Was the Titanic Unsinkable? No it wasn’t. I mean Unsinkable is a word that can mean one thing and yet it’s been applied a few times in history to things that absolutely could sink. Today the word is still attached to one disaster in particular one that shocked the public so severely back then. That Debate still rages around it today. Titanic ship has come to stand as a symbol of hubris and pride of man tempting nature and fate and of ignorant foolish designers and engineers boasting loudly about their achievements. The truth is that’s not the whole story. How that word came to be associated with Titanic is a complex and interesting story there was a whole series of disasters and accidents that had happened to ships before Titanic that her design team had learned lessons from and tried to implement into their ship’s design. If it was Titanic ever actually even marketed to the public as unsinkable who even used that word. Why do people think the ship couldn’t actually sink?

Advanced Technology of Titanic

It’s almost impossible to bring up Titanic in discussion without the word unsinkable being thrown around a little bit. I mean after all she was considered an Engineering Marvel for her time with so many technologically advanced safety components. She was thought to be virtually invincible. This is why the news of her loss was met with disbelief shock and palpable outrage by the public. It was a textbook example of hubris man proclaiming dominion over nature, the nature responding by having the final word it’s like one of my favourite quotes, “Man proposes and God disposes.” But it may surprise you to know that the word unsinkable had been used many times before for other ships. The Titanic’s Designers and Builders had actually put a lot of thought into learning from other disasters to try to properly earn the moniker. So first let’s try to understand where the word even came from and how it came to be associated with Titanic.

History

Now the first thing to consider is the Monumental Leap Forward from all the forms of transport to ocean liners like the Titanic, it was like a space age jump. In the 1850s People were still sailing for months at a time on Tiny sailing ships of about 3000 tons which is 50 years later a 20000 ton passenger steamship could cross the Atlantic in just five days. There was an extraordinary time in rules and regulations, we’re just simply struggling to keep up. In the late 1800s and early 1900s at the height of what’s widely considered the Golden Age of ocean liners competition was fierce amongst rival shipping companies who were vying to offer the most extraordinary passenger travel experience are available transatlantic crossings aboard. Massive passenger ships were becoming not only a comfortable means of travel but a status symbol among society’s Elites.

Race

By building the most luxurious and talked about liners at Sea, a shipping company could cement their standing as the go-to choice for Rich Travelers Cunard and White Star Line Britain’s main two lines were the main opponents entrenched in this war. The European companies like North German Lloyd, Hamburg America line and France’s Company. A French line were also involved. It was a dizzying race and a very famous one when one company would successfully build and launch what was then considered the grandest liner ever built by humankind. Another company would respond quickly with a bigger faster and more luxurious liner and reclaim the spotlight. This happened for decades leading up to Titanic’s launch.

The wealthiest members of society would tend to travel in groups and would only Sail on the best of the best meaning. That is If a company could win over one notable public figure they would likely win over their friends family and colleagues as well. It was a classic capitalist Necker Neck contest to secure the loyalty and cash of some of the most influential people alive. Most people tend to think that profits for the big shipping companies were driven only by the migrant trade but actually it was wealthier travellers in first class who brought in the most revenue.

Unsinkable Ships

By 1908 Cunard lion had recently launched sister ship’s Lusitania and Mauritania which at the time were the fastest and most lavish passenger liners ever built. Both ships had snagged the highly coveted blue ribbon for the fastest transatlantic crossing which was an honoured that further drove wealthy clientele toward one-liner over another. Mauritania would end up holding onto this record for an astounding 19 years. And this is where we learned the first interesting fact about the word Unsinkable because Titanic was not even the first ship to have the word attached to it before the term had been tossed around for Olympic and Titanic’s construction.

It had been used by a trade Journal called the shipbuilder in 1907. When discussing Cunard Lions Mauritania and Lusitania calling them quote, ‘Practically Unsinkable' and heralding their modern and cutting-edge safety innovations. It wasn’t just the Cunarda’s either, the term Unsinkable was applied to German liners like Kaiser Wilhelm de Closer by highlighting how safe their ships were in their marketing shipping. Companies like white star hoped to soothe the fears of a still nervous public but these companies were also rather clever with how they worded their claims for centuries to set out to sea for travel was to take your life into your own hands.

Disasters

White Starlight and Cunard had both lost ships and disasters in their early days ships had been driven onto rocks and lost in storms with hundreds of lives lost. Even before then in the golden days of sale, whole ships would simply disappear by their dozens on the passenger trade to Australia. In the early 1800s many ships would simply vanish in the vicinity of icebergs drifting up from Antarctica. The lock line operated a whole fleet of 25 smart new modern sailing ships out to Australia but only five would ever be scrapped because the majority of the rest were lost in accidents groundings storms or they simply disappeared at sea. This is exactly the kind of environment the Titanic was born out of.

