Any Titanic enthusiasts on here?

[PainInTheAssInternet]

'ullo, fellow Escapists.

As you can likely guess from my avatar (if you can see any definition in the damn thing), I am an avid student of the RMS Titanic. I've talked about it before here on the Escapist and on YouTube (admittedly not my best moments).

Something about the whole thing just draws me to her and her story. I still don't fully understand why I'm so fixated on her and not some other historic tragedy, though I've got my money on press coverage.

So are you interested in this subject? Why or why not?

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

(I'm not hitting the feminist panic alarm - I am a feminist and I detect zero panic - but why is a big, dead, rusty boat a 'her'? Surely it and the Titanic suffice?)

Nope, to your question, although I am fascinated by how someone may be fascinated with a specific sunken ship. Is it the history? The actual wreck? The film?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

(I'm not hitting the feminist panic alarm - I am a feminist and I detect zero panic - but why is a big, dead, rusty boat a 'her'? Surely it and the Titanic suffice?)

Nope, to your question, although I am fascinated by how someone may be fascinated with a specific sunken ship. Is it the history? The actual wreck? The film?

From a "Navy Traditions" website:

Why is a ship referred to as "she?"
It has always been customary to personify certain inanimate objects and attribute to them characteristics peculiar to living creatures. Thus, things without life are often spoken of as having a sex. Some objects are regarded as masculine. The sun, winter, and death are often personified in this way. Others are regarded as feminine, especially those things that are dear to us. The earth as mother Earth is regarded as the common maternal parent of all life. In languages that use gender for common nouns, boats, ships, and other vehicles almost invariably use a feminine form. Likewise, early seafarers spoke of their ships in the feminine gender for the close dependence they had on their ships for life and sustenance.

All boats are called "she".

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

(I'm not hitting the feminist panic alarm - I am a feminist and I detect zero panic - but why is a big, dead, rusty boat a 'her'? Surely it and the Titanic suffice?)

Nope, to your question, although I am fascinated by how someone may be fascinated with a specific sunken ship. Is it the history? The actual wreck? The film?

It likely would, and don't call me Shirley.

BloatedGuppy already addressed why Titanic was given a gender, so I'll just tell you why I find her so alluring.

First off, I genuinely think that she is the most beautiful ship to ever be built, even superseding her nearly identical sisters. She's also very practical concerning her era, her construction and design is honestly not that bad from today's standards. There's even evidence that she would have survived the damage done to Costa Concordia, Empress of Ireland and Andrea Doria.

The story itself obviously has the most appeal; the biggest and best ship in the world sets out and fails on its first voyage. The owner lives while so many others die. The lack of concern for safety (not true of course).

Then the unforgettable images of her at the bottom of the ocean. To me and many others, she is much more than a mangled mountain of rust, which is fascinating in and of itself.

On the other hand, everyone I ever talk to tunes out real fast, so I'm not surprised by your reaction.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

(I knew someone would make the Airplane reference... )

Oh, I'm not judging, it takes all sorts with all kinds of interests (although I will always find the her's and she's to be creepy - I'm not big on anthropomorphism at all. and I think it's absurd to extend the problematic concepts of masculine and feminine to objects).

I can definitely see the wrecks themselves being compelling from a photographic and thematic point of view; they are ghostly, eerie, yet deeply beautiful things - quite often the graves of men and women, but also just large objects being irrevocably reclaimed by nature. Objects in space under the sea, their purpose and function long since negated, reduced to inert, eroding structures.

So the imagery and symbolism's compelling, sure.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I find it interesting, I've read and seen a bunch of documentaries and stuff. I find shipwrecks really interesting. Like did you know there was an 18th century ship buried under the world trade center? That's cool man.

 

[ShogunGino]

It's been an interesting story for me. I've been trying to find the time to continue an animation review series (similar to the folks on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses) and a while ago I was reviewing the infamous cartoon movies from Italy that disgustingly Disney-ize and plagiarize the James Cameron movie.

I did my reviews of the first two, but with technical setbacks, I've had trouble reviewing the third and final one that is a direct sequel to the very first of these. Sadly, my laptop is not terribly strong, and I have to be very careful with the size of footage I use in Sony Vegas.

