The RMS Titanic - AMA!

Wow... I've managed to read no less than 15 books on the RMS Titanic in the last two months. Actually more, if you count various NatGeo and other picture books and online information as well as a response to the recent "fire in the coal bunker" theory. AMA!

"Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters" - Logan Marshall (1912)

"Titanic" - Filson Young (1912)

"The Loss os the S.S. Titanic" - Lawrence Beesley (1912)

"Titanic: Voices from the Disaster" - Deborah Hopkinson (2012)

"The Truth About the Titanic" - Colonel Archibald Gracie IV (1913)

"A Night to Remember" - Walter Lord (1956)

"Voyagers of the Titanic" - Richard Davenport-Hines (2012)

"How to Survive the Titanic (The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay)" - Frances Wilson (2011)

"The Man Who Sank the Titanic (The Troubled Life of Quartermaster Robert Hichens)" - Sally Nilsson (2011)

"Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic" - Daniel Allen Butler (1998)

"All About History: Book of the Titanic" - Imagine Publishing (2015)

"Titanic: Legacy of the World's Greatest Ocean Liner" - Susan Wels/Discovery Channel

"Titanic Lost and Saved" - Brian Moses (2011)

"The Other Side of the Night (The Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic Was Lost" - Daniel Allen Butler (2009)

"RMS Titanic Manual: 1909-1912 Olympic Class" - Haynes Owners Workshop Manuals (2011)

Theories are fine but it's little things that get you killed. Anyone who has done something the wrong way 1000 times is still considered experienced and a misplaced key to the binnoculars and trying to break the Atlantic Crossing Record in a field of icebergs makes coal bunker fires as irrelevant as Toyotas with stuck gas pedals.
I was stationed at Tillamook Bay Lifeboat Station. I'm walking down to relieve the morning patrol Labor Day weekend. A truck with camper towing a boat was backing down the launch slip, hit the gas and I watched the trailered boat submerge followed by truck. Guy's screaming he's drowning. I wade out, opened the door, unbuckled his shoulder belt and he
damned near drowned us grabbing onto me. Tow truck is pulling the rig back out and my engineman is joking I should get the silver livesaving medal for that one. We took five paces and a guy in a speedboat impressing 13 y/o bikinis comes racing in, ran out of ocean and hit the shore, became airborne and landed in a fireball. Once the coroner arrived we finally made it to the boat shed and got underway as our sister boat was coming in with a disabled fishing boat. Tower radios a pleasure boat flipped crossing the bar and we have multiple people in the water. I hit the strobe light, siren and tried to get through masses of sunday sailors. I'm clear, go full throttle and a italian rowing scull crosses our bow. Idiot is yelling human powered and sailing vessels have the right away over powered vessels and CRUNCH I remove the first 1 1/2 meters of his brightly laquered wooden beauty and leave
him half swamped. I make a open run for the bar, it's breaking at near maximum our ability to cross and we make our run. Port engine head cracks because the night crew neglected to fully connect the engine hot start cable. We lose our heading and wind up rolling 360 degrees before I can react and we popped out on the open ocean with our mast torn off. We rescued everyone none the worse except fright and cold.We caught a break when the bar settled and came back in without further excitement. I walk into the station and mr italian racing scull is filling out a formal complaint. Chief asks me how I wanted to handle it? I pulled out a citation book and wrote the fool up for a nice fat fine. I only issued two citations in my short career, other one was for an Oregon State Trooper as payback. I've been invited to go sailing, get complimentary tickets on a cruise line by a director and my nieghbor laughs at a deep set swimming pool phobia. I can manage dinner at a seaside fish restaurant and love watching brown pelicans. But I ascribe to the advise JFKs sailing instructor from his youth wrote upon his naval enlistment in WW2
DON'T GO NEAR THE WATER

RMS Titanic is a fascinating subject and led to SOLAS , teh iceberg patrols and many marine safety traditions.

There's nothing (ok, few things) as interesting as maritime lore. Years ago I was in Halifax working on an offshore energy development project. I had some time off at lunch so I wandered into the Maritime Museum to try to get a flavour of the history of the place. What I learned was that a heck of a lot of ships have gone down off the East Coast of Canada. As I moved from memorial plaque to memorial plaque reading the names of ill-fated ships and victims, (survivors too) it struck me that the overwhelming majority of survivors were men while the overwhelming majority of victims were women and children. So much for chivalry and the maritime tradition (myth) of women and children first. The reality is that these ships invariably went down in foul weather and in darkness and when it comes down to it, the law of the jungle often trumps the ideal - the strong survive and the weak perish. Harsh.

