FAQ

A: The Cape Town Exhibition will be held at the V & A Waterfront.

A: The Johannesburg Exhibition will be held at The

A: The Exhibition opens at 9am and closes at 6pm, Monday to Sunday.

A: Yes, we have a box office at the door.

A: Absolutely, the exhibition is fun for the whole family.

A: You can spend as much time at the Exhibition as you would like. On average visitors spend 2 hours in total at the exhibition and playzone.

A: If you are in Cape Town, parking is available at the V & A Waterfront.
If you are in Johannesburg, parking is available at The

A: Yes!
Students = R90
Pensioners = R90

A: Educational, emotional and appropriate for all ages, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the Titanic. Along the way visitors will encounter countless stories of heroism and humanity that pay honor to the unrestrainable force of the human spirit in the face of tragedy.

A: Yes, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition will be showcasing the real artifacts found on Titanic.

A: The 30-minute time slots are there to indicate the time at which you would like to arrive. This helps prevent overcrowding at the entrance and during the exhibition. Once you are in the exhibition, you may stay as long as you like within operating hours.

A: Yes, it is. We even have a wheelchair on site if its needed.

A: Yes, they are the real artifacts that was bought up from the wreck. There’s a total of 140 items on display.

A: This page gives you a 20% discount to the exhibition, simply follow the steps in the page:

http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webtickets.co.za%2Fsmartshopper.aspx&h=hAQEE0Y36&s=1

A: Due to the artifacts being submerged for over 80 years, they are extremely light sensitive, hence the dimmer lighting inside the exhibition. This is also the reason why we don’t not allow cameras or cell phone pictures of the exhibition. As custodians of the exhibition we have to be very careful of the artifacts as we’re sure you understand, are priceless and irreplaceable.

A: The large Activation Area at the end of the exhibition includes the NSRI Sea Rescue play zone, Titanic photo booth and children’s sand play pit.

A: No, no need for any identification.

A:Yes, Gino, one of SA’s top tour guides are available for a tour of the exhibition at R50.

A: Adults: R135 (18 years +)

Children: R85 (5-17 years)

Students and Pensioners: R90

Family package of 4: R320 total (thus R80 per person)

A: Although Titanic is best known for carrying the rich and famous between Europe and the United States, the ship actually had several purposes: 1. To carry British and US mail- hence the full name of the ship is Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic. 2. To carry general cargo and frozen meat since at the time Europe could not produce enough livestock to meet its own needs. 3. To carry first-class passengers in great luxury, second-class passengers in great comfort and third-class passengers with great economy. 4. To fly the flag of Great Britain and uphold national honour. Even though the Titanic was ultimately owned by American business interests, the ship was built in a British yard, operated by British subjects, manned by British crews and perceived by the public as a British ship.

A: Titanic was 882 feet 9 inches long, 92 feet 6 inches in breadth. Titanic weighed approximately 46,329 tons or 103,575,360 pounds. There were 1,316 passengers on board: 325 in first-class, 285 in second-class, and 706 in third-class. At the time of the sinking, the ship’s crew consisted of 885 men and women, they were divided between three departments: Deck Department, 66; Engine Department, 325; Victualling (Passenger Care) Department, 431. Not included in this list are the eight members of the ship’s band who were technically from another company and travelled under second-class tickets.

A: The Titanic was constructed by the shipbuilding firm of Harland & Wolff at their Queen’s Island Works in Belfast, Ireland. Edward Harland acquired the yard in 1859. A few years later, G.W. Wolff was taken into the partnership and in 1862 the name changed to Harland and Wolff. By the time of the Titanic’s construction, both these men had either died or gone into retirement, and the company was placed under the management of Lord Pirrie.

A: The Titanic was described in the popular press as “practically unsinkable.” This was not unusual – for decades, ships had watertight compartments to limit flooding in case of an accident, and the press used this phrase as a matter of routine for many years. After the Titanic sank, the story of her loss was turned into a modern fable and the original description “practically unsinkable” became just “unsinkable” in order to sharpen the moral of the story. No educated person in 1912 believed that Titanic was truly unsinkable, but it was difficult to imagine an accident severe enough to send her to the bottom.

A:  Yes, the first ice warning came in by wireless at 9:00 the morning of the collision from the Cunard Liner Caronia. As the day progressed, several additional wireless warnings came in from ships in the region warning of dangerous ice ahead.

A: The Titanic struck the iceberg at 11.40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912 and sank 2 hours, 40 minutes later at 2.20 a.m. the next day.

A: The Titanic’s wreck site is located 963 miles northeast of New York and 453 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coastline. The Titanic lies 2.5 miles beneath the ocean surface, where the pressure is 6,000 pounds per square inch.

A: Titanic’s distress call was received by several ships the night of the disaster including the Carpathia, Mount Temple, Virginian, Baltic, Caronia, Prinz Fredrich Wilhelm, Frankfurt and the Titanic’s sister ship the Olympic. Initially, several of these ships altered course towards the collision site, but when it became apparent that Carpathia alone would make it to the scene of the accident in reasonable time, they resumed their previous courses. One ship, the Leyland Line’s Californian was only a few miles distant from the Titanic. The Californian had stopped for the night because her Captain felt it too dangerous to proceed through the ice field in the dark. Although fitted with wireless, the Californian’s operator had turned in for the night and missed the distress call. To this day, there is considerable controversy as to whether the Californian’s deck officers were negligent in not making a more aggressive investigation into rockets and lights seen in the distance.

