Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Ahoy, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: your captain. There's Chuck, your other captain, and your third captain, Jerry,
Speaker 1: all of us equal captains here. Uh is out there
Speaker 1: hovering around silently like the creepiest captain of all, even
Speaker 1: creepier than Captain Stubbing. Um. Yeah, and that of course
Speaker 1: makes this stuff you should know. I always loved it
Speaker 1: when Captain Stubbing would have the rare love storyline. Yeah
Speaker 1: now and then, yes, so good. He's usually just overseeing
Speaker 1: the love of others, you know exactly. He was a
Speaker 1: father figure, so that's why it was off putting when
Speaker 1: he had his own love thing. Yeah, but he wants
Speaker 1: to see Captain Stubbing, you know, go all the way.
Speaker 1: Uh we should mention. And I wish I knew her name.
Speaker 1: But for many, many years, one of our young listeners
Speaker 1: asked us to do Titanic at every turn. And uh,
Speaker 1: I imagine that that young girl is now a grown woman,
Speaker 1: probably who doesn't listen anymore, but who knows who knows? Also, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I think most recently was requested by our Scottish correspondent Noah. Oh,
Speaker 1: don't you remember when he said hi last time? Sure,
Speaker 1: I don't remember the Titanic part, but Noah. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm happy for Noah to take the place of this
Speaker 1: young girl who left us yesterday's news which I can't
Speaker 1: prove used us up and just threw us away. Chuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we resisted for so long because the movie
Speaker 1: is so linked to this event. In the movie, despite
Speaker 1: its faults, did a really pretty accurate job of and
Speaker 1: I know that was important to James Cameron, of kind
Speaker 1: of really telling the accurate story of exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: So we're like my bother. Yeah, there's actually um From
Speaker 1: the filming of that movie, they may have settled at
Speaker 1: least one major mystery as to what happened when it sank.
Speaker 1: The no the what happened to the Grand Staircase, which
Speaker 1: they found when they finally discovered the Titanic later on
Speaker 1: uh in the eighties, was just totally missing. It was
Speaker 1: now like a seven story vertical basically an elevator shaft,
Speaker 1: a huge hole, and none of the staircase remained. And
Speaker 1: when they filmed that movie The Titanic, the Grand Staircase
Speaker 1: detached and started to float away, and James Cameron was like,
Speaker 1: I'll bet you that's exactly what happened to the real Titanic.
Speaker 1: And I have a feeling that Jewel the Sea isn't
Speaker 1: even right. What was it called? Had a name Jim
Speaker 1: of the there's so many angry people right now of
Speaker 1: the gam of the on it. I think it was
Speaker 1: the Heart of the Sea, the Heart of the Ocean,
Speaker 1: something like that, The Jewel of the Wind. Did you
Speaker 1: like the movie? Yeah? It was fine. Um, you remember
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson's Bible where he cut out all the magic
Speaker 1: momo jumbo and just had like the morality of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. If you could go through and cut out
Speaker 1: like the love story of that movie, I would probably
Speaker 1: like it much more. Well, I kind of disagree there,
Speaker 1: because you gotta pain it around something. Whoa, You gotta
Speaker 1: frame it around some kind of a story of people.
Speaker 1: Are you just saying you would have done another person story? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why not just throw Captain Stooping in there and have
Speaker 1: him have the love story? I thought the love story
Speaker 1: was good. I just think Jim Cameron is I think
Speaker 1: he can be a little ham fisted with his screenwriting sometimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there was some stuff like that. I remember even
Speaker 1: at the time, like Billy Zane, you know, little pithy mom.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know that Picasso, who's ever heard of him?
Speaker 1: That will be never be worth a thing like or
Speaker 1: something like that. I remember the time being like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: Billy Zane does what he's told on set ze. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there was another one. I had forgotten about this line,
Speaker 1: but somebody else was basically saying the same thing that
Speaker 1: you are about that movie, or James Cameron. James Cameron's
Speaker 1: writing that when Leo was, you know, running with Kate
Speaker 1: Winslet through um first class and there's band. The band
Speaker 1: is playing and he stops for a second and goes
Speaker 1: music to drown two. Now I know I'm in first class.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the whole thing is just rife with that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But overall, I mean just the fact
Speaker 1: that like they went to the extremes that they did
Speaker 1: too to try to try to get it as accurate
Speaker 1: as possible and overlaid like a you know, a romantic
Speaker 1: love story on it like it was. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a good It was a good movie in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, in so many more ways than it
Speaker 1: was a add movie that it's just overall a really
Speaker 1: good movie. Yeah. I think the most brilliant decision in
Speaker 1: that movie was to have that beginning bit where it's
Speaker 1: a little ham fisted, but the part where Bill Paxton
Speaker 1: and the c Nerds go over exactly how it sank.