It was (largely) the example of men on RMS Titanic that did set that moral code. In WW1 Lusitania sank so quickly it was a matter of the young and able to survive. I was involved in a case that went to international maritime law and a prosecutor who had successfully defended me in a court martial. An excursion boat had gone out and began taking on water. It was overloaded and a young man in his 20s literally unbuckled the lifejacket from a 12 year old girl for himself. He lived, she died. I was one of four lifeboats, a cutter and helicopters on scene and was told by several survivors ( she alone was lost) what he did. I wanted to throw him overboard and immediately placed him in custody. People were suprised international maritime law takes precedence and the ACLU jumped in and quickly back out. We got 20 years imprisonment for the BLANK. The prosecuter was a former Leutnant Kapitan from a old Prussian family that had served in the Navy for generations. His final cruise before studying maritime law was on a Kreigsmarine Unterseeboot ( he taught me about 4711) he took out on his first command just in time to surrender in Norway. He was one of the most moral men I ever met-go figure.
A recent vulgarity is the wanton salvaging of old war wrecks for steel and especially bronze boilers. These are registered war graves and some have compleely vanished.

Had to tie this in somehow. Perhaps you can tell us what safety razor if any was favored among Titanic officers.




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The code of "women and children first" was originally an Edwardian era thing among the English... It started with the HMS Birkenhead and really peaked on the RMS Titanic.

What makes it even more interesting is that less than a handful of people on the Titanic a) knew how serious the damage was and more so that she was doomed and b) that there weren't enough lifeboats for everyone onboard. It was really just captain E.J. Smith, Thomas Andrews and J. Bruce Ismay, the ship's carpenter and a couple of officers like Murdoch and Lightoller... The latter two being the main guys in charge of loading the lifeboats. They even interpreted the order of "women and children first" differently. The former as "first" and the latter as "only."

In contrast, on Chinese ships it's men first, as they were deemed more valuable.


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There is no doubt that moral codes are important and will generally guide the actions of moral people. I recommend Joseph Conrad's book Lord Jim as both an excellent read and the tale of a man following a moral code in a world where many do not. The fact that a code is often breached does not mean it doesn't exist. Years ago while at University I was taking a course in International Politics. The Professor was a former Pakastani Ambassador to China and he was a wise man. We were discussing international law and one of my fellow students commented that he didn't believe there was such a thing taking as evidence the then recent Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and several other instances of nations' flagrant disregard for so called international law. The Professor replied, in a delightful accent "Do not confuse the pathology of law with the existence of law." Classic.

Another interesting thing is how inevitable the disaster was. While it was a perfect storm of many little things for the Titanic, it was the general atmosphere of the day and specifically uneventful Atlantic crossings by steamers that would have eventually led to a similar tragedy, yet with a different ship. Captains had become complacent. The steamship lines were competing for the Blue Riband whether "officially" or not.

While the Titanic, a White Star Line steamship, was part of J.P. Morgan's nascent IMM (International Mercantile Marine) conglomerate, they (mostly Brits but Americans also) and the Germans were constantly one-upping each other - mainly to monopolize the route. Cargo and emigrants were where the bread-and-butter money was, though first class passengers weren't bad business either. If you think about it, going almost 24 knots back then, powered by steam, was a fearsome speed - let alone through ice fields littered with bergs and "growlers." Most cruise ships today certainly can't hit 23 - with most going 20. The Titanic was going 22.5 at the time she struck and it only took 10s to do 'er in.

Really, it's fascinating how many things came together to produce this catastrophe - which is why there was never a specific reason declared for it or anyone blamed despite two inquiries (American and British). Though it did come down to excessive speed in a hazardous area on paper... It wasn't that simple. Then there's a whole host of theories and supposed secrets, from weak steel/rivets, a coal bunker fire and even negligence and a coverup by the crew. The real truth is - we'll never really know.

Titanic's sister ships Oylmpic and Brittanic both had long service lives in spite of cheap steel and rivets. People forget the Hindenburg had a perfect safety record and H himself blamed the captain for what we today call 'hotdogging' with a sharp manuever coming in beyond the ship's performance limitations. We build complicated machines and it still comes down to leaving a wrench in a moon bound Apollo or surgical instruments inside a patient. My icebreaker skipper constantly lectured slow is safe and if something is bigger than you give it a wide berth.
I spent my final service days in San Francisco and had to 'qualify' a new ensign fresh out of a mid west ROTC college as a designated coxswain as part of a PR campaign. I was mildly concerned when, in all seriousness she asked me which ocean we were on? confused by seeing the upper pennisula and the mainland on both sides. I had to take her out on a night patrol and was told to cruise out to the Farallons; an area of fierce seas itself. We're cruising in total fog and she is convinced radar is showing the islands approaching rapidly. I knew, from experience and elapsed time there was no way we were close. She reminded me SHE was the officer thankyou very much as I pushed her aside and took the helm. I'm going full throttle, frantically turning the helm to port as this frieghter came down on us with visions of PT 109 or Mr Hobbs Takes A Vacation flashing in my mind. We cleared it by a few feet and bobbed in her wave bow and wake like a cork. She's throwing up, my deckie is white faced and the engineman came topside with a WTF? look. We came back in and she was awarded the pin after two cruises It took me a year to earn.
Richtofen said " It's not so much the machine, as the man in the machine." Does this apply to shaving?