The North Atlantic night was cold and moonless, lit only by a frosty dusting of stars overhead. The surface of the ocean was smooth and black, resembling a waveless “millpond”.
Then at approximately 11:20 PM, Seaman James Fleet, ship’s forward lookout peered into the darkness and saw a black shape that was only slightly less dark than the surface of the smooth ocean. Fleet peered at the shape for a second or two longer to be sure that he really was seeing something. Then he quickly turned and sharply rang the lookout bell at his back three times, signaling “object ahead”. He picked up the lookout’s telephone to the bridge.
“Yes?” answered Sixth Officer William Moody, on the bridge below.
“Iceberg, right ahead,” shouted Fleet frantically.
“Thank you,” replied Moody automatically and hung up. “Iceberg right ahead,” he called out to First Officer William Murdoch. By now Murdoch could see the shape of the iceberg through the forward windows of the darkened bridge and quickly rushed to the engine room telegraph. While signaling “full speed astern” he ordered Quartermaster Hichens at the wheel “hard a’starboard” who promptly turned the spun the wheel hard over. The order, harking back to the days of sailing ships, when putting the wheel to starboard (to the right) caused the ship to turn to port (the left).
But the 000 foot long liner, the “largest moving object designed by the hand of Man” knifed through the nearly flat black icy water at twenty-two and one half knots directly towards the iceberg. In the lookout post above, seaman Fleet and Lee watched in horror as the distance between the speeding liner and the sinister black shape in her path grew less and less by every second.
Then slowly, seemingly only by mere inches, the liner’s bow finally began to swing to the left. More … more … would they miss the berg?
Like an automobile skidding on ice, the turning ship’s was now swinging her side towards the nearing iceberg. First Officer Murdoch ordered the Hichens to turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction, ‘hard aport’, to correct the swing and curve the ship’s course around the looming berg. Hichens did as he was ordered and when he could not turn the wheel any further he reported, “Wheel hard a‘port, sir.”
Nerve-racking seconds crawled by … then Titanic slowly began to respond to her new directions by slowly turning to starboard ---

but it was too late.

With a sound that was later reported to have been like “a large metal plate being slowly dragged over rough gravel”, the side of the ship’s bow “nudged” the submerged bulk of the iceberg.
It had not been a direct impact. It was more like the ship “bounced” along the side of the iceberg’s submerged bulk pressing against her iron plates causing the rivets holding them together to shear off for nearly 300 feet along her starboard side rupturing six of her watertight compartments.
From that moment onward, Titanic, the luxurious “Ship of Dreams” and fifteen-hundred of her passengers were doomed.

NOTE: Though tracing is looked down on in artistic circles I believed that it was justifiable here. The lookout bell that you see in my picture was traced from a photograph of the actual bell that James Fleet rang on that April 12th, 1912 night, and was recovered from the sunken wreck more than seventy years later.

Posted exactly 99 years from the day of the actual event.

RIP