A: The Titanic’s lifeboat capacity was governed by the British Board of Trade’s rules, which were drafted in 1894. By 1912, these lifeboat regulations were badly out of date. The Titanic was four times larger than the largest legal classification considered under these rules and by law was not required to carry more than sixteen lifeboats, regardless of the actual number of people on-board. When she left Southampton, the Titanic actually carried more than the law required: sixteen lifeboats and four additional collapsible boats. The shipping industry was aware that the lifeboat regulations were going to be changed soon and Titanic’s deck space and davits were designed in anticipated of the “boats for all” policy, but until the law actually changed, White Star was not going to install them. The decision seems difficult to understand today, but in 1912, the attitude towards accident prevention was much different. At the turn of the century, ship owners were reluctant to exceed the legal minimum because lifeboats took up most of the space on first- and second-class decks. Boats were expensive to purchase, maintain, and affected a ship’s stability. Finally, in the years before the Titanic Disaster, it was felt that the very presence of large numbers of lifeboats suggested that somehow the vessel was unsafe.

A:  Both the British and American inquiries found that there was no evidence to suggest that third-class passengers were deliberately kept below decks, although it is true that third-class passengers did not make their way to the boat deck until very late in the sinking. A reasonable explanation is that the ship’s officers were overwhelmed by the disaster and simply overlooked sending specific orders to evacuate third-class. White Star hadn’t formulated emergency plans for this type of accident and the ship’s officers were fully preoccupied with the crisis of damage control and the launch of lifeboats. In an attempt to provide for an orderly evacuation, third-class stewards held passengers below deck waiting for orders that nobody thought to give.

A: Traditionally, first seats in lifeboats are given to women and children, with men filling up the remaining lifeboats; however, given the Titanic’s lifeboat shortage, this tradition meant that the casualty list was more heavily male. On the port side of the Titanic, the lifeboat launchings were supervised by Officer Lightoller, who took this order literally, preventing any men except the boat crews from embarking. Early in the sinking, women were naturally reluctant to abandon a ship that did not seem at all to be in trouble, and as a result, many of these boats were sent away only partially full. On the starboard side, Officer Murdoch interpreted the order to mean “women and children first on deck” – and only after all the seats had been offered to women, could any men on hand, who wished to evacuate, do so.

A: The last living survivor, Millvina Dean, recently passed away on May 31, 2009 as the oldest survivor of Titanic at the age of 97.

A: Sadly, even if the technology existed to raise it from the seabed, the wreck is far too fragile to withstand lifting and transportation.

A: The location of the wreck was discovered by Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean Louis Michel in a joint U.S./ French expedition on September 1, 1985 at 1:05 a.m.

A: Yes, but it is uncertain when this will take place. Already in the years since the ship’s discovery, there has been a compaction of the decks on the stern section, and decay of the superstructure in the area of the officers’ quarters, gymnasium and enclosed promenade.

A: Most of the soft woods used in the construction of the Titanic, such as the pine walls between cabins and staterooms, have disappeared throughout the vessel. This has turned most of the ship’s interiors into enormous steel caverns, with a thick layer of brown ooze covering the decks. There are, however, some remnants of the once-opulent decor, mostly in the quiet water parts of the wreck where the lack of circulation inhibits wood-digesting organisms. Ceiling and wall panels, wainscoting and decorative window coverings are best preserved in the first-class reception room, and a few of the deluxe suites on the decks above.

A: Under admiralty law, the owner of a ship retains rights to its wreck, unless the owner abandons it or an unusually long period of time has passed since the vessel sank. It is generally accepted when the White Star Line sold their company to Cunard Titanic was not included in the sale because it had sunk and could not be recovered. A portion of the hull was insured by several insurance companies, none of which have ever stepped forward to claim ownership. To date, no court has awarded ownership rights, due to abandonment, to another entity.

A: RMST, in compliance with admiralty law, recovered objects from the wreck site in 1993 and brought them into an admiralty court in Norfolk Virginia. On June 7, 1994 the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia declared RMST salvor-in-possession of the wreck and wreck site of the RMS Titanic, excluding all others from going to the site for the purpose of recovery. RMST is the only entity that has recovered and conserved items from Titanic.

A: RMS Titanic, Inc. has conducted eight research and recovery expeditions to Titanic’s wreck site in 1987, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004 and 2010.

A: To date, RMS Titanic, Inc. has recovered more than 5,500 objects from the wreck site, ranging from delicate porcelain dishes to a 17-ton section of the hull.

A: The bottom of the deep ocean is a hostile environment. Over time, man-made objects will be consumed by bacteria, abraded by sediments, and corroded by salt and acids. Even the ship itself is slowly being destroyed by iron-eating micro organisms and will one day collapse on the ocean floor. Artifacts that are not recovered from the wreck site will eventually be lost. RMS Titanic, Inc. is committed to recovering, conserving, and exhibiting artifacts from the Titanic’s wreck site to help preserve the physical memory of the ship and the people who perished in the disaster. Through these activities, people all over the world have the opportunity to see three-dimensional objects that bore witness to the sinking and to gain new insight into the human dimensions of the tragedy.

I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.