In writing the actual script for it, I had to do some research, naturally, to provide more solid details that the movie ignores. (The third movie shows the main characters using a large bathysphere when it takes place a few years before the original, tiny, one-man bathysphere was created, for example) Doing so, I found myself being more interested in just the ship itself, finding video footage taken at her final resting place on the Atlantic floor. The way some of it is shot sends a shiver down my spine, and that almost never happens to me.

Since then, I've been more interested in stories and facts about shipwrecks, ghost ships, and mysteries of the sea. I was almost thinking of compiling a bunch of material about the Flying Dutchman and writing a short supernatural story about its (fictional?) origins.

 

[Flutterguy]

(I'm not hitting the feminist panic alarm - I am a feminist and I detect zero panic - but why is a big, dead, rusty boat a 'her'? Surely it and the Titanic suffice?)

Nope, to your question, although I am fascinated by how someone may be fascinated with a specific sunken ship. Is it the history? The actual wreck? The film?

Arguments like this just come off as really conceited to me. If a little girl was to call her tricycle sir Peddles would you disapprove?

Why exactly shouldn't people name things, especially inanimate things, in a way they feel suiting? Does this make you uncomfortable? Do you have a rational reason why?

On the titanic though, have you seen the most recent episode of Rick and Morty? It was partially about Titanic fans, a fandom I didn't know existed until seeing the episode a couple weeks ago heh.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

(I knew someone would make the Airplane reference... )

Oh, I'm not judging, it takes all sorts with all kinds of interests (although I will always find the her's and she's to be creepy - I'm not big on anthropomorphism at all. and I think it's absurd to extend the problematic concepts of masculine and feminine to objects).

I can definitely see the wrecks themselves being compelling from a photographic and thematic point of view; they are ghostly, eerie, yet deeply beautiful things - quite often the graves of men and women, but also just large objects being irrevocably reclaimed by nature. Objects in space under the sea, their purpose and function long since negated, reduced to inert, eroding structures.

So the imagery and symbolism's compelling, sure.

I'm quite the opposite. We even name our cars; Bonnie the Bonneville, Doris the Taurus, Odie the Odyssey (I wanted Odysseus but was outgunned). However, it is quite funny when people call the Sir Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse a she.

I am an archaeologist in training, so that will likely give you more context for my mindset.

Quote thrown off the back of a research vessel whose crew would have benefitted greatly from finding it.

My god those films are incredibly offensive. I am of the strong opinion that they were only aware of James Cameron's massive blockbuster and attempted to rip it off for a quick buck. It's easy to forget that not everyone knows Titanic even existed. How or why they continued to make them is another mystery altogether. Maybe people were buying them because they were morbidly fascinated.

The deepest the first bathysphere went was just over 3,000 feet, only a quarter of the 12,000 foot depth Titanic rests at.

I wish you luck in your endeavours.

 

[Dimitriov]

(I knew someone would make the Airplane reference... )

Oh, I'm not judging, it takes all sorts with all kinds of interests (although I will always find the her's and she's to be creepy - I'm not big on anthropomorphism at all. and I think it's absurd to extend the problematic concepts of masculine and feminine to objects).

Well, in fairness, most languages (at least Indo-European ones) have grammatical genders. Certainly in Latin ship (or navis) is a feminine noun and it would be grammatically incorrect not to refer to a ship as she.

However, the interesting thing is that I consulted my Old English dictionary and learned that scipu (the Old English form of the word) was a neuter noun. So go figure!


But yes, many things throughout human history have been given personifications, and ships have long been thought of as feminine. For one thing sailors were traditionally all men, and their ship was their mistress and their mother in sense

 

[Ferisar]

(I knew someone would make the Airplane reference... )

Oh, I'm not judging, it takes all sorts with all kinds of interests (although I will always find the her's and she's to be creepy - I'm not big on anthropomorphism at all. and I think it's absurd to extend the problematic concepts of masculine and feminine to objects).

Then you're in for a bit of a trip if you ever speak a language that isn't English, because literally everything is referred to as having gender in a lot of other languages, and it's no one's about to have a linguistics debate in them just because masculine/feminine suffixes are applied to them Often enough, those also don't line up with the perceptions of actual sex that is applied to said object (a ship can remain a she in reference, but a he in the spoken word and vice versa.). It's really not that weird.

