Tri-County Technical College

Informative Speech Outline Worksheet

Topic: The sinking of the Titanic

General Purpose: To inform

Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience should know more about the
events that took place the night the Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, and the
series of mistakes that resulted in the deaths of 1,517 passengers

Introduction:
“There fell upon the ear the most terrible noise that human beings ever listened to – the
cries of hundreds of people struggling in the icy cold water, crying for help with a cry we
knew could not be answered”

These were the words spoken by Eva Hart, a survivor of the Titanic, in an interview
shown on the video documentary, Titanic: The Final Chapter, in 1993. Eva Hart watched
helplessly from one of the lifeboats as the ship sank to the bottom of the Atlantic on April
14, 1912.

The tragic story of the Titanic is one that has fascinated the world and been the subject of
numerous books and movies over the years. A legend even before she set sail, the Titanic
was not only the largest luxury ocean liner of its time, but was also so well constructed
that she was thought to be “unsinkable.”

The night the Titanic sank, 1,517 of the 2,223 passengers aboard died. Because of the
high casualty rate, the Titanic is considered one of the most deadly peacetime maritime
disasters in history. The cause of such a tragedy lies in the events that took place the
night the ship sank and the many mistakes that were made during the construction.

(transition): In the next few minutes, I hope to give you a better idea of the events that
took place the night the Titanic sank and the critical mistakes that were made that resulted
in such a high casualty rate.

I.Construction
A.Designers
1.The Titanic was a White Star Line ocean liner, built in Belfast, Ireland,
at Harland and Wolff shipyards.
2.The ship was designed by Lord William Pirrie, a director of White Star
Line and Harland and Wolff, and Thomas Andrews, the chief designer and
director of Harland and Wolff, under the direction of Bruce Ismay, the
managing director of the White Star Line.
 3.Their goal was to build the three largest ship, most luxurious ocean
liners in history, the Titanic being the second in a series of three ships part
of the “Olympic Class” (Greaves 1).

B.New Technologies
1.Tons of money was spent on implementing the latest shipbuilding
technologies of the time and the most advanced safety features designed to
reduce risks.
2.These new technologies led to an over confidence in the ships safety and
an idea that the ship was “unsinkable.”
3.Only 20 lifeboats were installed onto the ship instead of the
recommended 48, which was enough to carry only 52% of the passengers
onboard.
4.The reasoning behind this decision was that the ship was constructed in
such a way that nothing could sink it and therefore lifeboats would only be
needed for the passengers of other ships.
5.Furthermore, only one lifeboat drill was carried out by the crew before
the Titanic set sail, and they were unprepared for the execution of the
lifeboats on the night of the disaster.

C.Amenities
1.The bulk of the money invested into the Titanic went into the design of
its interior.
2.The first-class section of the ship was the largest and most luxurious and
was “tailored with the most opulent furnishings money could buy”
(Greaves 3).
3.It included such things as staircases for grand entrances, barbershops,
masculine dens, a Turkish bath and swimming bath, a squash court, and a
gymnasium.
4.The bedrooms had glass domes, silk fabrics, “gold-burnished” carvings,
works of art, and rare woods (Geller 13).
5.First-class passengers were made up of some of the wealthiest and most
prominent people of the time.
6.Second and third-class sections of the ship were also luxurious in their
own ways, but were much smaller than the first-class.
7.Second class passengers included doctors, teachers, and others of the
middle class.
8.Third-class passengers were mainly the working class and immigrants,
who considered the trip on the Titanic as an opportunity to come to
America.

(transition): The Titanic was finished on May 31, 1911. By the time it was done being
constructed, the individual safety of the passengers had been compromised. However,
the Titanic was presented as one of the safest ships ever built. The passengers and crew
were very confident as the Titanic set sail on April 10, 1912 on her maiden voyage from
South Hampton, New England to New York. Little did they know what was to come…
II.The Voyage
A.Collision with Iceberg
1.The first four days of the journey were smooth sailing.
2.Numerous messages were received over this time from other ships in the
Atlantic warning of icebergs, but none were taken very seriously.
3.During this point in the journey, the captain and officers of the Titanic
were aware that they were passing through an area in the North Atlantic
known as “Iceberg Alley,” as was reported by Jim Turnbull in an article in
Naval Aviation News in 2001.
4. On Sunday, April 14, 1912, the weather was cool and clear with no
storms in the horizon.
5.Throughout the course of the day, the Titanic received a total of seven
iceberg warnings.
a)The first was from the Caronia at 9:00 a.m.
b)At 1:30 p.m., the wireless room received a message from the
Baltic that said that there had been ice spotted in the distance; the
warnings were shown to the captain and Bruce Ismay, who didn’t
seem worried.
c)Three other warnings were received throughout the day.
d)Another message from the Californian was received at 7:30 p.m.,
warning that there were large icebergs about fifty miles ahead.
e)At 9.40 p.m., Cyril Evans of Californian sent another message
stating, “Have just passed heavy ice field and several icebergs.”
Jack Phillips, the Titanic’s wireless operator, who was exhausted
after the long day, snapped back with, “Keep out! Shut up! I'm
working Cape Race." At 11:35, Evans hung his headset up and
turned in for the night. (Stacey 23).
f)Of all seven messages, no one person saw all of the warnings,
and the warnings that were received were disregarded.
6.That night there was no wind or moon and the sky was full of stars. The
sea was calm and flat, and it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit. There was a fog
over the ocean (Stacey 22).
7.Fred Fleet and Reginald Lee were keeping watch over the crow’s nest.
a)There were no binoculars for them to use, and they did not have
a very good view of what was ahead.
b)At 11.40 p.m., they saw something in the distance that was too
small for them to recognize.
c)When they realized it was an iceberg, they immediately rant the
emergency bell three times and shouted, “Iceberg, right ahead”
(Cox 71).
8.Captain Smith had already gone to bed and in his place was Robert
Murdoch, who received the call and ordered the engines to be stopped
immediately and the watertight doors closed.
 9.The ship was so huge that it could not react quickly. For a while it kept
going straight ahead towards the iceberg; finally, it gradually began
turning to the left.
10.Everyone thought the ship had turned just in time, but the right front
side of the ship scraped a portion of the iceberg (Stacey 26).
11.The first and second-class passengers were not even aware that the ship
had hit anything; however, the members of the third-class and the workers
in the boiler room knew immediately what had happened as the icy water
began pouring in.
12.Thomas Andrews and Captain Smith went to assess the damage and
quickly realized that the situation was serious.
13.The Titanic was divided into sixteen “watertight” compartments, which
were sealed to the top so water could spill from on compartment to the
next.
14.The ship was designed so that the boat could still float if only the first
four compartments were filled with water; however, the collision with the
iceberg was enough to send water pouring into the first five compartments,
which would continue to spill over into all the other compartments
(Hyslop 8).
15.Thomas Andrews said that the ship would only last an hour to an hour
and a half at most.
16.The Titanic was going to sink.