Speaker 1: Uh that, Like, I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 1: understood that, and understanding that as you're watching the movie
Speaker 1: is pretty critical. So I think that was pretty smart. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: And one other thing about that movie. Will never mention
Speaker 1: it again for the rest of these two episodes, I'm sure. Um,
Speaker 1: but it costs about almost exactly half adjusted for inflation,
Speaker 1: um to make the movie Titanic as it did to
Speaker 1: make The Titanic. Oh wow, isn't that crazy? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: we just did an episode of movie Crush basically there
Speaker 1: there you go. That was a mini Crush. Although Nate
Speaker 1: demo this was this was actually his pick our buddy, Nate,
Speaker 1: He's Titanic. He did. That's awesome, Man, that doesn't surprise
Speaker 1: me at all, Right, I mean he he would love
Speaker 1: a movie like that that's set you know, like his
Speaker 1: like really accurate historical fiction. That would totally be up
Speaker 1: his his alley um. Okay, so we're talking believe it
Speaker 1: or not, everybody. I don't know if you figured this
Speaker 1: out yet, we're talking about the Titanic finally at long
Speaker 1: last um and like we're saying, you know, we kind
Speaker 1: of put this off because the movie had had just
Speaker 1: become so widespread that we basically had to wait out
Speaker 1: it's after effects. But I feel like we've kind of
Speaker 1: finally kind of reached that um so, and like I've
Speaker 1: been interested in the Titanic since I was just a
Speaker 1: young kid. Yeah, when they found the Titanic in like,
Speaker 1: I was at just the right age to to really
Speaker 1: get sucked into that um and the I think the
Speaker 1: Titanic was probably the first thing that introduced me to
Speaker 1: like the just the fascinating creepiness of looking at things
Speaker 1: they aren't supposed to be underwater, but now it's just
Speaker 1: perfect for that kind of thing. Yeah, and it's still
Speaker 1: really cool. Like I was looking at pictures today of
Speaker 1: that stern sitting there underwater, and it's, uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: still just like there's something about it that you can't
Speaker 1: not look at it and just stare at it, I know,
Speaker 1: And I'm like waiting for the day when things become uh,
Speaker 1: when technology reaches to the point where we can just
Speaker 1: explore every square into the Titanic on the bottom, I'm
Speaker 1: really looking forward to that. But so, I knew a
Speaker 1: lot about the Titanic to begin with, but just researching this,
Speaker 1: it dawned on me, like, I mean, there's just so
Speaker 1: much I didn't know that I found in in um
Speaker 1: the time spent researching this. But it also dawned on
Speaker 1: me that there is just so much more, Like some
Speaker 1: people dedicate like this is their hobby, like learning and
Speaker 1: talking and researching and reading and thinking about the Titanic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know this is this be a two part
Speaker 1: episode and we're gonna do it stuff you should know
Speaker 1: style and probably about ninety minutes. But I'm quite sure
Speaker 1: there are podcasts out there fully dedicated to the Titanic
Speaker 1: where it's like you know, and now episode twenty the Cutlery,
Speaker 1: where people know, like like you're saying, people are obsessed
Speaker 1: with it and they know all the details. We're gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm sure get some stuff kind of wrong because we're
Speaker 1: not experts, but we're going to give it the old
Speaker 1: stuff you should know treatment you know, Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So as as like I knew a lot
Speaker 1: about the Titanic. There's plenty of people out there who
Speaker 1: like dedicate themselves to it. Um. But just learning about this,
Speaker 1: like it's just such a huge monumental thing. A lot
Speaker 1: of people divide, like the nineteenth century the like the
Speaker 1: old era um and the modern age upon the sinking
Speaker 1: of the Titanic, Like that's how colossal a thing it's become. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the time, I mean, it was actually not
Speaker 1: that big of a deal. Like it was a maiden
Speaker 1: voyage of the Titanic, but it's sister ship, the Olympic,
Speaker 1: had already sailed, and that was actually kind of a
Speaker 1: big thing. The Titanic wasn't even sold out, um when
Speaker 1: it underwent its voyage. Actually, in retrospect, that was a
Speaker 1: very good thing. But there's a lot to learn from
Speaker 1: the Titanic just just researching it, even if you do
Speaker 1: feel like you already know basically everything about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I learned a ton of stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I saw that movie a bunch so Um. Like I said,
Speaker 1: the Titanic had a sister ship, the Olympic, and it
Speaker 1: also had another sister ship, which was originally dubbed the Gigantic,
Speaker 1: but after the Titanic saying, they went back and renamed
Speaker 1: the Gigantic the Britannic because I thought, I think maybe
Speaker 1: they're they'd be like, well, we were we had enough
Speaker 1: hubrists for to last a lifetime with the Titanic. But
Speaker 1: these three ships came out of a dinner actually um
Speaker 1: between a guy named j. Bruce is May, who was
Speaker 1: the chairman of the White Star Line which owned those
Speaker 1: three ships, and another guy what was his name, Peery,
Speaker 1: Lord William Peery, and their their wives Florence who was
Speaker 1: married to Bruce, and Margaret Montgomery originally Carlisle and that
Speaker 1: you know that name will come back in just a second,
Speaker 1: so just put a pin in her. So the um
Speaker 1: this dinner was basically about how to compete with the
Speaker 1: Kenard lines. The Cunard people um were eating White Stars
Speaker 1: lunch to a degree because they had just released the
Speaker 1: Mauritania and the Lusitania, and I think the Mauritaneous at
Speaker 1: the speed record. Um, these things could make it across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic in five days, which was very very fast
Speaker 1: at the time, and White Star couldn't keep up. So
Speaker 1: they decided from this dinner what if instead of trying
Speaker 1: to make faster and faster ships, we just kind of
Speaker 1: go with our thing and make them bigger and more luxurious,
Speaker 1: so people want to spend that extra day. It took
Speaker 1: White Star six days to make it across. People want
Speaker 1: to spend that extra day because a ship is so
Speaker 1: ridiculously luxurious that they choose ours instead. And not only
Speaker 1: was this the birth of the Titanic in the Olympic
Speaker 1: and the Britannic, it was basically the birth of the
Speaker 1: cruise industry as we understand it today, just basically making
Speaker 1: these huge floating luxury hotels that that kind of became
Speaker 1: born from this dinner as well. Yeah, and so they said,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to make them about one and
Speaker 1: a half times the size of anything that Kunard is
Speaker 1: putting out there. And they started sketching around a little bit,
Speaker 1: and they sketched up a couple of masts and for
Speaker 1: smoke stacks, and I think by the time they got
Speaker 1: to the engineering phase, they said, by the way, we
Speaker 1: really only need three of these, and they said, no,
Speaker 1: we must have four. We want it to look symmetrical,
Speaker 1: and we'll figure out something to do with that fourth one,
Speaker 1: which they did became a ventilation system, which was pretty smart.
