Coaling of the great liner is completed. A coal strike meant that the docks were crowded with smaller IMM ships whose voyages were canceled to ensure that Titanic would sail both on-time and fully-coaled. The American Line’s Philadelphia and White Star’s Majestic shared the Ocean Dock with the new ship, and American’s New York and White Star’s Oceanic were moored ahead of the great ship along her path of departure down the Test. Titanic would take aboard over, 4,400 tons of coal in Southampton during this time, giving her nearly 5,900 tons for her voyage to New York. While not at full capacity, she was certainly not short of coal as would later be claimed.

Artwork:  by Simon Fisher

After having been “dressed” in flags from stem to stern during her time in Southampton thus far, preparations for the voyage reach their finale. The flags are now stowed away. Paint is touched up on her four majestic funnels and other areas to ensure she looks her best when passengers arrive on the 10th.

As Wilde officially assumes his duties as Chief Officer, Board of Trade Emigration Officer Maurice Clarke inspects the ship to ensure she meets the Board’s rigorous and detailed regulations. Clarke spent much time looking over the ship’s lifeboats, lifebelts, and other equipment before he cleared the ship to depart on the following day, much to the chagrin of her officers who presumably had many other tasks to accomplish that day.

The crew is officially mustered in various parts of the ship. After inspection by Captain Smith, Maurice Clarke, and others, they were counted, roll taken, and a cursory medical inspection completed for each crew member.

Boarding of passengers is now underway, with two special boat trains having arrived in Southampton with many of the ship’s passengers. Third Class passengers would first undergo medical examinations on the dock to ensure they were not bringing any kind of sickness aboard the great liner. The docks indeed bustle with activity. Cargoes are loaded aboard by the ship’s eight cranes and other booms, passengers stream through the various shell doors and begin the process of locating their cabins and finding their way around the new ship, and crew who had gone ashore after muster trickle back from pubs and last visits with loved ones. Visitors to the ship and her passengers also were aboard, briefly exploring the magnificent vessel that would soon depart.

Having passed down Southampton water and then across the English Channel, Titanic drops anchor at Cherbourg, France. Passengers waiting since 4pm are now ferried out to the liner, which is anchored outside the harbor’s breakwater due to her large size. The White Star tender Traffic, followed by the Nomadic, tie up alongside the great hull of the mammoth new ship. Traffic carries 102 Third Class passengers along with mail for Queenstown and New York. She also takes off mail from Southampton for Europe. As the sun sets, Traffic departs and Nomadic journeys to the ship’s side. Nomadic carries 151 First and 28 Second Class passengers.

With the sun having risen and the ship steaming toward Queenstown, Titanic makes a series of serpentine S turns in order to adjust her compasses and properly calibrate them for the journey ahead.

After a speedy crossing of the Channel, Titanic drops anchor at Queenstown. As with Cherbourg, the liner is too large to enter the harbor proper. She anchors two miles from shore near Roches Point. In a repeat of her stop at Cherbourg, two small tenders, this time Ireland and America, steam out from the harbor to tie up alongside and disgorge their passengers, cargoes, and mails. America arrives first on her port side, with Ireland stopping on her starboard side. As the mails were exchanged once again, three First, seven Second, and 113 Third Class passengers come aboard. At the same time, vendors in “bum” boats come alongside and then aboard to sell laces and other wares. Seven passengers disembarked, among them Father Francis Browne, whose photographs are now among the only ones of the great ship in service.

The first of several warnings of ice along the Great Circle Route is received aboard Titanic by her wireless operators, John “Jack” Phillips and Harold Bride. This one, from the French Line’s La Touraine, noted a “tick icefield” at 44.58 N, 50.40 W and “another icefield and two icebergs” at 45.20 N, 45.09 W. Like most messages directed to the new liner, it also included congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of the ship’s maiden voyage. Titanic acknowledged the message, with a reply from Captain Smith being sent at 6:21pm.

As passengers continue to enjoy the ship’s many amenities, and J. Bruce Ismay, Thomas Andrews, and the ship’s officers marvel at how well she is performing thus far on her maiden voyage, crewmen deep in the bowels of the ship finally extinguish a coal fire that had been burning since her Belfast departure. While much has been made of this fire by sensationalists and conspiracy theorists, coal bunker fires were a common feature of liners of the day and posed no threat to the ship’s safety. It also, through an exhaustive study published by Bill Wormstedt, Mark Chirnside, Tad Fitch, Samuel Halpern, J. Kent Layton, Ioannis Georgiou, and Steve Hall, has been proven to have had no adverse impact on the ship’s sinking.