B.Realization
1.Captain Smith went to the wireless room and told the operator to send
out a call for help.
2.An SOS signal was sent to any boats that were around.
3.At 12.45 a.m., a ship was spotted in the distance; it was the Californian.
4.The wireless room desperately tried to reach the ship, but the radio
operator of the Californian had gone to bed for the night and turned the
radio off.
5.On deck, rockets were shot to get the ship’s attention, but they could
only be seen twenty miles away and did not help much (Stacey 34).
6.The closest ship that could be reached was the Carpathia, which was
eighty-five miles away; it received the message and immediately started
speeding towards the Titanic to help.
7.On deck, the crew was alerting the passengers of what had happened and
telling them to put their lifejackets on; however, they had a hard time
getting the passengers to listen, who felt safe on the “unsinkable” ship and
weren’t worried.
8.At 12.30 a.m., Captain Smith ordered the passengers to start loading the
lifeboats; the women and children would go first.
9.At 12:45 a.m., the first lifeboat was lowered; it could hold sixty-five
people but left with only twenty-eight.
 10.By 1:30 a.m., the bow was down and passengers began to notice a slant
in the deck; the third-class passengers, most of who were still below deck,
began to panic.
11.At 2:05 a.m., the last lifeboat was lowered. There were 1,500
passengers still left onboard and a “strange stillness took hold” (Thayer 5).
12.Passengers still left on the ship bunched together to try to keep warm
and tried to stay away from the side of the ship that was sinking.
13.The band on the ship had been playing “ragtime” all night; at 2:15 a.m.,
when the bow began to slide further into the water, they began playing a
more comforting song called “Nearer my God to Thee” (Stacey 38).
14.Passengers who had made it on the lifeboats could only sit and watch
the catastrophe. One passenger described the scene:
I could look back and see the ship, and the decks were just lined with
people looking over. Finally, as the Titanic sank faster, the lights died out.
You could just see the stern remaining in an up-right position for a couple
of minutes. Then…it disappeared (Marcus 59).
15. When the Titanic had completely disappeared, there were still
thousands of people left in the freezing water crying out desperately for
help, with sounds the survivors would carry to the grave.
16.Worried that the lifeboats would be swarmed by the thousands still left
in the water, not one returned to help until the noise had quieted down.
17.At that time, only two of the lifeboats returned to help, rescuing only
seven people, three of whom died later.

(transition): At 4:00 a.m., the Carpathia finally arrived, and the 706 surviving passengers
were rescued. Over 1,500 dead bodies were left behind in the icy cold water of the
Atlantic Ocean.

Conclusion: As you can see, it was not just one simple mistake that led to the tragedy of
the Titanic and the loss of so many lives. From the arrogance of the designers, to the
neglect of those vital warnings, the passengers on the Titanic were doomed from the
beginning. The last living survivor, Millvina Dean, passed away on May 31, 2009 at the
age of 97, according to the New York Times. Though no one is left to tell the story, the
legend of the Titanic is one that will always be remembered.
 Works Cited

Burns, John. “Millvina Dean, Titanic’s Last Survivor, Dies at 97.” New York Times.
31. May 2009.

Cussler, Clive. Raise the Titanic. New York: Viking Press, 1976.

Geller, B. Judith. Titanic: Women and Children First. New York: Norton & Company,
1998.

Greaves, Linda. Home Page. 17 June 2009. <http://pages.prodigy.com/Unsinkable_

Titanic/herstory.htm.

Hyslop, Donald. Titanic Voices. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Stacey, Tom. The Titanic. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1989.

Thayer, John. Home Page. 17 June 2009. <http://umbc7.umbc.edu/~lharris/titanic.

html>

Titanic: The Final Chapter. Dir. Ray Johnson. Videocassette. Castle Entertainment,
1993.