Speaker 1: And initially Alexander Montgomery Carlisle was the head designer, who
Speaker 1: was uh, Margaret Lord William Peary's wife's brother, so it
Speaker 1: was his brother in law that was the initial designer,
Speaker 1: and then that was eventually handed over to Peery's nephew,
Speaker 1: Thomas Andrews And he was the guy played by Victor
Speaker 1: Garber in the movie The Dude from Alias. The Dad
Speaker 1: from Alias? Is it? Yeah? I mean I never saw Alias,
Speaker 1: but I know that when you're on TV, that's what
Speaker 1: you're most famous for. Yeah, isn't that weird? Yeah? Except
Speaker 1: in our case? Right, so um so yeah. So Thomas
Speaker 1: Andrews um would become the chief designer of the ship,
Speaker 1: and he had an amazing job of it. But the
Speaker 1: ship itself, the Titanic, was something like eight hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty two ft long, which is a little longer than
Speaker 1: the Transamerican Pyramid in San Francisco. Is the building in
Speaker 1: San Francisco is tall? Imagine tipping that into the ocean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you have like and the Titanic was slightly
Speaker 1: longer than that. It was also ninety two ft wide,
Speaker 1: and it had a gross weight of forty five thousand tons.
Speaker 1: It was just by far the biggest ship that had
Speaker 1: ever been built. And so like the idea of bigness
Speaker 1: and uh indestructibility kind of was was part of the
Speaker 1: Titanics whole jam, like from the outset. Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: was one sort of fateful mistake. And you know, Titanic
Speaker 1: is one of those things where a lot of people
Speaker 1: have in hindsight said, well, there was of course the iceberg,
Speaker 1: but there were also this in this, in this that
Speaker 1: happened that could have led to, you know, it's ultimate demise.
Speaker 1: And one of those things was the rivets on the Titanic.
Speaker 1: There were three million wrought iron rivets that apparently, upon
Speaker 1: further examination, contained about three times the amount of slag
Speaker 1: residue as was allowable. And I think the result of
Speaker 1: that was when they're exposed to cold, they become more brittle.
Speaker 1: And so some people have posited that those you know,
Speaker 1: it was a well built ship for the most part,
Speaker 1: but those rivets could have been weaker than they should
Speaker 1: have been when push came to shove. Yeah, And I mean,
Speaker 1: if your rivets are the weak link in the chain,
Speaker 1: that's trouble right there. But yeah, not all of them
Speaker 1: were wrought iron, but enough of them were. And I
Speaker 1: also saw that they were double riveted, and they probably
Speaker 1: should have been triple riveted from what from what I
Speaker 1: saw in some engineering blog rivet exactly. Everybody knows that,
Speaker 1: sure so um So. They also had two engines on
Speaker 1: board UM that were just enormous. Each one was about
Speaker 1: three thirty ft tall, and they were capable of producing
Speaker 1: thirty thousand horsepower, which is about the same energy produced
Speaker 1: by ten diesel locomotives. Just these two engines UM, and
Speaker 1: they could push the ship pretty fast, something like um
Speaker 1: I think twenty two knots was the top speed it
Speaker 1: hit it. And like I said, the Mauritania had set
Speaker 1: the speed record at something like twenty three point nine
Speaker 1: I think, as far as the record goes, and it
Speaker 1: lasted until so the Titanic wasn't setting speed records or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but it was still going awfully fast,
Speaker 1: especially considering the size it was. But it was thanks
Speaker 1: to those huge engines, and they're the enormous propellers that
Speaker 1: they outfitted the ship with two oh man, those like
Speaker 1: if you're at home and you can access photographs safely,
Speaker 1: I strongly encourage you to look up some of these pictures.
Speaker 1: Just the pictures of the propellers are amazing. There are
Speaker 1: two three blade propellers that were about twenty three and
Speaker 1: a half feet in diameter, and then one four blade
Speaker 1: propeller that was about seventeen feet in diameter, And just
Speaker 1: seeing a photograph of these things is unbelievable to behold,
Speaker 1: Like how big these things are. Yeah, again, just bigness.
Speaker 1: It was just a common theme, you know. UM. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that the Titanic had that was
Speaker 1: pretty innovative was that so underwater in the hole, what
Speaker 1: would be beneath the sea surface, UM, as far as
Speaker 1: the boat was concerned. UM, where sixteen bulkhead compartments that
Speaker 1: had all sorts of things like one held the coal
Speaker 1: or I think multiple won't tell all the coal that
Speaker 1: the Titanic consumed something like six hundred tons a day
Speaker 1: to get that thing to move, um. And then there
Speaker 1: were just all sorts of other just just like rooms
Speaker 1: that were beneath sea level. And each of these rooms
Speaker 1: had an automatic door UM that would shut it off
Speaker 1: its seal. It They were water tight, so if any
Speaker 1: of these compartments caught water, started taking on water, it
Speaker 1: could fill up and as long as that door was shut, um,
Speaker 1: the Titanic would just be able to keep on keeping
Speaker 1: on basically. So that was a real, um, a real
Speaker 1: innovation that combined with its big us and and um
Speaker 1: just the amount of steel that was put into it
Speaker 1: combined to kind of create this idea that the Titanic
Speaker 1: was unsinkable. That's where that comes from, largely from those compartments. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they said two of the four could flood,
Speaker 1: and they said, really, up to four of these could flood,
Speaker 1: but no more than four. Yeah, put a put a
Speaker 1: pin in that one. Uh. And on that coal, there
Speaker 1: were twenty nine steam boilers. And if you're thinking like
Speaker 1: how much coal, you said, six pounds or I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: six hundred tons a day a day. That was a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty two furnaces of two hundred men shoveling
Speaker 1: coal basically NonStop. Yeah. There was actually a fire um
Speaker 1: aboard the Titanic, Like the Titanic was on fire when
Speaker 1: it was taking on passengers right, um. And it was
Speaker 1: because those those coal deposits, one of them had caught fire.
