RMS Titanic, Inc. - Titanic's Whistles

Some fascinating information about Titanic's whistles:

At the time of their manufacture, Titanic's whistles were the largest ever constructed.
RMS Titanic, Inc.'s expedition co-historian John P. Eaton has calculated that Titanic's whistles were sounded just fifteen times during the ship's brief life. These included sounding a whistle at each port upon departure, and one sounding at noon each day.
Titanic actually had two types of whistles, a fact made known only through the recovery of these artifacts. On her two forward funnels were the working whistles, made of heavy-duty bronze. On the two after funnels were mounted "false" whistles for appearance's sake only. Instead of durable bronze, they were made of a lower grad zinc steel. Samples of both whistle types were recovered during RMST's 1993 Research and Recovery Expedition.
When the whistles first were found, they were wedged under considerable debris and ocean floor "concretion" that threatened their future existence. Their recovery in 1993 has permitted millions of people to see them, and now, to hear them.
The three whistle chambers, also called "bell domes," are attached to a piece called a "branch plate" or "manifold," which distributed steam to all three whistle chambers simultaneously. At the point where the chambers are attached to the branch plate, engraved numbers (still visible) permitted workers to match the correct chamber to the correct platform easily.
The three chambers of Titanic's whistles measure 9 in., 15 in., and 12 in. in diameter. The height from the base of the branch plate to the top of the center chamber is 4 ft 2-1/2 in. The total weight of the assembly is 6.75 hundredweight, or 756 pounds.
Titanic's whistles were controlled from the bridge by electrical switches, rather than an overhead rope lanyard. Presumably several switches were placed around the bridge so that the whistles could be sounded quickly in an emergency. The Willett-Bruce company also supplied a device which automatically sounded the whistles for 8 to 10 seconds, once every minute, during foggy weather, but this feature apparently was never required during Titanic's one and only voyage.
In 1996 and again 1998, RMST's Research and Recovery Expeditions examined a pair of circular controls on the ship's starboard bridge wing, which was flattened during the sinking. The controls, electrical in nature, bear the words "speed" and "time," and the expedition's co-historians have tentatively identified their function as relating to operation of the ship's whistles during fog.
Commodore Sir James Bisset, in 1912 the second officer aboard Carpathia when she rescued Titanic's passengers, later wrote in his book Ship Ahoy "The primary use of the steam whistle is to let other vessels know our whereabouts in fog...The whistle is also used in clear weather for indicating to any other vessel in sight if you propose altering your course. It is used as follows: One short blast - I am altering my course to starboard; Two short blasts; I am altering my course to port; Three short blasts; my engines are going full astern... One thing passengers can be certain of is that how annoying the sound may be, the whistle is never blown without good reason..."
There is no evidence supporting some movies' depictions of Titanic's whistles sounding during the evacuation of the ship. Voices of the crew and knocks on the door were all that roused passengers from their berths. Today, evacuation of any passenger ship is denoted by six or seven short blasts and one long blast on the vessel's whistle and alarm bells - a change in safety regulations caused by the Titanic's loss.

RMST would like to gratefully thank John P. Eaton and Charles A. Haas for compiling this special information about the whistles.

RMS Titanic, Inc.'s co-historians John P. Eaton and Charles A. Haas, the only historians to have dived to Titanic's wreck, are among the participants in the sounding of Titanic's whistles in St. Paul, MN.

Their newest book, Titanic: A Journey Through Time will be published this April by Haynes Publishing Group in the U.K. and W. W. Norton, Inc. in the U.S. It features extensive coverage of RMS Titanic, Inc.'s successful efforts in 1998 to recover 'the Big Piece.' Ordering information may be obtained from W. W. Norton's web site, http://www.wwnorton.com.

John P. Eaton is also the world's most senior person ever to have dived to Titanic's wreck, making the 12,500-ft. journey on June 11, 1993. His writing partner, Charles A. Haas, is the world's only public school teacher to have made the journey, on June 10, 1993. Three years later, Haas narrated the Discovery Channel program Titanic: Untold Stories, which featured footage of his second dive to the ship on August 13, 1996. Both men were also members of the 1998 expedition.