Statistics on the RMS Titanic

Why did the Titanic seem unsinkable? Probably because her imposing size led people to believe that she was safe. The Titanic had a length of 268.9 m and a beam (width) of 28.2 m. The Titanic was 53 m high, measured from the bottom of her keel to the top of her 18 m funnels. She had a loaded draught of 10.5 m, and a light draught of 8.5 m. (The distance from the waterline to the bottom of keel is the draught or draft. The loaded draught corresponds to the loaded displacement; the light draught corresponds to the light displacement.) The Titanic had a gross tonnage of 46 428 tons. (Note that the tonnage of the ship is a unit of volume; 1 ton in this context is equivalent to approximately 100 square feet.)

The Titanic was also the heaviest ship in the world at the time. Her loaded displacement (with her full complement of crew and passengers, and full of cargo) weighed in at 52 310 long tons. Even at her light displacement, she still weighed approximately 40 850 long tons. (At the light displacement, she would have no fuel, stores, cargo, nor passengers aboard.) The Titanic was not fully loaded with passengers on her maiden voyage, so we will assume that she weighed 50 000 tons when she sank. (We will also assume that this is in metric tons, a unit of a different measure. I will explain this later.)

Part of the reason that the Titanic was fitted with so few lifeboats was because of the “watertight” compartments created by her bulkheads. The Titanic was divided into 16 “watertight” compartments by 15 bulkheads. These bulkheads extended ~3 m above the Titanic’s regular waterline to partition the bottom of her keel into sections which would flood separately. The bulkheads extended to different heights depending on their position in the ship, but we will assume that they all extend 3 m above the regular waterline. The watertight compartments had different volumes, but we will assume that they all have the same volume.