Speaker 1: And when you have coal that's on fire in that situation. Basically,
Speaker 1: the only way to put it out is to you
Speaker 1: is that coal that's on fire. So not only were they,
Speaker 1: you know, shoveling like under routine conditions, they were shoveling
Speaker 1: even more coal than normal to keep the fire from spreading. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's another one of those things that people have
Speaker 1: Now some people experts have gone back and said the fire,
Speaker 1: uh could have started up to three weeks before they
Speaker 1: even set sale, and that it could have weakened um
Speaker 1: some of those holds they found evidence of, like some
Speaker 1: some burn marks and stuff like that where they said
Speaker 1: it could have weakened some of that metal. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it sounds very strange to have a fire
Speaker 1: going for three weeks and say here we go, everybody
Speaker 1: right exactly, but that was the deal. Plus it also
Speaker 1: just gets across how enormous Titanic was that it could
Speaker 1: have a fire and just be like whatever, it's all good,
Speaker 1: We're we're the Titanic. But yeah, they discovered a picture
Speaker 1: that shows some sort of like kind of stripe across
Speaker 1: the whole of the ship that is about where the
Speaker 1: iceberg hid it. And they said that's from that that
Speaker 1: coal fire, we think, which is surprising still after all
Speaker 1: this time. I think that's another reason why the Titanic
Speaker 1: story is so engrossing is there's there's just so much
Speaker 1: still that people are learning about it, even a hundred
Speaker 1: and nine years on. Oh totally. Uh. You also have
Speaker 1: to remember, when you build something this big, you also
Speaker 1: have to build the things that help you build this thing,
Speaker 1: because they didn't exist. So they had to get a
Speaker 1: boat slip that could accommodate it. So they built the
Speaker 1: this enormous white Star dock, and then something called the
Speaker 1: Great Gantry, which was it sort of looks like a
Speaker 1: big it's sort of like a skeleton of a big
Speaker 1: airplane hangar. You should look at these pictures too, it's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable. But it was a series of tin cranes
Speaker 1: basically that held this boat in place while it was
Speaker 1: being built, to could lift the people up to work
Speaker 1: on it, lift materials up to wherever they needed to go.
Speaker 1: And it's it's actually something to behold in itself, like
Speaker 1: seeing the Titanic sus ended like above the ground like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it took eleven thousand people to build this ship.
Speaker 1: Eleven thousand people and they built it. They built the
Speaker 1: actual ship itself, uh, and was launched into the water.
Speaker 1: I think, although it was basically always in the water
Speaker 1: because it was basically impossible to dry dock. Um. Well
Speaker 1: that when it was in the hangar, I was sitting
Speaker 1: up there. Okay, you're right, sorry, But it was actually
Speaker 1: launching in the water then on May thirty one, nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1: But it didn't have any interior, it didn't have its
Speaker 1: engines yet. It was fully completed March thirty first, nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: and it began its maiden voyage and started taking on
Speaker 1: passengers on April tenth, nineteen twelve. And I proposed, Chuck
Speaker 1: that before we take on passengers, we take a break.
Speaker 1: Let's do it all right? So um. One thing I
Speaker 1: didn't realize about the Titanic was it's It had three
Speaker 1: little stops before it left the UK for New York.
Speaker 1: It started out in Southampton, uh, in England, moved on
Speaker 1: to Cherbourg, France, and then went on to Queenstown, Ireland
Speaker 1: before leaving for New York. Did you know that? I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. That's right, it wasn't so. Um. The
Speaker 1: Titanic costs about four hundred million dollars in two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen dollars to make, which to that's that's actually less
Speaker 1: than Carnival Cruise Lines Splendor, which was launched in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight for like four hundred and fifty fifty million.
Speaker 1: It's actually for For as luxurious as it was, it
Speaker 1: was a pretty pretty good bargain, to tell you the truth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And here's my deal with cruises. I think we've talked
Speaker 1: about cruise ships before. I'm not a fan. I've been
Speaker 1: on exactly one cruise and uh, just not a fan.
Speaker 1: And a lot of it has to do with the decor,
Speaker 1: like shopping mall carpet and bowling alley carpet and you know,
Speaker 1: gold railings and things like that, but not like cool looking. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think if they took a note from the and
Speaker 1: maybe they are building cruise ships like this now, but
Speaker 1: if they took a note from the Titanic and other
Speaker 1: ships of the day today and had that really nice
Speaker 1: wicker furniture and some you know, if not iron, some
Speaker 1: stuff painted to look like iron, and not so much
Speaker 1: of that shiny gold shopping mall garbage. Look, I think
Speaker 1: I would be more into it, a little more classy,
Speaker 1: refined thing. And I think it could go a long
Speaker 1: way towards getting people like me on cruise ships. There's
Speaker 1: some that are like that, like kind of some throwback
Speaker 1: ones are there. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, but I get
Speaker 1: what you mean that whole You know, all you had
Speaker 1: to say was shopping mall. You kind of nailed it
Speaker 1: right there. Like when you look at the Titanic, it
Speaker 1: looks like something the Kellogg Brothers would have been keen on. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny you say that because we mentioned this in
Speaker 1: the Kellogg Brothers episode, but they had equipment on board
Speaker 1: the Titanic ins gym, and the gym happened to be
Speaker 1: located on the boat deck, which was the same place
Speaker 1: where the captain's bridge was. F y I in case
Speaker 1: about the various decks, Yeah, I think we should. There
Speaker 1: are a number of them actually, and they they lettered
Speaker 1: them by letter appropriately enough. That's right. So there's that
Speaker 1: boat deck, like you said, where the bridge, the gym,
Speaker 1: and I think just sort of that nice lovely pine
Speaker 1: open deck is. You had the promenade deck, which is
Speaker 1: the first deck deck A and that had those two
Speaker 1: first class staircases that you were talking about, had a lounge,
Speaker 1: had a reading and writing room, had the all male
Speaker 1: first class smoking room, all male places. Sure, they had
Speaker 1: the he Man Woman Haters Club. Uh, there was a
Speaker 1: Veranda cafe in Palm Court, which is really lovely if
Speaker 1: you go look at pictures of this as well. Yeah
Speaker 1: that that's that's up my alley as well. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Palm Court, it's nice, right. Yeah. I knew you'd love
Speaker 1: it because I was like, look at all that wicker furniture.
