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The interiors of the Olympic-class ships were subdivided into sixteen primary compartments divided by fifteen bulkheads which extended well above the waterline. Eleven vertically closing watertight doors could seal off the compartments in the event of an emergency.[66] The ships' exposed decking was made of pine and teak, while interior ceilings were covered in painted granulated cork to combat condensation.[68] The superstructure consisted of two decks, the Promenade Deck and Boat Deck, which were about 500 feet (150 m) long. They accommodated the officers' quarters, gymnasium, public rooms and first-class cabins, plus the bridge and wheelhouse. The ships' lifeboats were carried on the Boat Deck, the uppermost deck.[14] Standing above the decks were four funnels, though only three were functional – the last one was a dummy, installed for aesthetic purposes – and two masts, each 155 feet (47 m) high, which supported derricks for loading cargo. A wireless aerial was slung between the masts.[69]
The work of constructing the ships was difficult and dangerous. For the 15,000 men who worked at Harland and Wolff at the time,[70] safety precautions were rudimentary at best; a lot of the work was dangerous and was carried out without any safety equipment like hard hats or hand guards on machinery. As a result, deaths and injuries were to be expected. During Titanic's construction, 246 injuries were recorded, 28 of them "severe", such as arms severed by machines or legs crushed under falling pieces of steel. Six people died on the ship herself while she was being constructed and fitted out and another two died in the shipyard workshops and sheds.[71] Just before the launch a worker was killed when a piece of wood fell on him.[72]
Titanic was launched at 12:15 pm on 31 May 1911 in the presence of Lord Pirrie, J. Pierpoint Morgan and J. Bruce Ismay and 100,000 onlookers.[73] 22 tons of soap and tallow were spread on the slipway to lubricate the ship's passage into the River Lagan.[72] In keeping with the White Star Line's traditional policy, the ship was not formally named or christened with champagne.[73] The ship was towed to a fitting-out berth where, over the course of the next year, her engines, funnels and superstructure were installed and her interior was fitted out.[74]
Although Titanic was virtually identical to her earlier sister ship Olympic, a few changes were made to differentiate the two ships. The most noticeable of these was that Titanic (and her later sister Britannic) had a steel screen with sliding windows installed along the forward half of the A Deck promenade. This was installed as a last minute change at the personal request of Bruce Ismay, and was intended to provide additional shelter to first class passengers.[75] These changes made Titanic marginally heavier than her sister, and thus she could claim to be the largest ship afloat. The work took longer than expected due to design changes ordered by Ismay and a temporary pause in work occasioned by the need to repair Olympic, which had been in a collision in September 1911. Had Titanic been finished earlier, she might well have missed her rendezvous with an iceberg.[72]