The Boat deck was the highest, and, thanks to the Sirocco ventilating fans, was not cluttered with the large ventilator cowls that on the Mauretania delivered air to the boiler-rooms. Decked in yellow pine, interrupted by the raised roofs of the first-class reading and writing room and lounge, the chief features here were the navigating bridge and the wheelhouse, both of which offered broad views of the sea 58 feet below. Here too were the lifeboats slung on their davits, but with an interruption midships where there were no boats, since they would spoil the views from the first-class promenade.
The navigating bridge, set back 198 feet from the stem, was 27 feet wide and stood 8 feet above deck level. Built of teak and pine, it ended on port and starboard with wing-cabs from which navigation in dock or harbor could be directed. The wheelhouse was directly behind and above the bridge, also made of wood, and forming the forward end of the officers’ quarters’ deckhouse.
Watches were run on the time-honored principle of First, 8:00 p. m. until midnight; Second, midnight until 4:00 a. m.; Morning, 4:00 a. m. until 8:00 a. m.; Forenoon, 8:00 a. m. until midday; Afternoon, midday until 4:00 p. m., followed by the two Dogwatches, 4:00 p. m. until 6:00 p. m. and 6:00 p. m. until 8:00 p. m., incorporated to break the four-hour pattern, thus ensuring that no one stood the same hours repeatedly. (Dogwatch, by the way, derives from Sirius, the Dog Star, the first to appear at the beginning of these watches.)
The navigating room (primarily for the captain’s use and with a forward-facing window) and chart room were next to the wheelhouse, within the officers’ deckhouse itself. There was also a cabin for the pilot. Aft of the navigating room were the captain’s rooms, which ran fore and aft on the starboard side close to Number 1 funnel and consisted of a living room, bedroom and bathroom, and were connected to the navigating room just forward of the living room. Quarters for the chief, first, second, third and fifth officers were located on the port side, while the fourth officer was just aft of the captain’s bathroom and just forward of the officers’ smoking room. The Marconi operators’ office and quarters were just aft of that again, in the middle of the ship, with no porthole or natural daylight. Their wireless aerials were attached to the roof of the deckhouse above to the overhead wires between the masts.
On Titanic there were six (modest) first-class staterooms aft of the officers’ quarters, and aft again of them was the first-class grand staircase dome and the first-class entrance lobby. Near this, on the
Only). This spacious area contained two cycling machines (with a great dial for measuring speed and distance so that you could have “races”), two horses, one “camel,” and two rowing-machines, as well as weights, massagers for back and front, and a punch-ball. The electrically powered exercisers were supplied by Rossel, Schwarz of Wiesbaden.
Deck games were played on this level, and the officers’ mess, served by a dumb waiter from the first-class pantry on D deck, was also located here.
The gymnasium was open to men from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m., and to ladies from 10:00 a. m. until 1:00 p. m. Children were permitted from then until 3:00 p. m., and men again from 4:00 p. m. until 6:00 p. m. There was a fully qualified instructor, T. W. McCawley, who went down with the ship, as did Lieutenant Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, the millionaire builder, hotelier, inventor, property developer and writer, who on the day of the wreck waited in the gymnasium until the lifeboats were ready.
Left: Thomas McCawley, instructor, on one of the rowing machines in Titanic’s gymnasium. He did not survive the wreck. Right: “Cycle racing” in the gymnasium. Thomas Beesley and an unidentified female friend.
SCANDALAND SADNESS
John Jacob Astor had taken fairly modest first-class accommodations (which nevertheless cost about ?224) on Titanic in order not to attract too much attention. He was traveling with his new wife, Madeleine, thirty years his junior (he was forty-seven, she eighteen), and there was an aura of post-divorce scandal. Astor was the richest passenger aboard—richer than Isidor Straus, owner of Macy’s department store, and richer than Benjamin Guggenheim, both of whom also went down with the ship, though Straus’s age and Guggenheim’s public standing would have guaranteed them places in lifeboats.
Astor conducted his already-pregnant wife, her maid and nurse to Boat 4 at 1:55 a. m. on Monday, April 15. He wanted to accompany them, but when Second Officer Charles Lightoller told him that men couldn’t board until all women and children had been looked after, he accepted without complaint and just handed his wife his gloves to keep her hands warm. He moved to a position near Number 1 funnel and was crushed by it when it fell. His battered body was recovered by CS Mackay-Bennett on April 22.
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