2200 into 20 won't go
Published: Thu, 03/16/17
I have always been fascinated by the Titanic story, the sinking of the world’s largest passenger ship on the 14th of April 2012 in the North Atlantic Ocean. I can’t remember when I first became aware of the tragedy in which only 713 of those aboard were saved out of the more than 1500 who had embarked, but I must have been quite young. The story got quite a boost in the mid 1980s when Dr Robert D. Ballard managed to discover the wreck and make a detailed survey of the wreckage. Then in 1997 the James Cameron’s film by the same name was released and has made over 2 billion dollars at the box office. My current renewal of interest comes from two volumes I picked up at a book sale recently. One is the aforementioned Dr Ballard’s account of discovering the wreck, a beautifully illustrated tale of personal determination combined with the cutting edge technology of the 1980s. The second is simply called ‘The Titanic, end of a dream’ by
Wyn Craig Wade who is obviously something of an obsessive (not that I am one to judge) but writes very well about the historical context of the building of the Titanic, the disaster as it was reported and a detailed account of the investigation that followed.
Of course the two big questions about the sinking were; first, why did it happen? and second, why such a huge loss of life? The answer to the first question is well known, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sustained damage that caused her to sink. It probably was avoidable, most disasters are with hind sight, but, stuff happens. The second question has the much more disturbing answer. Once damaged the Titanic came to a halt. The sky was clear, the water dead calm and the ship sank with her decks more or less level over a period of more than two hours (collision was reported at 2340 hrs on the Sunday night, the ship actually sinks at about 0220 hrs on Monday morning.) Well over two hours to get everyone into a life boat and safely out of the way. The air temperature was pretty cold but the Carpathia, first ship to arrive as a response to the Titanic’s distress calls, was on the scene and collecting survivors by just after 0400hrs,
apparently the last survivor was on board by 0830 hrs. An ordeal for those in the life boats certainly but it could have been worse. So, why only just over 700 survivors? There were only 20 life boats which could have accommodated a maximum of 1,178 people out of the more than 2200 passengers and crew. In the event, the evacuation was so badly managed that many of the life boats were lowered with capacity still available. In one particularly notorious case a boat with 40 places set off with just 12 people aboard. A few people were rescued alive from the water but the final tally of 713 survivors speaks for itself.
Where there regulations regarding life boats which the White Star Line (owners of the Titanic) had ignored? Yes and no. For ships registered in the UK, any vessel exceeding 15,000 tons had to provide no less than 16 life boats. The Titanic actually carried 20 lifeboats. The problem was that the Titanic actually weighed 46,000 tons so the regulations were failing to keep up with the technology of the time. Had the Titanic been registered in the USA she would have needed over 40 lifeboats to be compliant with American regulations. The original designer, Alexander Carlisle, intended the ship to carry at least 32 life boats but the owners preferred to use the space and payload for more first class accommodation and luxury amenities.
Why does the story of the Titanic still interest some people even today? It does have something for everyone, technological triumph (in both the building of the ship and the discovery of the wreck), history, romance, human interest and the forensic inquiry into the disaster which is fully documented. There is
also the aspect of predicting the future and seeing what may happen if certain lines of action are taken. Great endeavours will always involve risk. Untried technologies will inevitably bring surprises. On the other hand, certain decisions will make disasters more likely when blatant risks are taken. It should not be hard to see that if don’t provide for a particular situation then you cannot afford to have it arise. 2200 people were never going to fit into 20 life boats.
Proper knowledge of self-defence is like this. You may get through life without ever having a physically threatening encounter. But, isn’t worth knowing some very basic principles of self-protection just in case something goes wrong? If not to you, then what would you advise someone who respects your advice on the subject of personal safety? A little knowledge can be dangerous of course. However, a little knowledge can also be better than nothing if it enables you to guide someone else to an authoritative source of teaching.
Next week I am holding a 90 minute seminar on the absolute basics of self-defence, awareness, distance and posture and where to go to learn more should you want to. More details at http://www.somersetstav.co.uk
regards
Graham
PS If you want to go a bit further in your quest for self-defence knowledge then come to the CQC weapons seminar on the 8th and 9th of April http://www.somersetstav.co.uk/cqcweapons.html