April 14-15th: Titanic anniversary

[Karl Heidenreich]

Ninety five years ago the most famous nautical tragedy of modern times took place: RMS Titanic clashed with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later with 1,500 souls on board and just only 712 survivors.
The only ship with a fame near to Titanic´s is Bismarck, the most famous Battleship in Naval History.
Let´s remember those who died on April 14-15th, 1912 in the lethaly cold waters of the North Atlantic, not victims of war but of neglicence and false pride.
And we, humans, haven´t changed a bit from 1912 to 2007: last Thursday a new "Edward Smith" managed to colide his cruise ship with 2,000 souls on board with a reef at Greece and sink it. He was lucky that it wasn´t in the middle of North Atlantic and in just two hours but in twelve hours and near the shores.
Titanic tragedy is still a warning to us.

Best regards.

[Gary]

Hi Karl.

Yes the Titanic certainly was a horrendous diaster.
Cruise ship accidents nowerdays seem to be more common than you might think.

Have they managed to find the missing Frenchman and his daughter from that Greek ship yet?

[Karl Heidenreich]

As far as I know they are still missing. The captain and five junior officers are charged with negligence now; they will face manslaughter chages if they found that they are dead.

Best regards.

[José M. Rico]

I heard it took more than 3 hours for all the crew and passengers to abandon the Sea Diamond! A procedure that should take 30 minutes.

[RF]

As a further comment to Jose's post above my experience of ferries and cruise ships is that the use of life saving equipment and abandon ship proceedures are that they are virtually completely secret, presumably only to be disclosed to the passengers if an emergency happens.

[Karl Heidenreich]

I don´t believe that any Cruise Line give their passangers a briefing of "life boat stations" before sailing. Maybe it´s too dificult because these ships are getting people in and out with "infinite" continuity.
Anyhow in a real emergency situation, let´s say in a ship like Sovereing of the Seas or Queen Mary 2, with 3,000+ passengers I don´t believe they could put everybody safe in less than 4-5 hours. Being that the case with Titanic-like tragedy we can say that 2,300 passengers would die plus the complete crew.

Best regards.

[Gary]

Another somewhat scary thing to note is that it has been known on more occasion than one for the crew to leave in the first lifeboat and therefore leaving the passengers to fend for themselves

[RF]

I see that we have yet another TV programme in the UK where the conspiracy theorists are out to make some more money.

Yes, we have a presenter who has already published three books, all going into fantastic detail, about how it wasn't the Titanic that went down on 15th April 1912 but her sister ship the Olympic, as an insurance scam by the White Star line.
All the evidence gathered at the resting place is rigourously cross-examined to show that it really is the Olympic and not the Titanic and the fantastic lengths that were gone into switching the ships....

Strange that the 15,000 or so people that would have been involved in such a switch never said anything afterwards, or that the insurance underwriters never suspected anything....

[Gary]

Hi RF.

I heard a similiar tale where someone claimed that Titanic was fitted with a damaged propeller from one of her sisters ships which had had a collision with a navy cruiser.

Some of the theories that people come up with are damn right wacky

[Karl Heidenreich]

Those conspiracy theories are discredited.

[RF]

Hi RF.

I heard a similiar tale where someone claimed that Titanic was fitted with a damaged propeller from one of her sisters ships which had had a collision with a navy cruiser.

What actually happened was that the Olympic's propeller was damaged as you describe. As the Olympic needed an immediate replacement, the White Star Line took a Titanic propeller just manufactured and stuck it on the Olympic. The damaged propeller was then repaired - and put on the Titanic.

[RF]

Those conspiracy theories are discredited.

Yet they persist, and people make money out of them.....