March 31, 1912: TITANIC - The Largest Ship in the World is Completed!

Sunday, March 31, 1912

TITANIC, the largest liner in the world is completed.
At 882 feet 9 inches long and 92 feet 6 inches wide, she had the same dimensions as her older sister. Her hull was built with 2 thousand 1 inch thick steel plates, held together with over 3 million rivets. Her displacement weight is 52,310 tons, even more than Olympic at 52,067 tons making Titanic larger.



Titanic had three anchors, one for each side with a central anchor stored in reserve on the forcastle deck. The 2 side anchors weighed 7 7/8 tons a piece and the central anchor weighing 15 3/4 tons. The 2 side anchors were raised and lowered with 96 tons of anchor chain.





29 boilers will produce enough steam to power her 3 story tall reciprocating engines and single turbine, generating up to 46 thousand horsepower. The reciprocating engines turned the outer wing propellers both at 23ft in diameter, and the single turbine turned the center propeller which was 16ft in diameter. Titanic and Olympic were called triple screw steamers because of the three propellers.

Pictured Below: A photograph of Titanic's boilers, engines, turbine rotor, and propellers.









The cost of building and equipping Titanic came to 1.5 million pounds or 7.5 million dollars. Nearly 125 million dollars by today's standards. The White Star Line expects a quick and glorious return on its investment.