Titanic Arrogance

So how did a ship that was apparently built to be impregnable sink on its maiden voyage? The genuine account of the Titanic's sinking is a catalogue of errors, ineptitude and negligence. In truth the Titanic was designed more for comfort than safety. The 16 watertight compartments that comprised the hulls were not extended very far upwards, "so as not to interfere with the spacious passenger areas". This compromise made the ship vulnerable from the outset. Worse still was the dark secret the Titanic was hiding behind its pristine hulls. Some of its coal had caught fire when it sailed for Southampton and remained alight for the entire journey. Luckily the fire did not spread but "had the trade surveyor known, the ship never would have had clearance to sail". Even worse still, when the Titanic set sail it was not equipped with enough lifeboats. In the years preceding the launch the safety regulations for cruise liners did not categorize ships by passenger numbers but by weight. Not only this, they also foresaw the maximum weight category as 10,000 tons, while the Titanic was 46,000 tons. As a result regulations did not require any rationalization of lifeboats and passenger numbers. It almost seems too stupid to believe but it's the truth. Yet even these disastrous oversights could have gone unnoticed if it wasn't for captain EJ Smith, a man picked for his social rather than sailing skills. His career had been defined by a series of close calls, "Over the years he'd been involved in a number of scrapes, groundings and near misses...".

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