RMS Titanic
- You may be looking for the spaceship.
The RMS Titanic was a luxury ocean liner on Earth in the early 20th century, noted as being the largest steamship of its time, carrying 2,223 passengers. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) It was famously called "unsinkable", (TV: Robot, The End of the World) yet sank on its maiden voyage on 15 April 1912 (TV: The Invasion of Time) two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20am after colliding with an iceberg at around 11:40 pm. (AUDIO: The Wreck of the Titan) The ship named Carpathia took part in the rescue operation. (COMIC: Revolutions of Terror)
The death toll of 1,495 made it one of the world's greatest maritime disasters in peacetime. (PROSE: The Time Travellers' Almanac)
Structure
The British-registered, four-funnelled ocean liner was at the time the largest passenger steamship ever constructed. (PROSE: The Time Travellers' Almanac) It was constructed out of 46,000 tons of steel, wood, and glass. It was 9 storeys high, nearly 900 feet long, and 90 feet wide. It could host up to 3500 passengers and crew. (AUDIO: The Wreck of the Titan) It had a length of 264.9 metres and 9 decks. Three propellers, along with two reciprocating steam engines and one Parsons turbine, provided propulsion. It had 29 boilers and was fuelled by 159 coal-burning furnaces. (PROSE: The Time Travellers' Almanac)
Crew
Its captain was Edward J Smith. Lieutenant William McMaster Murdoch was the First Officer of the Titanic on the day it sunk. Wallace Hartley served as bandmaster aboard the ship. (AUDIO: The Wreck of the Titan)
History
The Titanic took three years to build at Belfast's Harland and Wolff shipyard. It left Southampton on 10 April 1912 and headed for America. Four days later, (PROSE: The Time Travellers' Almanac) on 15 April, (TV: The Invasion of Time) the ship struck and iceberg and sank. The death toll of 1,495 made it one of the world's greatest maritime disasters in peacetime. (PROSE: The Time Travellers' Almanac)
Mrs Astor was among the passengers. (COMIC: Revolutions of Terror)
The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice Summerfield travelled to the Titanic, tracking Huitzilin. They were on the ship when it collided with the iceberg. The Doctor noted that the event of its sinking was part of the Web of Time. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)
El Ape, a temporary travelling companion of the Seventh Doctor, actually caused the ship to sink. (COMIC: Follow That TARDIS!)
The Decayed Master, trapped on Earth in the early 20th century, boarded the Titanic when it sank, to avoid the upcoming First World War by migrating to the United States of America. (AUDIO: Mastermind)
The Daniels family cancelled their trip on the Titanic the day before it was set to depart. (TV: Rose)
The Ninth Doctor told Jabe that he had once been on a ship that "they said was unsinkable". He "ended up clinging to [the] iceberg", commentating that "it wasn't half cold." (TV: The End of the World)
Both John Hart and Jack Harkness appeared on the Titanic to claim a diamond that was lost during the disaster. John beat Jack to it, having put "the squeeze" on the heiress who owned the jewel. Taking a "trip down memory lane", the pair had sex in John's room, finishing with just seconds to go before the ship hit the iceberg. In that time, Jack used a fake tachyon meter reading to trick John, using the opportunity to lock John in his closet as he made off with both the diamond and John's vortex manipulator. John, however, was able to escape the disaster through use of a back-up jump bracelet which returned him to London in 1887 on the day of Queen Victoria's golden jubilee. (AUDIO: The Death of Captain Jack)
The Eleventh Doctor was on the Titanic shortly before he visited Klimtenburg. The voyage soaked one of his napkins. (PROSE: Plague of the Cybermen)
According to Coordinator Narvin, attempts were made to evacuate women and children first, as the Titanic sank. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice)
Legacy
Following the sinking, measures were taken place to see that such an accident would not occur again. To that end, the International Ice Patrol was formed and future ships would have round-the-clock radio surveillance and lifeboats for everyone. As the Seventh Doctor noted to Cristián Alvarez, to prevent the Titanic disaster would condemn future passengers. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)
The Fourth Doctor had an issue of the Daily Mirror describing the disaster, which he saw Borusa reading. On noticing this, the Doctor promised that he had nothing to do with the ship's destruction. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
Jenny Nettles reported on a claim that the Titanic had been found off of the coast of Argentina. Sarah Jane Smith used this as an example of Jenny's disregard for facts in her career as a journalist. (AUDIO: Kaleidoscope)
When asked by her teacher why the Titanic sank, Mels Zucker said it was because the Doctor didn't save it, and then called the teacher stupid for not knowing. This got her sent to the head teacher's office. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
The Fourth Doctor once compared the sinking Storm Mine 4 to the Titanic, though Dask didn't understand the allusion. (TV: The Robots of Death, PROSE: Doctor Who and the Robots of Death)
Recreation
Max Capricorn, the head of Max Capricorn Cruiseliners, constructed a starship replica of the Titanic for a voyage from Sto to Earth for the observation of "primitive cultures" on Christmas Day 2008. According to one of the Heavenly Host, the name of the replica was chosen as "the most famous vessel of the planet Earth". (TV: Voyage of the Damned) In his twelfth incarnation, the Doctor would find himself sent to the past of Sto, using the influence he had gained to fashion the starliner after its Terran counterpart. (COMIC: A Confusion of Angels)
Behind the scenes
According to the "Earth-Skaro Timescale" of Terry Nation's Dalek Annual 1976, a total of 1,517 people drowned when the Titanic sank. Meanwhile, in Skaro-year 10,835, the Daleks had showered Earth's oceans with super-frost bombs which created giant ice-floes.