Speaker 1: Chuck's gonna go crazier for this. They would never allow
Speaker 1: that in a mall. Uh, what's on deck B? Deck?
Speaker 1: B friend, I thought you'dn't ever ask. Included the first
Speaker 1: class cabins and suits, the restaurant Cafe Parisian, which was
Speaker 1: this all male second class smoking room, third class poop deck,
Speaker 1: which is where the third class people kind of strolled
Speaker 1: around like gerbils um. And then they also kept some
Speaker 1: of the larger cargo equipment on the poop deck for
Speaker 1: the third class people that uses obstacles maybe to climb
Speaker 1: over and stay fit. Yeah, they tried to hide most
Speaker 1: of that stuff great care and making sure that it
Speaker 1: looked just like a luxury kind of hotel and not
Speaker 1: you know, And that's one of the reasons why they
Speaker 1: didn't have as many lifeboats, but you know, we'll get
Speaker 1: to that. So yeah, that was something that I also
Speaker 1: didn't know about the Titanic is that the designers, um
Speaker 1: and and builders really went to great lengths to make
Speaker 1: it as luxurious as possible for everybody from first class
Speaker 1: to third class, which is also called steerage. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: just over the years it's been it's been it's been
Speaker 1: made into such a class conflict, social stratification fable, because
Speaker 1: it definitely was, but really it just kind of followed
Speaker 1: the conventions of the day. But because of the conventions
Speaker 1: of the day, a lot of people died who otherwise
Speaker 1: might not have, which we'll talk about believe me. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just really people have kind of glomped onto that,
Speaker 1: and especially a hundred years later, it just seems so
Speaker 1: bizarre and awful to us. But at the time, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just the way things were. But because of that,
Speaker 1: you know, that whole idea that it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's third class and there's first class. Um, the the
Speaker 1: you you just kind of missed the point that that
Speaker 1: they were like even in third class, this was incredible
Speaker 1: luxury compared to what they were used to for passages
Speaker 1: like this, and it was because the designers purposefully made
Speaker 1: it that way. Yeah, I mean they were mostly immigrants
Speaker 1: coming to America for the first time. And uh, like
Speaker 1: you said, it's it was appropriate luxury for third class.
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't like the rooms weren't these big open
Speaker 1: rooms with like thirty bunk beds and no door. They
Speaker 1: were private rooms. They had doors on their rooms. I
Speaker 1: think they were with their six people per room down there,
Speaker 1: I saw four. I also saw six, Okay, not too
Speaker 1: bad though. They had little wash basins in each room,
Speaker 1: which was a really big deal in a big luxury
Speaker 1: although I do think they had only two bathtubs for
Speaker 1: third class to share among the seven hundred plus people,
Speaker 1: one for men and one for women. And um, I
Speaker 1: saw that explained away as third class passengers probably thought
Speaker 1: that you could develop respiratory illness by bathing too much,
Speaker 1: so they probably wouldn't have had much of an issue
Speaker 1: with that. It doesn't seem as bad as it it
Speaker 1: does to us in retrospect. Yeah, I don't think I
Speaker 1: would have taken a baths. I would have just spend
Speaker 1: It's like I wouldn't take a poop on a bus trip.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, man, I hope I'd never ever go
Speaker 1: to jail for any extended period of time because I
Speaker 1: would have a big problem with the pooping thing. You mean,
Speaker 1: when it's just a little silver, silverything in the corner
Speaker 1: with all the other people in there. Yes, I mean, like, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a big problem. That would be a
Speaker 1: problem for me. I think that would be a problem
Speaker 1: for anybody. I feel bad, like I really feel that's
Speaker 1: a terrible aspect I think of jail life. But yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. All right, So where were we? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: ironically we were on the poop deck. Uh, dex C
Speaker 1: was the shelter deck. Um. I don't think we said
Speaker 1: Deck B was the bridge deck. But DEXI is the
Speaker 1: shelter deck. Purser's office there, third class smoking room, second
Speaker 1: class library, and lounge. You know, everything is very divided
Speaker 1: by class. Everyone needs their smoking rooms because everybody smoked, right,
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Uh, saloon deck deck D. What are
Speaker 1: you getting there? Uh? First class reception room and the
Speaker 1: dining saloon um like they had Like when you showed
Speaker 1: up for dinner, you would probably sit in the reception
Speaker 1: room and maybe like have a drink while you're waiting
Speaker 1: to be seated if you showed up a little early.
Speaker 1: From what I saw agreed. From what I saw. The
Speaker 1: dining saloon, the actual dining room UM was large enough
Speaker 1: to see all of the first class passengers at once.
Speaker 1: And I think the second class one was just enormous.
