The RMS Lusitania

The Lusitania was the first of the three liners Lusitania, Mauritania, and Aquitania. While her two sisters had a long, successful career, the Lusitania was the one of them to be lonely on the ocean floor, sunken by a single German torpedo on May 7, 1915. As you can plainly see in the picture, the ship listed sharply to the starboard (right) side. Because of this, the port (left) side lifeboats could not be launched. Only a handful of starboard lifeboats were launched in the quick 18 minutes of sinking. One of the largest controversies about the sinking is how a 727' ship could sink so quickly. Perhaps the answer lies in the cargo hold, where there were many explosives secretly being shipped from New York to Britain. Unfortunately for the people on board, the torpedo hit right where the explosives were. Below is a diagram that shows where the British believed a second torpedo had struck. As we are certain today, there was no second torpedo.




Here is one of my personal favorite pictures of the sinking. It was painted by Ken Marshall.
Most people do not know this, but the Lusitania was much faster than the Titanic, a famous steam liner that is well known for her size, and being "unsinkable," though she sank on her first voyage. The Titanic reached a speed of 21 knots. The Lusitania 25 knots. The speed was of great significance at that time, since travel was out of necessity, not leisure, like today.

Below is a map of where the wreck is.


I am planning a dive to the wreck, since the ship is in 295' of water. It will be a while, but when I have finished my dive, I will include some pictures, and maybe even a video of the wreck.






Extra: My cat loves my Lusitania Model! He likes to just stare at it, he sleeps by it, and he sticks his head between the 3rd and 4th funnels! Cute!