Titanic: Building The World's Most Famous Ship - Softcover

Gill, Anton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0762782323 ISBN 13: 9780762782321

Publisher: The Lyons Press, 2013

Synopsis

When she set sail on her doomed maiden voyage in April 1912, RMS Titanic was the jewel in the crown of the White Star Line, a company that American tycoon J. P. Morgan had acquired a decade earlier. The executives at White Star competed fiercely in the ocean liner market, prioritizing luxury and comfort over speed. A floating palace, Titanic was the largest and most technologically advanced moving object in the world. It spent barely five days at sea, but a skilled workforce of thousands of men and women had spent years building the ship in a remarkable feat of design and engineering. Here is the story of the riveters, who risked deafness from hammering millions of rivets that held together the enormous steel hull; the engineers, who had the gargantuan task of fitting engines to power the massive ship across the Atlantic at 23 knots; the electricians, who installed state-of-the-art communications systems and enormous steam driven generators, each capable of powering the equivalent of 400 modern homes; the carpenters, cabinet makers, and artisans who labored over every last detail of the opulent state rooms; and so many more. From the engine room to the ball room, here is a testament to those who designed, built, and fitted the "ship of dreams."

About this title

From the Back Cover

There had never before been ships quite like the Olympic-class liners built for the White Star Line by Harland & Wolff, and the story of the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Titanic, the second and best known of the three liners of her class built, and her fateful encounter with an iceberg on the night of April 14-15, 1912, is well known. The greatest piece of man-made technology on Earth spent a bare five days at sea before she sank, taking with her the lives of two-thirds of the passengers aboard. . . . The accident has bred dozens of books and several films, and controversy still rages about precisely what could or should have been done to prevent it.
But there is another story: the story of how the ship was constructed, and the story of the men and women who built her and sailed her. This book tells that story.
—from the Introduction

About the Author

Anton Gill is the author of more than twenty books, including Art Lover: A Biography of Peggy Guggenheim and Il Gigante: Michelangelo, Florence, and The David.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Lyons Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0762782323
• ISBN 13: 9780762782321
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288