The trouble with the wireless system is finally solved, with Jack Phillips and Harold Bride binding the leads from a secondary transformer in rubber tape to prevent them from contact with other parts of the apparatus after they had burned through their casing. With the set back in action at full power, Phillips and Bride begin clearing a backlog of messages that had to await their hours of repair work.

A new ice warning is received, this time from the Cunard liner Caronia. The two-funneled Cunarder warned of “bergs, growlers, and field ice” at 42N and from 49 to 51 W that had been reported by other ships traveling west. This message was acknowledged by Captain Smith at 10:28am. It would be the first of several documented ice warnings that day.

The Holland America liner Noordam has an ice warning forwarded to Titanic via the Caronia. The message began with the usual congratulations to Captain Smith and his ship before noting the weather experienced by the little single-stacker. It ended with a report of “much ice” at 42.24N to 42.45N and 49.50W to 50.20W. This message was acknowledged with a reply at 12:31pm.

Hamburg-Amerika’s Amerika sends a message to Titanic with a request that it be forwarded to the Hydrographic Office in Washington, DC by the White Star liner with her more powerful transmitter. The message indicated “two large icebergs” at 41.27N, 50.8W. While this message was dutifully forwarded to the Cape Race wireless station at 9:32pm when Titanic was in range, there is no evidence that it made its way to her bridge officers or captain. 

Titanic makes her final major course adjustment, turning the “Corner” at position 42N, 47W. This would place her on a rhumb line course westerly toward the entrance to New York harbor and the Ambrose light ship, the official end point for a westward crossing. The confusion over Titanic’s subsequent position when disaster struck would lead to talk as to whether Smith elected to make this common maneuver later and thus take the ship further south to avoid ice. Investigation has concluded that Smith turned the corner on time and just a few miles southwest of the correct spot.

Image: Screenshot by Titanic Honour & Glory

The last dinner aboard Titanic is served in her various dining spaces. Captain Smith attends a party given in his honor in the ship’s restaurant later in the evening. At the same time, the last three of the ship’s 29 boilers are connected to the engines, increasing her revolutions and speed once more. Titanic is now under full power and working herself up to her full speed for the following day’s planned run.

Captain Smith arrives on the bridge and converses briefly with Lightoller about the night and the ice that has been reported. Smith noted the falling temperature, now below 40 degrees and still falling, and the lack of wind. Lightoller remarked that it was “a flat calm.” Smith and Lightoller felt that, due to the clear conditions, ice would be spotted far enough away to take evasive action. As he made to leave, Smith said “if it becomes at all doubtful let me know at once” and then headed for his quarters just aft of the bridge on the starboard side.

Artwork: The Last Sighting by Simon Fisher

The Mesaba of the Atlantic Transport Line sends the final warning of ice that Titanic would receive, noting “much heavy pack ice and great number large icebergs, also field ice” at 42N to 41.25N, 49W to 50.30W. Like the message from Baltic, this places ice directly in the path of the White Star liner, now traveling at just over 22 knots in the calm, clear night. There is no evidence that this important message ever reached Titanic’s bridge.

The wireless operator on the Californian, Cyril Evans, having been informed that they have stopped for the night after encountering an impassable ice field on their way toward Boston, calls up the Titanic, then the nearest ship to them, to warn of the ice they’ve come upon in the area and to report that they’re stopped until daylight. Evans assumes a chatty tone, beginning with “I say Old Man” rather than sending the warning as a Master Service Message that would’ve required Titanic’s operator to stand by, take down the message, and forward it to the bridge. The two ships’ close proximity causes Evans’ signals to nearly deafen Jack Phillips, then sitting at Titanic’s key with his headphones on as he vigorously worked the Cape Race station to send the many messages that had accumulated during the previous night and day. Phillips, frustrated by what seems an informal and unnecessary interruption, taps back “Shut up! Shut up! I am busy. I am working Cape Race!” Nonplussed by the brush-off, which is much less insulting in the vernacular of Marconi operators than it sounds to the unaccustomed observer, Evans listens to Phillips resumed traffic for a time before he switches his set off soon after and falls asleep reading.