Clemency suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

The Spectator on the sinking of the Titanic

Peter Hoskin

Sunday, 11th May 2008

The lessons of the Titanic
The Spectator, 20 April, 1912

The appalling loss of life in the Titanic and the story of what is in some ways the most terrible wreck in the history of shipping have not ony compelled the emotion of the whole world, but have turned both Great Britain and the United States to wide and solemn searchings of heart. The destruction of the largest ship afloat on her maiden voyage, of a ship reputed to be unsinkable, of a ship followed everywhere with admiring thoughts as the last word in ingenuity, in luxury, and in the impressive accomplishments of science, brings to every thoughtful person a depp sense of powerlessness, of smallness, and humility.

Although we do not know as we write these lines the details of the wreck, it is certain that the Titanic sruck an iceberg, and that there were not enough boats to take off about more than one in every three of the passengers. All the life-boats carried by the Titanic were picked up by the Carpathia and the passengers in them - chiefly women and children - were saved. Although there was a slight swell there was no wind, and one cannot possibly escape from the conclusion that if there had been enough boats all the passengers might have been saved.

Most people have learned with astonishment that it is possible for a ship like the Titanic to pass the Board of Trade test with an insufficient number of boats. They had suppsed hitherto that the invariable rule was 'boat-room for every passenger'. The fact is that the Board of Trade regulations are quite out of date. They have not been revised since 1902. It was assumed that vessels larger than 10,000 tons were unlikely to be built. The rule is that ships of 10,000 tons and upwards must carry at least sixteen boats 'under davits'

The Titanic probabaly had more boats 'under davits' than the law required. But when one remembers that the Titanic was of 46,000 tons, one is simply indignant and ashamed at the slowness of the Board of Trade to keep abreast of the times. It is useless to cry out against the White Star Company as though a crime had been committed. Not even a single British company, we believe, would have had a better equipment of boats, and some would have had a much worse one.

Let us look into the matter a little more closely. According to the Board of Trade regulations there must, of course, be life-saving appliances beside boats. If the boats in the davits do not provide room for all the passengers on board, there must be additional boats - which may be collapsible - or rafts. Unfortunately, here again there is a minimum standard which never contemplated the carrying of so many passengers as were in the Titanic. When the boats under davits and the additional boats required by law have been added together they need not exceed 24 in all. However many the Titanic had were not enough.

In fixing the minimum of additional boats to be carried the Board of Trade takes into account the construction of the ship; such a vessel as the Titanic is assumed to be for practical purposes unsinkable. The argument has run somewhat in this fashion. If a storm were bad enough to sink the Titanic no small boats could live in such a sea, and, therefore, it is immaterial whether there are few or many. Further, it is impossible for the Titanic to sink quickly even if she could sink at all; and as wireless telegraphy would bring other ships hurrying up to the rescue, the chief use of boats is to ferry passengers from one ship to another, and for that purpose a large number of boats is quite unnecessary.

We do not say that such an argument is any excuse for the failure to have enough boats or rafts - we distinctly think that it is not - but it is an explanation of why the conditions of disaster were accepted. The truth is that every passenger ship puts to sea with the assumption that disaster will not happen. The whole subject ought now to be threshed out and the proper provision of boats or rafts insisted on for ships of whatever size they may be. It is necessary seriously to meet the tragically established fact that the largest ship in the world may be so damaged that she will sink just like a chealy built tramp steamer.