Speaker 1: Second class, like it is almost never talked about. When
Speaker 1: you just generally talk about the Titanic, it's always first
Speaker 1: or third. But there's a huge second class um, a
Speaker 1: huge space for second class. I think it's set a
Speaker 1: couple of thousand people at once. Third Class I think
Speaker 1: was enough to serve um the the third class passengers
Speaker 1: over three sittings. I believe maybe even more than that,
Speaker 1: maybe four. All right, that's a lot. It is still
Speaker 1: a lot, but yeah, for first class you probably had
Speaker 1: just one sitting. Uh. And I think when you mentioned
Speaker 1: that could be uh. That restaurant was an ala carte restaurant,
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like modern cruise upstairs, the big
Speaker 1: dining room, but then there's also the pizza place and
Speaker 1: the this and the that, and I think the little
Speaker 1: a la carte restaurant was one of those it's like
Speaker 1: the mall food court, except probably not as good. Uh.
Speaker 1: Deck E was the second and third class cabins. It's
Speaker 1: called the upper deck, and then the middle deck. Deck
Speaker 1: F this is a little confusing, was the third class saloon,
Speaker 1: the Turkish Bath, which um they not too long ago
Speaker 1: got some really good photos of lurking there at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the Atlantic. It's amazing. But the Turkish Bath
Speaker 1: was kind of like what you call the spa aboard
Speaker 1: a ship today. Yeah, maybe some of the well, actually,
Speaker 1: I guess the Kellogg stuff was in the gym. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe it was all in the gym because it
Speaker 1: was like the shaky band and um oh, I can't
Speaker 1: remember what else the I think the thing where where
Speaker 1: they would loosen up the poop with the sun tan bed.
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly, but there were definitely multiple pieces
Speaker 1: of Kellogg equipment and it wasn't the gym yet. So
Speaker 1: then you've got the lower deck, the orlop deck. That's
Speaker 1: where they get a play squash if you wanted to.
Speaker 1: They had a post office. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, people love to send post when they're on
Speaker 1: an ocean voyage. I know, but I was thinking about that.
Speaker 1: You just show up at the post office and they're like, okay, thanks,
Speaker 1: we'll mail it when when we get to the same
Speaker 1: place at the exact same time as you. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems so dumb, but I think it's being postmarked by
Speaker 1: the Titanic, which is you know what. Okay, you're like, uh,
Speaker 1: there's someone working the post office is literally turns everyone
Speaker 1: away when you just hang onto that and mail it
Speaker 1: when we get there, A right, why yeah, probably better
Speaker 1: off just dropping it's somewhere in New York. You're fine. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's the carpentry shop, the plumbing shop, electrical workshops. You
Speaker 1: gotta have all that stuff. Um. They had these enormous
Speaker 1: refrigerated rooms that were cooled by these copper pipes, just
Speaker 1: like miles and miles of copper pipes in each area.
Speaker 1: Like you could you do a whole episode on just
Speaker 1: the refrigeration of the Titanic and the cheeses and the
Speaker 1: flowers and the wines and the foods that they had
Speaker 1: to keep chilled. And they have extensive They did it
Speaker 1: after the cutlery episode, probably so um. And so they
Speaker 1: we talked about how luxurious it was, like it was
Speaker 1: just as luxurious as anything was in the world at
Speaker 1: the time. The Titanic um with all, but there was
Speaker 1: also kind of like a uh airy kind of vibe
Speaker 1: to the whole thing, Like the choices and colors and
Speaker 1: wallpapers and plants and all of that in the wicker
Speaker 1: furniture was all this kind of light and airy and cheery.
Speaker 1: So it had a really nice feel to it. Um
Speaker 1: from first to third across the board. Yeah, like Steerage
Speaker 1: wasn't just a rat infested, gross place to be. That's
Speaker 1: how it's always portrayed, you know, like basically a floating
Speaker 1: tenement is how I've always seen it portrayed. And I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of how um James Cameron did portrayed
Speaker 1: it too, which is I guess where I got my impression,
Speaker 1: Like you, I mean, the only thing I remember, I
Speaker 1: think they maybe showed them in their Leo and his
Speaker 1: uh in Fabrizio and remember Fabrizio in their little in
Speaker 1: their little room. And then of course there was the
Speaker 1: the Irish jig that they danced down there when she
Speaker 1: decided to you know, slum it with Steerage, and that
Speaker 1: did look a little like a like a you know,
Speaker 1: an old pub, and it was a brand new boat, right,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so, um, I think I
Speaker 1: said earlier that the Titanic wasn't full when she set sail. Again,
Speaker 1: this is her maiden voyage, which accounts for why J.
Speaker 1: Bruces May, the chairman of the White Star Line, whose
Speaker 1: father was the founder, I believe, and why Thomas Andrews,
Speaker 1: the designer of the Titanic and Olympic and Britannic, we're
Speaker 1: both aboard. It was just custom for the the those
Speaker 1: p bowl who were in those positions to be aboard
Speaker 1: a ship for its maiden voyage. But there wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't sold out. There was room for something like thirty
Speaker 1: two hundred and people. Yeah, there was only dred and
Speaker 1: twenty nine people. So there was like more room for
Speaker 1: more than a thousand passengers, basically because the the crew
Speaker 1: was virtually full, Like the room for the crew was
Speaker 1: virtually full, but it was the passengers that hadn't you know,
Speaker 1: booked as much as it was expected. Should we take
Speaker 1: another break? Oh boy? Yeah, alright, let's take another break
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about a couple more things here. Two
Speaker 1: round out Part one of the Titanic. Right after this
Speaker 1: all right. So, uh, this thing, I guess we're where
Speaker 1: it sets sail, right, Yeah, I believe so basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: at least from being launched in Belfast, right, Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it started out in Belhafast, went to Southampton on April three,
Speaker 1: and then on the tenth it went and picked up
Speaker 1: a few people in Southampton and then went to France
Speaker 1: and then to Queenstown, Ireland to get some more people.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I never knew like you that this
Speaker 1: is what it was doing, operating basically like an uber chair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess. So have you ever done that? No? I
Speaker 1: never have. I'm very very careful. Fall I did once
Speaker 1: and someone they stopped and I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: And someone got in. I was like, really, what's going on?
