Sinking of the RMS Titanic Sinking of the RMS Titanic "Titanic" received six warnings of sea ice on 14 April but was travelling near her maximum speed when her lookouts sighted the iceberg. Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffered a glancing blow that buckled her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen compartments to the sea. "Titanic" had been designed to stay afloat with four of her forward compartments flooded but no more, and the crew soon realised that the ship would sink. They used distress flares and radio (wireless) messages to attract help as the passengers were put into lifeboats. In
RMS Titanic century. The sinking brought tremendous grief and was a blow to the city's pride. But its shipyard was also a place many Catholics regarded as hostile. In the latter half of the century, during a 30-year sectarian conflict "Titanic" was a reminder of the lack of civil rights that in part contributed towards the Troubles. While the fate of Titanic remained a well-known story within local households throughout the 20th century, commercial investment around RMS "Titanic" legacy was modest because of these issues. After the Troubles and Good Friday Agreement, the number of overseas tourists visiting Northern Ireland dramatically increased