<P> Titanic's sea trials began at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, 2 April 1912, just two days after her fitting out was finished and eight days before she was due to leave Southampton on her maiden voyage . The trials were delayed for a day due to bad weather, but by Monday morning it was clear and fair . Aboard were 78 stokers, greasers and firemen, and 41 members of crew . No domestic staff appear to have been aboard . Representatives of various companies travelled on Titanic's sea trials, Thomas Andrews and Edward Wilding of Harland and Wolff and Harold A. Sanderson of IMM . Bruce Ismay and Lord Pirrie were too ill to attend . Jack Phillips and Harold Bride served as radio operators, and performed fine - tuning of the Marconi equipment . Francis Carruthers, a surveyor from the Board of Trade, was also present to see that everything worked, and that the ship was fit to carry passengers . </P> <P> The sea trials consisted of a number of tests of her handling characteristics, carried out first in Belfast Lough and then in the open waters of the Irish Sea . Over the course of about 12 hours, Titanic was driven at different speeds, the turning ability was tested and a "crash stop" was performed in which the engines were reversed full ahead to full astern, bringing her to a stop in 850 yd (777 m) or 3 minutes and 15 seconds . The ship covered a distance of about 80 nautical miles (92 mi; 150 km), averaging 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km / h) and reaching a maximum speed of just under 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km / h). </P> <P> On returning to Belfast at about 7 p.m., the surveyor signed an "Agreement and Account of Voyages and Crew", valid for 12 months, which declared the ship seaworthy . An hour later, Titanic departed Belfast to head to Southampton, a voyage of about 570 nautical miles (660 mi; 1,060 km). After a journey lasting about 28 hours and arrived about midnight on 4 April and was towed to the port's Berth 44, ready for the arrival of her passengers and the remainder of her crew . </P> <P> Both Olympic and Titanic registered Liverpool as their home port . The offices of the White Star Line as well as Cunard were in Liverpool, and up until the introduction of the Olympic, most British ocean liners for both Cunard and White Star, such as Lusitania and Mauretania, sailed out of Liverpool followed by a port of call in Queenstown, Ireland . Since the company's founding in 1871, a vast majority of their operations had taken place out of Liverpool . However, in 1907 White Star established another service out of the port of Southampton on England's south coast, which became known as White Star's "Express Service". Southampton had many advantages over Liverpool, the first being its proximity to London . </P>

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