LogFAQs > #975037556

Lordgold666 posted...

Really gives you some peace of mind seeing how far weve come since titanic

That's not exactly fair. The usage of liners has drastically changed since then. Back in Titanics day, you didn't really have liners serving as a recreational entities. Liners were more akin to what airplanes serve now: a means of getting from point A to point B.

So because all the liners were serving the same purpose, they all more or less followed the same routes, meaning there would be another liner within distance in case a liner needed aid. The idea was if shit hit the fan, another ship would come. Titanic would lower their lifeboats which would ferry passengers to the other ship, while that ship would lower it's lifeboats and send them to Titanic who would fill those and send them back to other ship. The system actually worked pretty well, and there was actually a similar incident with WSL where minimum casualties occurred a year or so before Titanic's sinking.

The issue April 14 was that it was truly a bizarre freak occurrence. First, you have a massive ice berg field in places where bergs were atypical. This was a major issue because Californian wasn't expecting it and realized it was too dangerous to navigate the field. They warned Titanic who dutifully adjusted it's course far more south than typical. So on top of the freak berg field, you get a freak berg itself venturing way south. There is plenty of analysis that had Californian not been trapped it could have made it time to save virtually every passenger.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and liners now prepare for the 1 in a million incidents like Titanic.