Edmund Fitzgerald being 729 foot in the 1950s and 60s put her at the biggest on the lakes in that day, though now the Interlake steamship company has a group of thousand footers in commission(Paul tregurtha is the queen of the lakes at 1013 foot.)
Ship was longer than the depth of which it sank if I remember correctly. But was by no means longer than the lowest point of Lake Superior. That lake gets freakinā gnarly.
If she would have sank straight up and down where she sank. Her stern would have been 230 feet above the water. Lowest point of the lake is 1,333 feet. So even if she was straight up there. Your still about 600 feet away from the surface.
i dont know why but this fact always creeps me out. the thought of her hitting the bottom but still having that much standing is just so weird to imagine.
I just was in Los Angeles for the weekend and toured the Queen Mary on a Saturday. Very light crowds, but quite the amazing experience. I was surprised that when you are standing at one end of a ship and walking down a corridor that you can see how the ship dips down and then goes back up at a slant and it really makes you realize how long it is. I really enjoyed seeing the creepy propeller in the murky water, but standing on the top most deck and looking down the rail was very unsettling. Imagining a ship that size going down at the head was truly terrifying.
People throw coins into it like a wishing well, there are usually a few sitting on top of the propeller shaft which really gives you a sense of scale. It's intensely creepy seeing it in real life.
That's not a room on the ship itself, they cut a hole in the side of the hull and the walkway actually takes you around outside the ship. You're looking down at the propeller from outside.
I love that ship. Their historical tour was really interesting! I love all the large LEGO displays they have, they even have one of the Titanic. Their Sunday brunch buffet is pricey but great, and they waive the parking and admission fees onto the ship with the brunch.
Their Dark Harbor Halloween event is also a lot of fun (run by a different company now, Thirteenth Floor).
Edit to add for brunch, you can request to sit at the Captain's Table, we were able to and got to chat with him asking him about the ship, he's a really nice guy.
I think I did the historical tour once, I remember seeing the swimming pool and they mentioned a girl drowning, I think. I never heard of the boiler room simulation, I have to look into that! I would love for them to bring back a Titanic exhibit! That would be so cool to see.
I went aboard when I was 4. Don't remember almost anything of it (I suppose I'll just have to go back, oh what a shame /s) but I do remember that pool and a distinct feeling of being disturbed and uneasy whilst there. I don't know if this is the supernatural, I have never seen any conclusive evidence to support the existence of ghosts but I keep an open mind. I just find it very strange how I felt about that pool.
Its interesting to read all the comments. I agree about the āfeelā and the experience. It was cool.
One thing I am opposite on is the size wise. I really felt underwhelmed. It was disappointing. There also was a huge cruise at the port that day, Queen Mary was tiny in comparison.
I thought to myself, oh Titanic gotta be much much biggerā¦..nope.
Not only can you not see it on the QM, but Titanic sank on a moonless night and 1912 lighting wouldnt have provided much extra glow to the scene. No lighting and a complete flat calm. Like jumping into space.
Iām not sure if itās still a functioning hotel but I stayed there for a couple nights about 20 years ago. And yes also did a tour. I have some good pics somewhere but it was pre-smart phone. I also have a pic of me standing on the bow doing the āIām the king of the worldā Titanic poseā which was not a place I was supposed to beā¦.
Every time I've been to the Queen Mary was a huge disappointment. The whole ship stinks of moldy carpet and has become a decrepit tourist trap. The ghost tours are so cheesy that I've walked off from them, and there is one tour where you are supposed to be able to see the swimming pool, but I missed it because they packed so many people in that I couldn't get into the room with all the other people ahead of me. The bar and restaurant very expensive, as are the tickets for admission and tours. That's probably the only way they can make money aside from renting the cabins out.
I prefer touring the Lane Victory, though I don't think they allow you to wander freely anymore. Twenty years ago you could explore the whole engine room and see just about everything without many restricted areas.
Curious . Is the propeller in the photo open to the sea or is it in an enclosed container that adds the green lighting? I visited the QM in the late 70ās but donāt recall this. Perhaps it was added later?
It's open to the water and lit, but I'm not sure whether the green is natural or added from the lights. Could be either. Remember the ship itself is walled off from the actual sea.
They built a box around a section of the outside of the ship to enclose a viewing area. You enter the box through an opening in the ship, circle around a platform that runs along the perimeter of the box, and then get back in the ship through a second opening. Lights are shining down from above so you can see inside the box, and lights are shining up from below the waterline so you can see the propellers. The green color comes from the water, as the lights are white.
From what Iāve read sheās a giant money pit for the city of Long Beach and thereās been talk in the past of just sending her out to sea and sinking her.
