled with water, lifeboats being lowered, but where are all of the passengers? No one believed the Titanic could sink, well, at least before the dreadful night when the ship collided with the iceberg in 1912. People heard the engines stop and a tremor as the iceberg hit, yet everyone resumed their business. Many people thought the Titanic sunk because no one saw the iceberg but that statement is false. The Titanic sunk for many reasons such as: speeding up after “turning the corner”, ignoring telegrams from other ships about warnings for ice, having the Carpathia arrive too late, and the mystery ship not help.

One of the main reasons Titanic sunk was because Bruce Ismay, who owned the ship, told E.J. Smith to speed up after “turning the corner” -a term used by sailors when a ship is half way to its destination and must turn since the earth is round- even though there were ships in the area reporting ice warnings through telegrams, those telegrams were ignored. The titanic was so big it could not stop very quick, therefore since it was traveling faster than usual it could not stop in time when the lookouts alerted E.J. Smith.

While this happened, telegrams were sent out to every ship nearby saying S.O.S. The nearest ship to respond was the Carpathia but they were late by about an hour after the Titanic sunk but picked up the life boats. There was a mystery ship some passengers remember seeing in the distance, some say it was the Californian, but no one will ever know. No one knows why the ship didn’t respond to the signal flares and stayed were it was but all we know is it didn’t help. If this mystery ship came to Titanic’s aid, many more people would have been saved.

As you can see, there are many more reasons to why the Titanic sunk than “The lookouts missed it”. While we can only mourn, many try to find what really happened that night. From beginning to end, Titanic will always be remembered. The ship everyone thought was unsinkable sank, and left the world in shock as it lays on the ocean floor resting forever.