Speaker 1: I made a new friend. Oh that's nice. I thought
Speaker 1: it was in the cash cab. I don't think he
Speaker 1: stops to pick up other people. He just asked a
Speaker 1: lot of questions. Yeah, that's true, all right, So it's
Speaker 1: picked up all the folks at this point. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the end, and there are some discrepancy about the final
Speaker 1: numbers because a lot of people sold their tickets, a
Speaker 1: lot of people switch tickets, a lot of people can't
Speaker 1: quite make it on time. In the case of Leonardo DiCaprio,
Speaker 1: he he wins those tickets in a poker game right
Speaker 1: before it launches. No way they could have accounted for him. No,
Speaker 1: And actually, I mean that's not exactly that far off. Um,
Speaker 1: and I suspect it's based loosely on the story of
Speaker 1: UM Thomas Hart who was hired on as a fireman.
Speaker 1: But UM went off and got really really drunk and
Speaker 1: lost his boarding papers, UM while he was drunk, and
Speaker 1: they were stolen by somebody else because Thomas Hart showed
Speaker 1: up and worked as far as anybody's anyone was concerned
Speaker 1: as far as the logs went. But it just clearly
Speaker 1: wasn't that Thomas Hart. Rum, he just missed it like that. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was one one group of wealthy industrialists starting with
Speaker 1: Henry Clay Frick, onto JP Morgan and then Jay Horace
Speaker 1: Harding who transferred boarding papers for sweets B fifty two,
Speaker 1: fifty four and fifty six. Well, ultimately we're taken on
Speaker 1: by J Bruce is may It just turns out all
Speaker 1: of them had a reason why they suddenly couldn't go
Speaker 1: toward the last minute. Um, yeah, I think the unsinkable
Speaker 1: Bolly Brown's daughter. She was um. You know. Molly Brown
Speaker 1: was portrayed by Kathy Baits. She was the hero of
Speaker 1: Lifeboat six that really wanted to go and try and
Speaker 1: save people. I think her daughter was supposed to come,
Speaker 1: but she was studying at the Sarbone so she did not.
Speaker 1: So there's a big list of people. They called it
Speaker 1: the just Mistic Club, and uh apparently in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: the Milwaukee Journal put that numbers high, six thousand people
Speaker 1: that were saved because they did not sail on the
Speaker 1: Titanic obviously couldn't been that much. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things I think we're like everyone was at you know,
Speaker 1: the game where Michael Jordan's scored whatever points and you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those sort of things where history uh
Speaker 1: fudges itself a little bit. But in the end they
Speaker 1: put the number somewhere around thirteen hundred and twenty four
Speaker 1: passengers and those eighty four officers, which is a very
Speaker 1: high ratio of of crew members to passengers. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: really is um there, and it's speaking of crew. In
Speaker 1: addition to Thomas Hart, there were the Slade brothers who
Speaker 1: um left Southampton after um passing muster uh one got
Speaker 1: drunk and then came back and they wouldn't lower the
Speaker 1: gang plank for them again, so they got left behind
Speaker 1: go for them. But most of all, there was a
Speaker 1: guy named Davey Blair who was an up and coming
Speaker 1: officer for the White Star Line, and he was initially
Speaker 1: assigned the second officer position, which is huge for an
Speaker 1: upcoming guy. He um he was at the last minute,
Speaker 1: I think he sailed from Southampton to share Burg and
Speaker 1: then at Sharburg basically as somebody who was a more
Speaker 1: senior officer than him was was given that position and
Speaker 1: he was moved off to the Olympic and he was
Speaker 1: really disappointed about this. There's like a surviving postcard um
Speaker 1: that that expresses how how upset he was and saddened
Speaker 1: that he kind of lost that big opportunity. But even
Speaker 1: more important than that is Davy Blair was on there
Speaker 1: long enough to be entrusted with the key to the
Speaker 1: crow's nest locker, which held the binoculars for the pocular locker.
Speaker 1: The binocular locker, Yeah, I mean, I think there's kind
Speaker 1: of long been a myth that there were not binoculars
Speaker 1: on board, but there were, But yeah, he walked with
Speaker 1: that key, and that key and that postcard sold at
Speaker 1: auction for like a hundred and fifty grand or something,
Speaker 1: didn't it as far as I know, Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: But that's a big deal because later on they would
Speaker 1: say that had they had binoculars in the crow'sness, they
Speaker 1: most definitely would have cited that icebergs in time to
Speaker 1: maneuver away from them. That the lookouts said that later
Speaker 1: on at an inquiry. Yeah, and of course people debated
Speaker 1: that as well. Um, it's hindsight is twenty but it
Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't have hurt. Yeah, you know, no, definitely wouldn't have. So. Um.
Speaker 1: I mentioned some wealthy industrialists that was mostly first class
Speaker 1: passengers were all extraordinarily well above average wealthy people, like
Speaker 1: even for wealthy people, they were above average wealthy. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was reflected in the ticket prices that some
Speaker 1: of them paid for passage on the Titanic. Dude, Yeah,
Speaker 1: big money in today dollars, anywhere from sixty six grand
Speaker 1: to a dred and twenty grand for passage. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't think that fully gets it across, because you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can see a billionaire selling something like that out.