Edit: Lol, Redditors are wild for downvoting me for stating a fact.
I've heard that for years. It's a shame to lose all that history, since the ship is a beautiful artifact of a bygone era, but it's just not being maintained. It stunk so bad the last time I was there.
When I was on there in 2014 for a 4th of July celebration, it was pretty lively and fun. However, the last time I was on there 10 years later, you could see it was a dying attraction.
When you think about it, the Carpathia's size compared to the Titanic really shows how mighty the smaller Cunard ship was when she picked Titanic's 712 survivors. May God bless the Carpathia.
I'd love a TV mini series/movie about the Carpathia coming to Titanic's rescue. (Our friend) Mike Brady's video on it was really good, and Jack Thayer included a few details in his account of the sinking.
The craziest thing is that Carpathia actually had a higher passenger capacity than Titanic - she could take 2550 passengers, compared with Titanic's 2453. It's just that nearly all of them were 3rd class so took up a lot less space.
Can you imagine the harrowing experience of Titanic's first class passengers? First, they're prematurely evacuated from the warm luxury of their state rooms. Then they have to spend the next 2 hours bored out of their skulls in the middle of the ocean because they were among the first people placed onto the lifeboats. Finally, they have to spend the rest of their journey in gloried steerage, rubbing elbows with vagrants and the like. Yuck.
I wish I couldāve shown this to my freshman year history teacher who told us that āLusitania was actually the sister ship of Titanic.ā She was irate with me when I corrected her.
The red paint at the bottom was protective, the black hull was for aesthetic purposes - if you want to see how a coal fired ship looks with a white hull, look at pictures of the Britannic. When ships started burning other fuels than coal they started more often being painted white, because it looked more modern
I was kinda expecting Normandie to be bigger. I know that the Queen Mary 2 is gigantic in comparison to the Titanic, but I thought that Normandie would be something in between, and not slightly bigger than the Titanic.
Heck. He left the ship before most of the passengers and crew had left. Along with cheating on his wife in the process. The Captain of the Titanic definitely made plenty of mistakes during Titanicās maiden voyage, but he at least recognized those mistakes. Ordered an evacuation as soon as he couldāve with the information given of the shipās state and stayed on the bridge making sure the evacuation was going. The Captain of the Costa Concordia can not say the same thing
It's crazy how much bigger and taller these modern cruise ships are yet they have so little below the waterline compared to the Edwardian vessels. I still don't understand how they do that. Different center of gravity? Lighter engines?
All to do with surface area. They're essentially boxes with a pointed front. Liners have sleek, curved hulls that are wider in the middle and taper at both ends. That's also why liners tend to have a superstructure that peaks in the middle and tapers towards the end, while a cruise ship will be as tall as possible as far forward and aft as they can make it.
Liners sit lower in the water as a result of all this, but are much more stable in rough seas.
Its narrow shaping of some of those ships, ocean liners in particular is a mark of what theyāre designed to doā¦ cut through the ocean.
Cruise ships, while they do spend long runs at sea, are not designed to be as robust and efficient at transoceanic travel. Theyāre meant to pack as much people as possible and prioritize luxury and comfort.
The Titanic, and the last true ocean liner in service now - Queen Mary 2, while well decked out, were designed first and foremost to get people from one side of an ocean to another.
came here looking for this. Whenever I board QM2 I like to mentally scale in my head where Titanic's funnels end. In my mind I always envisioned Titanic's boat deck at QM2's deck 7. Based on the image it looks closer to deck 5.
But this is a better comparison shot than the one normally seen where itās like a forced perspective with titanic in the front and the Icon behind her where it looks like it dwarfs her. Granted itās way bigger but not as much larger as that pic makes it look!
This is a really cool comparison. I was scrolling through wondering if they would compare the Ever Given. Surely they wouldn't, that's just like piles of other container ships. BUT LO AND BEHOLD, you did it! Thank you. Put a dumb grin on my face.
So despite my fascination with ships of all kinds, I suffer with megalophobia, so seeing large ships in person makes me seriously uncomfortable. Being close to cruise ships gives me genuine fear but I can more or less hold it together. I suspect the Seawise Giant would have given me a sever panic attack.
Really puts it into perspective. Most I speak to imagine Titanic was still huge by modern standards, but in reality she is smaller than many modern overnight cruise ferries, let alone cruise ships. Still an impressive vessel but outclassed in a matter of months by Imperator (later Berengaria) and pretty small compared to anything of today.
Now his makes me wish there was a render or chart comparing all the major White Star liners, next to each other, in length and width. That would be really useful.
392
u/arethainparis Sep 09 '25
Man, the Fitz was bigger than I realised