Nauticalia

2012 marks the centenary of the sinking, on 15 April 1912, of RMS Titanic – the world’s largest, most modern and luxurious passenger steamship – on her maiden voyage.

Titanic was commissioned by White Star Line to rival Cunard’s Lusitania and Mauretania, and was built using the most advanced technologies of the time, and she was believed to be ‘unsinkable’. But en route to New York, she struck an iceberg and sank into the freezing North Atlantic with the loss of 1,517 lives – one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

The sinking of a passenger liner on her maiden voyage, the high loss of life, the conspiracy theories surrounding the disaster, the resulting changes in maritime law, and the discovery of the wreck have all contributed to an enduring fascination in Titanic.