Speaker 1: You know, it's gaudy and gross. But what really drove
Speaker 1: it home to me was at the time, um, so
Speaker 1: they were paying up to forty dollars and their dollars
Speaker 1: and at the time, the average American made eight hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a year. Wow, and these guys showed out forty
Speaker 1: hundred for a one way ticket. This was not round trip,
Speaker 1: this was one way from the UK to Americas and
Speaker 1: that nuts. Uh. Third class steerage I think even costs
Speaker 1: close to a thousand dollars and today dollars, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of money. I mean thirty five bucks back then,
Speaker 1: but um that that's not cheap, no, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely a lot more affordable than a hundred nine dollars.
Speaker 1: That's right. So I guess we should talk a little
Speaker 1: bit before we wrap up about um kind of the
Speaker 1: controversy over the size of the ship. As we said
Speaker 1: at the beginning, they wanted it to the biggest and
Speaker 1: the best, all three of those sister ships, just to
Speaker 1: be the biggest thing ever, to really rub it in
Speaker 1: the Kunard lines face. And that presented some problems though,
Speaker 1: one of which was the Board of Trade didn't know
Speaker 1: how many lifeboats or at least hadn't acted on it
Speaker 1: and said how many lifeboats you should have because in
Speaker 1: merchant Shipping Act, Uh, they topped out at ten thousand
Speaker 1: tons and said you need, uh, sixteen lifeboats if you're
Speaker 1: ten thousand tons. Titanic was thirty five thousand tons. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they had sixteen lifeboats because that's just where the
Speaker 1: Merchant Shipping Act ended. And they didn't like the you know,
Speaker 1: the unsightliness of them, so they weren't going to add
Speaker 1: any Uh. It does not mean because it was three
Speaker 1: times a size they needed forty eight lifeboats. I think
Speaker 1: in retrospect they said twenty six would have done it.
Speaker 1: But as we'll get to you know, the whole accident,
Speaker 1: that the speed at which it sank it may not
Speaker 1: have mattered anyway. But um, that was one of the
Speaker 1: big problems with its size. That was a very big problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not adding enough lifeboats because they seemed unsightly. It's not
Speaker 1: a good move. Um. Another one is that the Titanic
Speaker 1: um only had like six or seven hours of testing
Speaker 1: before it's sailed, and that was mostly just to check
Speaker 1: its maneuverability. It was never sailed at full speed. Before
Speaker 1: it set sail for America. UM, so the testing wasn't
Speaker 1: very good. And then even even more important, as far
Speaker 1: as lifeboats go, they never fully um did like a
Speaker 1: full drill to lower all the lifeboats to board. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why people died was not just
Speaker 1: because there weren't that many lifeboats that was a huge,
Speaker 1: huge issue, but also because there just wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of needed protocol in launching the lifeboats as far as
Speaker 1: the crew was concerned. A lot of them had had
Speaker 1: just had come aboard basically the day before they were
Speaker 1: they were taking passengers and it didn't even have a
Speaker 1: poster a position while they were passengers on that first day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a It was basically an hr nightmare
Speaker 1: with people showing up. As the passengers are showing up,
Speaker 1: going where do I go? What do you want me
Speaker 1: to do? They're like, have you ever waited tables? Have
Speaker 1: you ever shoveled goal? And they were just kind of
Speaker 1: sticking people where they needed them, And like you said,
Speaker 1: I think they only were able to lower two of
Speaker 1: those sixteen lifeboats. And in the end, what that also
Speaker 1: means is you don't know how long it's going to
Speaker 1: take to lower them all. So it was just h
Speaker 1: they were kind of just flying or sailing blind, right exactly.
Speaker 1: So those were just really really big problems that would
Speaker 1: turn out to be um extremely important when the ship
Speaker 1: started going down, because any one of those things being
Speaker 1: slightly different or improved or not being a problem means
Speaker 1: that people's lives definitely would have been saved. You can
Speaker 1: debate like how many people would have been saved, but yeah,
Speaker 1: there were there was definitely room for more people to
Speaker 1: have survived the Titanic than did. Yeah. There was also
Speaker 1: a weird incident that happened on April tenth that possibly
Speaker 1: altered history. The Titanic was being pulled out by tug boats. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it I think, as the story goes, the captain
Speaker 1: kind of a little too early said go ahead and
Speaker 1: release us, and we'll just fire this baby up. It's
Speaker 1: really itching to get those propellers spinning. And he said,
Speaker 1: and give me a two two while you're at it.
Speaker 1: And uh, when he started turning those propellers, it was
Speaker 1: a big, violent suction and it sucked this other steamer, Uh,
Speaker 1: the s s New York into its wake. Uh. It
Speaker 1: was attached to the Oceanic and it started pulling this
Speaker 1: boat over to it. I think it snapped away from
Speaker 1: the Oceanic. It kind of ripped off the moorings. And
Speaker 1: if it weren't for quick action by tug boats reattaching
Speaker 1: pulling the New York away, and then the captain realizing
Speaker 1: what was going on and hitting the engine hard and
Speaker 1: turning out of the way like there. It shows pictures
Speaker 1: that they miss hitting each other by just a few feet.
Speaker 1: And not only would that if it had actually hit it,
Speaker 1: that would have caused a delay that could have altered history.
Speaker 1: But there was a slight delay anyway, just because of
Speaker 1: this incident that you know, who knows if those you know,
Speaker 1: events would have lined up with that iceberg in there
Speaker 1: at the exact moment it needed to be. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: an amazing point, Chuck, I hadn't seen that one. So
Speaker 1: they they leave Queenstown, Ireland on April elevenelve, I believe right, yes,
Speaker 1: and start heading out to see full speed ahead. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we will stop here. What do you think? Boy?
Speaker 1: What a cliffhanger? What's going to happen? I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll find out in the next episode of Stuff. You
Speaker 1: should know Stuff you should know is a production I
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