In 1909, Captain Edward J. Smith said of his ship, the Adriatic, “I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a [large] ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”1 It’s impossible, unimaginable, in other words, unsinkable. This same Captain Edward Smith went on to be the captain of the Titanic. The tragedy and the irony of the sinking of that great ship has remained with us for over a century. And it’s not that the company that ran the ship was constantly advertising “unsinkable, unsinkable, unsinkable.” But they were proud of their technological advances, confident in human progress, and smugly unafraid. After all, loss of life at sea had grown so rare. In the decade before the sinking of the Titanic, 3.5 million passengers had made the crossing – just on British ships. Of those 3.5 million, only ten had perished.2
The company called their ship “practically unsinkable,” but people didn’t hear the “practically” part of that.3 One passenger of the Titanic, Thomson Beattie wrote in a letter, “we are changing ships and coming home in a new unsinkable boat.” There’s even a claim that a crew member told a passenger, “God himself could not sink this ship!”4 This hope, this optimism is shocking and saddening in retrospect. Looking back, we can see that some of the steel in the hull was overly brittle for icy waters.5 Looking back, we can wonder at how a captain could hear not one, but six warnings of ice ahead, and still continue forward near full speed.6 Looking back, we can ask – how could they not know that they should have enough space in the lifeboats for every single passenger and that the crew should be trained in evacuation and disaster procedures?7
A lot changed after the Titanic sunk – first came the mourning, finding and burying the dead, supporting the survivors. Next came new laws, better safety procedures, requirements for lifeboat drills and the establishment of an International Ice Patrol by the US Coast Guard. This Ice Patrol, which continues to this day, has meant, “there has not been a single reported loss of life or property due to collision with an iceberg in [that very same] patrol area.”8
[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sinking-the-unsinkable/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic
[3] https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-titanic-why-did-people-believe-titanic-was-unsinkable
[4] Ibid.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.