Video: '[4k, 50 fps Colorized ]Titanic departure 10 April 1912 year.'

(Wednesday, April 10, 1912, shortly after noon GMT; four days before the sinking of the Titanic) — The RMS Titanic, a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, set sail today from Southampton, England, on its ill-fated maiden voyage to New York City after stops in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown (now called Cobh), Ireland to pick up additional passengers.

An accident was narrowly averted only a few minutes after the ship departed from Southampton, as Titanic passed the moored liners SS City of New York of the American Line and Oceanic of the White Star Line, the latter of which would have been her running mate on the service from Southampton.

Her huge displacement caused both of the smaller ships to be lifted by a bulge of water and then dropped into a trough. New York‘s mooring cables could not take the sudden strain and snapped, swinging her around stern-first towards Titanic.

A nearby tugboat, Vulcan, came to the rescue by taking New York undertow, and Titanic‘s captain ordered her engines to be put “full astern.” The two ships avoided a collision by a distance of about 4 feet.

The incident delayed Titanic‘s departure for about an hour, while the drifting New York was brought under control.

Video: '3D HD Titanic at Southampton 1912'

A few hours later Titanic called at Cherbourg Harbour in north-western France, a journey of 80 nautical miles, where she took on passengers. Her next port of call was Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, which she reached around midday on April 11, 1912. She left in the afternoon after taking on more passengers and stores.

By the time Titanic departed westwards across the Atlantic Ocean she was carrying 892 crew members and 1,320 passengers. This was only about half of her full passenger capacity of 2,435, as it was the low season, and shipping from the UK had been disrupted by a coal miners’ strike.

Her passengers were a cross-section of Edwardian society, from millionaires such as John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim to poor emigrants from countries as disparate as Armenia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Syria, and Russia seeking a new life in the United States.

The ship was commanded by 62-year-old Captain Edward Smith, the most senior of the White Star Line’s captains. He had four decades of seafaring experience and had served as captain of RMS Olympic, from which he was transferred to command Titanic.

The vast majority of the crew who served under Smith were not trained sailors but were either engineers, firemen, or stokers, responsible for looking after the engines; or stewards and galley staff, responsible for the passengers. The six watch officers and 39 able seamen constituted only around five percent of the crew, and most of these had been taken on at Southampton so had not had time to familiarise themselves with the ship.