You know how it sank. How was the Titanic dreamed up?

Although the R.M.S. Titanic met its watery demise over a century ago, the myth of its catastrophic sinking looms large in the American psyche. How could a ship built by the finest engineers of the day, constructed to be “virtually unsinkable,” sink in a mere 2 hours 40 minutes? But sink it did, about 1,000 miles east of Boston after striking an iceberg. Along with it went 1,500 ill-fated passengers and crew; only 706 survived. The story of how Titanic came to be and the dreams of its creators, make this calamity even more devastating. It all started with a dinner in London over Napoleon brandy and Cuban cigars.

Titanic competition

One summer night in 1907, Lord William James Pirrie, chairman of the Belfast-based shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff, met over dinner at his London home with J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the British shipping company the White Star Line. White Star had amassed a fortune by ferrying emigrants to America as well as shuttling wealthy passengers across the Atlantic, but now there was growing competition. Rivals sought to build faster, more comfortable ships. Among them was Cunard, which had just introduced the Lusitania and the Mauretania, two passenger ships that seemed the last word in speed and luxury.

White Star’s Ismay urgently wanted to build even bigger and better ships. Sipping his after-dinner brandy, he divulged to Pirrie how he envisioned Harland and Wolff building a fleet of ships that would dwarf the competition. Right then and there, Lord Pirrie sketched the ships Ismay described. There would be three, all alike, the Olympic, Titanic, and Gigantic (later renamed the Britannic).

(She survived the Titanic—but it wasn’t the only time she faced death at sea.)

Creating a titan

Construction soon was underway. More than 15,000 workers teemed through the Harland and Wolff gates in Belfast, Ireland, every morning to produce ships of iron and steel. They laid the Titanic’s keel on March 31, 1909, next to that of its twin, the Olympic. (The Gigantic was put on a later schedule.)

Over the next two years, about 3,000 workers devoted themselves to the Titanic. They riveted overlapping steel plates to shape the hull and prepared the shell for its decks. Thomas Andrews, Harland and Wolff’s chief designer, supervised construction. He felt proud of his work. On a night in 1910, Andrews brought his pregnant wife to the shipyard to show off his other children, Olympic and Titanic. Halley’s comet blazed overhead.

(Why the shipyards that built the Titanic still influence Belfast.)

Unsinkable

While both ships were planned at 882 feet long, stretching more than 120 feet beyond the new Cunard liners, the Titanic gained nine inches during construction, making it the world’s largest ship at the time. At 175 feet from keel to funnel tops, the Titanic stretched as long as four city blocks and as high as a nine-story building. Fifteen steel bulkheads divided its interior into compartments advertised as watertight.

The Titanic’s builders figured it could stay afloat after any possible accident. In the previous 40 years of North Atlantic travel, disasters had become practically obsolete. Sink? Even the Titanic’s captain once announced he could envision no scenario in which a modern ship might go down. Shipbuilder magazine had examined the Titanic and pronounced it “virtually unsinkable.” Over time, the adverb evaporated.

Launch day

May 31, 1911, broke clear and bright. Lord Pirrie, Ismay, and American millionaire J. P. Morgan, who had acquired financial control of White Star, joined a crowd of about 100,000 to watch the Titanic slide into the River Lagan on greased wooden skids. Support poles fell away. Lord Pirrie gave a signal to release the final restraints, and the Titanic moved for the first time. Overhead, signal flags on the gantry spelled “Good Luck.”

The Titanic floated, but only as skeleton and skin. The process of “fitting out” required nearly a year. It included framing and furnishing rooms, raising four funnels (or smokestacks), and doing everything necessary to prepare for sailing. Not a shilling was spared. The ship boasted a heated swimming pool, Turkish bath, cafés with palm trees, a first-class dining saloon that could seat 554, a gymnasium, a squash court, and a room with a Marconi radio (a wireless telegraph), which was intended not only to send safety messages at sea but also to please rich passengers who wanted to communicate with the shore.

(Despite the warning ‘Iceberg, Right Ahead!’ the Titanic was doomed.)

Final touches

Workers rushed to finish applying final bits of paint and polish by March 31, 1912, the day 62-year-old Edward John Smith, captain on all White Star maiden voyages, came aboard to oversee the Titanic’s Sea trials, the final tests to ensure the boat would perform to the standard to which it was built. Smith announced this would be his last Atlantic crossing; upon his return to England, he would happily retire. The ship passed its sea trials and received certification from the British Board of Trade.

The Titanic sailed to Southampton to take on coal and its first passengers. On the morning of April 10, crowds along Southampton’s docks gawked at the giant, seemingly invulnerable ship. Passenger Sylvia Caldwell asked a deckhand, “Is this ship really nonsinkable?” He replied, “Yes, lady. God himself could not sink this ship.”

(Why Titanic’s first call for help wasn’t an SOS signal.)

The beginning of the end

The great ship set sail at noon just as seven stokers (“firemen” who worked in the ship’s boiler room), who had been drinking in a pub and lost track of time, ran for the ship but failed to get aboard. No doubt they felt disappointment. As the ship moved along Southampton’s River Test, it passed the berthed liner New York. Suction from the Titanic yanked the New York from the dock and snapped its mooring lines. Just before the smaller ship could be pulled into the Titanic, Smith ordered a blast from his ship’s port propeller, opening a space between the two. The Titanic narrowly avoided a collision.

The Titanic then zipped to Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland. More passengers got on. Some got off. As the ship bid goodbye to Queenstown on April 11, debarking passenger Francis Browne snapped the last picture of the Titanic afloat. A crowd jammed the poop deck (the deck that is highest on the ship and closest to the stern) for a last look at the Old World. The ship then headed west and out of sight as a third-class passenger played the sad Irish song “Erin’s Lament” on bagpipes. The Titanic was on its way into the open Atlantic.

(He found the Titanic, but for Robert Ballard the search never ends.)