Lifeboats of the RMS Titanic the ship. The boats were supposed to be stocked with emergency supplies, but "Titanic"s passengers later found that they had only been partially provisioned. No lifeboat or fire drills had been carried out since "Titanic" left Southampton. A lifeboat drill had been scheduled for the morning before the ship sank, but was cancelled, allegedly because the ship's captain, Edward Smith, wanted to deliver one last Sunday service before he went into full retirement. Lists had been posted on the ship allocating crew members to particular lifeboat stations, but few appeared to have read them or to have known what they
Wreck of the RMS Titanic but have been consumed by other organisms. "Titanic" sank in 1912, when she collided with an iceberg during her maiden voyage. Numerous expeditions tried using sonar to map the sea bed in the hope of finding it, but were unsuccessful. In 1985, the wreck was finally located by a joint French–American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The wreck has been the focus of intense interest and has been visited by numerous expeditions. Controversial salvage operations have recovered thousands of items, which have been conserved and put on public display.