Finally, after all the hype, sailing day had arrived. Second Officer Lightoller recalled, "from end to end the ship which for days had been like a nest of bees, now resembled a hive of about to swarm." At the crack of dawn the Titanic's officer arrived, changed into their uniforms and began a mandatory lifeboat drill. At 9:30 AM, most of the ship's Second and Third class passengers arrived and saw the massive ship. At 11:30 in the morning, the Titanic's wealthiest passengers arrived at dock in a special first-class boat train from London, it had blue upholstery and gold braid. The wealthiest passenger aboard was Colonel John Jacob Astor with a fortune estimated at around 100 million dollars, he did not survive.
Shortly after midday on April 10,1912 the Titanic was on her way, but trouble was just ahead. The Titanic narrowly escaped a collision with the line New York, whose moorings had snapped in Titanic's enormous wake. Many people thought about jumping off the ship after this incident but things went on as normal in the nice spring afternoon. The Titanic gently passed through the English Channel and arriving in her first port in Chebourg, France around 6:30 PM.
While she was docked in Chebourg's Deep Water Harbor, she took aboard mail, and 247 more passengers. Of the 247 passengers, 142 were in first-class, thirty were second-class and over a hundred were third-class.
Titanic's next stop was in the Port of Queenstown, Titanic took on 7 more Second-Class passengers, 113 third-class passengers and 194 sacks of mail. A few people got off the ship while she was in Queenstown- including twenty four year old fireman, John Coffey, who smuggled himself ashore under a pile of empty mail bags. "I still don't like this ship....
I have a strange feeling about it," Wrote Chief Officer Wilde.
But despite all the strange feelings the Titanic steamed on for four more days until the night of April 14, 1912.
Go To The Death of the Titanic
