Centenary of Titanic's launch marked (From Daily Echo)
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Centenary of Titanic's launch marked in Belfast
12:43pm Tuesday 31st May 2011 in Titanic News
THE 100th anniversary of Titanic's launch has been marked at a commemorative event in Belfast.
A single flare was fired above the city's docklands to signify the exact moment - 12.13pm - 100 years ago when the ill-fated liner rolled down the slipway and touched the water for the first time.
All boats in the area around the Harland and Wolff shipyards, where the pride of the White Star fleet was built, then sounded their horns.
In 1911, thousands of cheering well-wishers gathered at the same place to celebrate the historic moment.
A century on, the mood was again one of celebration at the event on the Queen's Island slipway which focused more on the ship's construction than its fate.
After the flare was fired, crowds clapped for exactly 62 seconds - the length of time it took for the liner to roll down the slipway in 1911.
Titanic sank on her maiden transatlantic voyage from Southampton to New York 11 months after her launch, with the loss of 1,577 lives, when she struck an iceberg.
More than one third of those who perished were from Southampton.
Among the invited guests at the commemoration were schoolchildren and representatives from the four other cities and towns directly connected to the Titanic story - Southampton, Cherbourg in France, Cobh (formerly Queenstown) in Co Cork and Liverpool.
The Harlandic and Queen's Victoria male voice choirs sang a number of hymns during the half-hour service close to the almost-complete £100m Titanic visitors centre, which is set to open ahead of next year's centenary of the liner's sinking in April 1912.
Earlier, a major new exhibition on the Titanic opened at the nearby Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, boasting some artefacts recovered from the liner that have never been put on public display before.
Southampton is marking Titanic's sinking with a £15m Sea City museum, currently being built at the Civic Centre.
Comments(6)
Nearly an OAP
says...
1:00pm Tue 31 May 11
Nearly an OAP
says...
1:05pm Tue 31 May 11
Brite Spark
says...
1:25pm Tue 31 May 11
Nearly an OAP wrote:That's a very interesting post Nearly an OAP. His surname was Fleet (I think) and I just read that he hanged himself in about 1965 after his wife died.
When the Echo was in Above Bar and I was an apprentice compositor there the Echo seller outside the door was Fred Fleetway who had been one of the lookouts on the Titanic. Does anybody remember this man. He always looked very sad.
X Old Bill
says...
7:33pm Tue 31 May 11
Nearly an OAP wrote:The Titanic was built to the standards which were applicable at that time.
Glad to see that Belfast is commemorating the Titanic's launch. What a pity that Harland and Wolff did not put a large enough rudder on the ship, used plating which was not of the standard that it should have been, and only made the watertight bulkheads on a certain number of compartments from the bow. These design faults have been well documented in the past and better planning has evolved because of this. It would have been a good idea also if White Star had left all of the lifeboats on the ship.
The workers at Harland an Wolf built her in accordance with the designers plans, which at that time was the latest technology. The plating was fine, it was the rivets which failed.
When she was built she was larger than anything built before, consequently Board of Trade requirements did not foresee anything that large, and that which was known was not successfully extrapolated to take account of this fact.
She carried the correct number of lifeboats according to BoT specifications applicable at that time. The spec. was amended afterwards and people tend to look at the amended spec. and apply it retroactively.
.
The people of Belfast are rightly proud of building the Titanic, as they say: "It was alright when it left us"
TheJeepster
says...
1:21am Thu 2 Jun 11
100 years ago and you bring up engineering problems of the time that have long since been improved upon.
Let it go...It was a tragedy, we all know that, the ship had its limitations and was pushed too far by an over exuberant Captain intent on breaking records.
Or was it?
Maybe it was scuttled as part of an elaborate insurance scam and maybe it wasn't Titanic at all, but The Olympic renamed because it was a duffer and the owners wanted rid of it...regardless as to the cost of lives!
Will we ever know for sure?
To this day, contractors cut corners, it happens, it happened then though all the "Official" paperwork and plans suggest that Titanic was built as it should have been...according to the TV Programmes I have seen anyway, which is about all any of us really have to go on, exhaustive as they are in their detail.
Endless, morbid conjecture changes nothing and here in Southampton, of all cities, it does not help, even 100 years later.
The Titanic disaster is not a matter to be celebrated and endlessly scrapped over....In this city families lost husbands, fathers and sons by the score and am I wrong when I say that each and every one of us feels just a little bit of shame that OUR Council sees fit to almost celebrate this tragic event with a new museum and do they not realise why everything concerning Titanic has been so low key for so long in this, our town?
Shame on you all...you have no respect and 100 years or not...it is wrong to "celebrate" this event just as it would be wrong to celebrate the outbreak of the 1st and 2nd World Wars.
You may call it a commemoration but is it?...if you plan to profit from it as I guess you do having spent so much on it in this our age of austerity, will there not be a price to pay?
Lets hope that none of you have the cheek to try and attach your name to it because frankly...you are not worthy!
Brite Spark says...
12:56pm Tue 31 May 11