And as said before, there are certain concepts many cultures attribute to gender archetypes that are further used to personify inanimate objects. It's generally seen as endearing x)

I mean, unless we'd all rather have Titanic be the drunk father who died in a car crash while his cellphone ran out of battery.

captcha: push the envelope

fuck off captcha, you know nothing

NOTHING

 

[Albino Boo]

(I knew someone would make the Airplane reference... )

Oh, I'm not judging, it takes all sorts with all kinds of interests (although I will always find the her's and she's to be creepy - I'm not big on anthropomorphism at all. and I think it's absurd to extend the problematic concepts of masculine and feminine to objects).

Its not anthropomorphism, its grammatical gender and it is most developed in indo-european languages. English itself came into being in 14th century on the boundary between the old norse speaking and anglo-saxon speaking areas of England. This led to grammatical gender to being largely missing from English and even when is does appear, its inconsistently applied. Inflection is another feature of indo-european languages that only partially appears in English for the same reason.

 

[Weaver]

I honestly wouldn't say I'm "into" the Titanic, but I do find the wreckage oddly alluring, to the point of it being kind of haunting. I almost wish we could just lift the whole thing out of the ocean and put it back on land to go through everything and get a record of it all.

Fun story: apparently my great uncle was planning on boarding the Titanic (had bought a ticket and everything) but for some reason ended up cancelling the trip. At least that's what I can remember of the story my grandmother told me lol. It could be total bullshit for all I know, but it's fun to believe it's true.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I don't know if I like the idea of an 'enthusiast'.

The only connotations I have with the Titanic are failure and death. I wouldn't like the idea of being an 'enthusiast' of such an event. Because that is what the Titanic will always be remembered for, a maiden voyage of disaster.

You can find the details surrounding this incident interesting, but I feel slightly unwell at the language used and the positive nature of the word 'enthusiast'.

Maybe that is just me though, I don't believe enthusiast necessitates a positive feeling towards something, just an interest. But that was my immediate reaction to the idea.

Otherwise, no, not particularly. I remember studying it in school and seeing a documentary many a year ago on it, but it wasn't something I pursued further in my own time.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Why is a ship referred to as "she?"
It has always been customary to personify certain inanimate objects and attribute to them characteristics peculiar to living creatures. Thus, things without life are often spoken of as having a sex. Some objects are regarded as masculine. The sun, winter, and death are often personified in this way. Others are regarded as feminine, especially those things that are dear to us. The earth as mother Earth is regarded as the common maternal parent of all life. In languages that use gender for common nouns, boats, ships, and other vehicles almost invariably use a feminine form. Likewise, early seafarers spoke of their ships in the feminine gender for the close dependence they had on their ships for life and sustenance.

All boats are called "she".

I had heard that the she-oak was popular for building ships out of in the old days, and that's why it caught on.

Also, supposedly, why women are unlucky on ships, because the ship would get jealous, or something.

 

[Jazoni89]

Well, I live on the shoreline overlooking Southampton Dock, where the Titanic started it's doom voyage.

Always been kinda fascinated with the ship, it's gloomy wreckage, and it's very iconic design. It's sad that the last person who was on the Titanic died just recently, but then again she was only a couple of months old when she was on it, so she wouldn't of remembered it.

I always walk pass the memorial statue when I go to Southampton, which pays tribute to the engineers on the ship that died. It's a pretty cool looking statue too.

Spoiler

[http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g186299-d216090-i38416357-Titanic_Engineer_Officers_Memorial-Southampton_Hampshire_England.html]

 

[Tiger King]

'ullo, fellow Escapists.

As you can likely guess from my avatar (if you can see any definition in the damn thing), I am an avid student of the RMS Titanic. I've talked about it before here on the Escapist and on YouTube (admittedly not my best moments).

Something about the whole thing just draws me to her and her story. I still don't fully understand why I'm so fixated on her and not some other historic tragedy, though I've got my money on press coverage.

So are you interested in this subject? Why or why not?

Not a massive enthusiast of titanic but I do like history.
Didn't she have a sister ship Olympus? Or am I mistaken/misinformed?
From an engineering point she was a hell of a tub!
Kind of a shame the uk ship yards dissapeared somewhat in the last century as Britain was/is historically good ship builders.

