This large format and detailed close view taken sometime not long before Titanic’s launch shows clearly the gigantic hydraulic rams that would begin to move the new liner’s hull from her slip underneath the Arrol Gantry, with an almost identical set sitting on the slip’s opposite side. Titanic’s port side bow can be seen just above them, her riveted plates sloping upward towards her prow just out of frame and to the left. These plates within a year would come to rest buried deeply under the floor of the North Atlantic.
A short, but strong and steady thrust against temporarily placed wooden blocks in combination with roughly twenty-two tons of soap and tallow spread on the slipway would be enough to move the huge hull for the first time - the empty structure being at launch time nearly half of its eventual weight, though still exceeding 24,000 tons.
Photo by Robert Welch, 1911/NMNI
