titanic was at sea for four days before it sank.
titanic was at sea for four days before it sank.
how long was titanic at sea before it sank?
four days
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. on 14 april, 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 hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard (right) side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea; she could only survive four flooding. meanwhile, passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partially loaded. a disproportionate number of men were left aboard because of a "women and children first" protocol for loading lifeboats. at 2:20 a.m., she broke apart and foundered with well over one thousand people still aboard. just under two hours after "titanic" sank, the cunard liner arrived and brought aboard an estimated 705 survivors.
rms titanic
the white star line never envisaged that all of the crew and passengers would have to be evacuated at once, as "titanic" was considered almost unsinkable. the lifeboats were instead intended to be used to transfer passengers off the ship and onto a nearby vessel providing assistance. while "titanic" was under construction, an incident involving the white star liner appeared to confirm this approach. "republic" was involved in a collision with the lloyd italiano liner in january 1909 and sank. even though she did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers, they were all saved because the ship was able to stay afloat long enough for them to be ferried to ships coming to assist. this fact is what led to the harsh condemnation of captain stanley lord of , who both american and british inquiries into the disaster felt could have saved many if not all of the passengers and crew had she heeded the "titanic"s distress calls. in this scenario, "titanic"s lifeboats would have been adequate to ferry the passengers to safety as planned. however, it is worth noting that the ferrying of passengers between two ships would have been a long, arduous process even under the best conditions. it took "carpathia" well over four hours to pick up and account for all of "titanic"s lifeboats in the morning after the disaster. during the sinking of the aforementioned "republic" in 1909, it took nearly half a day to ferry all of her passengers to rescue ships, and during the sinking of the italian liner in 1956 it took nearly eight hours to ferry all her passengers to safety. both liners sank at a much slower rate, roughly half a day, in contrast to "titanic", which sank slightly shy of three hours after her collision with the iceberg.
lifeboats of the rms titanic