Saying that, and even though they are weapons of war, it's nice to see the astute class subs, type 45 destroyers and new aircraft carriers being constructed here.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Not a massive enthusiast of titanic but I do like history.
Didn't she have a sister ship Olympus? Or am I mistaken/misinformed?
From an engineering point she was a hell of a tub!
Kind of a shame the uk ship yards dissapeared somewhat in the last century as Britain was/is historically good ship builders.

Saying that, and even though they are weapons of war, it's nice to see the astute class subs, type 45 destroyers and new aircraft carriers being constructed here.

Harland and Wolff still exist, but they don't' build make famous ships like the Olympians.

Yup. Titanic was the second of three members of the Olympic Class of ships. Titanic was built alongside her older sister Olympic, who is the namesake of the class. The third ship was Britannic, rumoured to have been originally named Gigantic (it fits with the Greek theme). She was destroyed by German explosives in late November 1916 and sank not too far from Athens.

Olympic was the only ship to have completed a single transatlantic voyage. She served in WWI and was scrapped in 1935 with her fittings surviving even today.

Fun fact; if you see an image of Titanic's interior, chances are you're actually looking at Olympic. Titanic existed for such a short time that there were barely any photos taken of her.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

As a historical event, I find the Titanic pretty interesting. It certainly existed when the British Empire was at its most influential and the artifacts taken from the site represent the 'cream' of society then.

I used to like reading cross-sections of the ship when I was younger. It was the unsinkable ship that went down on it's maiden voyage. Pretty interesting.

Then I watched the movie.

...

I liked the sinking sequence!

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Yes Yes Yes!! I've been fascinated by Titanic since the news reports of Ballard's discovery in '85. It was right before my 8th birthday.

Last month, I watched this great Smithsonian documentary called Titanic's Final Mystery, about a new theory surrounding the ship's sinking. The official reports blamed the crow's nest crewmen for not having spotted the iceberg sooner, suggesting that they were either asleep, or one of them had abandoned his post temporarily. In fact, neither of them were asleep. One of the men DID leave the crow's nest to get them some hot cocoa, but that was several hours before Titanic struck the iceberg. The temperature had plunged sharply in a very short amount of time and neither of them were prepared for that.

The documentary suggests that this drop in temperature was partially to blame for the sinking. Under such conditions, a phenomenon called a Fata Morgana occurs, which is the fancy name for a mirage (Wikipedia entry with accompanying pictures of oceanic mirages). On land, you can see this effect in extreme heat, when it looks like there's water on the ground due to reflections of what's above the horizon. At sea, this happens under cold conditions and the mirage is flipped - the ocean is reflected into the sky. Several German ships passed through Titanic's route a few hours before her fatal strike, and their logs noted the fuzzy horizon. However, it was worse when Titanic went through because the cold conditions, along with the icebergs, had drifted into that route in the meantime.

This fuzzy horizon meant that the men in the crow's next wouldn't have even seen the iceberg until it was too late. It literally appeared out of nowhere, just as a land mirage disappears when you approach it. On top of that, the moonless, star-filled sky made it even harder to spot dangers.

Also to blame was Captain Smith's order to go full speed despite the conditions. It gave the ship no time to correct course once the iceberg was spotted.

Another fatal mistake was that the telegrapher in charge that night ignored the iceberg warnings. Titanic had just exited the Atlantic's communication dead zone and there was a backlog of (first class) messages that needed to be transmitted to land. He focused on that job instead of the warnings. The second telegrapher wasn't on duty at the time, but was in the telegraph room. He survived the wreck, which is why we have his testimony.

The mirage proved fatal once again after the crew realized that Titanic was, in fact, going to sink. Several people noticed what appeared to be a ship on the horizon, which was the California. However, because of the fuzzy horizon, the California's captain didn't believe he was looking at the Titanic because it appeared far too small. It caused him to mistake the world's largest ship for a schooner. The signalman aboard the California DID see Titanic's SOS signal, but couldn't discern the pattern because of the mirage. To him, it might have been a twinkling star. California's signalman endeavored to respond anyway, but Titanic's signalman couldn't read California's reply, also due to the mirage. It looked to him like the California wasn't responding. That explains why the California didn't come to Titanic's aid.

For the curious Titanic buffs, that documentary is on Netflix. It's totally worth watching.