The unsinkable "TITANIC"

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April 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of  RMS "TITANIC". The ship was order nr 401 at the famous Belfast Shipyard HARLAND AND WOLFF. The ship of dreams was believed to be unsinkable  because of the revolutionary design of the bulkheads, she was the most advanced engineering project produced by men. TITANIC was lost on her maiden voyage with the loss of 1503 people, the sinking of the largest ship in the world at the time, made her the most best-known liner of all time and certainly the most talked about passenger ship in history.
TITANIC collided with an iceberg on the night of the 14th of April 1912 apparently ignoring the warnings of  unusual amounts of ice and icebergs drifting south on that particular year. To this day controversy surrounds the circumstances of this collision, there were accusations of negligence by the Captain and some of his officers, accusations against the Chairman of the White Star Line for insisting that the ship was kept at 21 knots, considered to be excessive for the circumstances despite warnings of icebergs on the ships route, but the most glaring aspect of the tragedy was the lack of lifeboats on board TITANIC. In those calm seas the majority of people would have been saved, had there been sufficient lifeboats for passengers and crew

Shock waves travelled around the world with the news of the sinking, there were few corners on earth not affected by the accident. If it's possible to say that any good came out of the sinking of the TITANIC, was that the rules for safety at sea were overhauled and amended, among these a complete set of new legislation requiring that every registered sea-going ship should carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board


All images in this post from my private collection

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