For the longest time people were afraid of the ocean and they had good reason to be. Seas could generate waves the size of mountains and ships could be swallowed whole and never seen again. Before Titanic’s sinking grip the world’s imagination horrible stories like the loss of the SS Birkenhead and the SS Arctic ran in the papers and terrified readers. This is also the environment that Titanic’s owners operated in and even most of her crew, Titanic’s captain Edward John Smith was a veteran of the days of sale and he’d seen and heard it all.

The sea was a scary place in fact Captain Smith had started out on sailing ships of maybe one or two thousand tons but by 1907, he was in command of white star Line’s Newest liner the enormous 20,000 ton Ship Adriatic. Vessel modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that. This was five years before even the introduction of Titanic and already in the press. This new breed of ship was being touted as impervious to disaster. Four years later Smith would be in command of Olympic more than twice the size of Adriatic. So what kinds of disasters and accidents had guided the design and construction of Titanic.

Guided By Drown Ships

Well we’ve all heard about her so-called watertight bulkheads and doors, the deficiency of lifeboats got by the idea that the ship was itself a lifeboat. There are dozens of disasters that had guided the design of ships like Titanic. But then in 1909 just three years prior to the sinking of the ship another ship sank which seemed to prove that the new designs worked. The White Starliner RMS Republic known as The Millionaires ship due to the number of affluent passengers who are fond of traveling aboard the steamer was making her crossing from New York City to the Mediterranean.

When she encountered some heavy fog off the island of Nantucket realizing the very real threat of the poor weather conditions and extremely limited visibility, Republic maintained her speed and regularly signalled her presence to any nearby ships using her whistles. But suddenly at around 5:45 AM another ship’s whistle was heard by the crew and it sounded close the Italian liner SS Florida appeared out of the fog colliding with Republican Midship on a port side flooding the engine in boiler rooms. Fortunately for the passengers the sinking of the Republic was a slow process taking nearly nine hours to fully found her and it was all thanks to the lessons that had been learned and the design choices that have been made, the watertight bulkheads these huge interior steel walls which could be sealed off prevented water from quickly spreading throughout the ship. Crucially though the state-of-the-art Marconi wireless system found on board the Republic was used to send one of history’s first ever distress signals to call for assistance from a ship by the time the ship went under all passengers had been successfully transferred to other vessels aboard the Republic’s lifeboats.

It was believed that with maritime traffic increasing even in the deadliest of situations, another ship would always be a nearby to receive a distress call like this and rescue all the passengers on board. Miraculously the only deaths attributed to this accident were six people who perished as a result of the Collision itself rather than in the sinking. The sinking of the Republic represented a newer safer era in Sea travel unbolstered by technological advancements that made Peril at Sea. You seemed like a thing of the past but even if a ship did sink thanks to new safety measures, the ship’s lifeboats would only ever need to be used to transfer survivors from one ship to another.

The concept was proved and the lessons were learned and ingrained. So how could you blame the shipping industry and the world’s public for getting swept up in the enthusiasm and excitement when ships started to get bigger and size was not just a matter of marketing. By the way a bigger ship was more stable, it was less at risk of being swallowed whole by the ocean or damaged by some massive wave. It was just safer modern ships getting bigger and safer all the time. It makes sense that words like Unsinkable would get thrown around especially when Olympic and Titanic, which were three times larger and far more advanced than Republic were being constructed.

Design

Now as we know advancements in both ship design and safety. It had come a long way since the days of sale and it was thought at the time that features such as watertight compartments would render any vessel equipped with them virtually impervious to hazards like grounding rough weather or collisions at sea. The watertight compartments were designed to run the entire width of the lower portion of the ship breaking it up into 16 sections each of which could be individually sealed off via special watertight doors. Some which could actually be activated by an electrical switch on the bridge doing so the incoming water could be contained within these compartments without flooding. The entire ship allowing her to stay afloat even with damage to the hull. Now this was considered Cutting Edge at that time because in years prior any breach of the ship’s Hull could Spell immediate disaster with this new and advanced technology passengers no longer needed to fear the ship foundering due to taking on water or running aground and it was this safety measure in particular that earned Titanic and her contemporaries the title Practically Unsinkable.

Origin

Now where does that term actually come from? Well, In reality, though there were virtually no examples of any ship being advertised as simply unsinkable that is to say without the qualifiers, This brings us to the marketing and Word of Mouth advertising behind ships like Titanic. It was easy enough to relay the safety of your ship to a restless client Hell White Star Line took no chances when it came to making actual legitimate promises on paper.

Advertising

In fact in almost all printed marketing relating to Titanic or any passenger liners of the day the ships were not ever referred to as simply Unsinkable. The word was not even used on postcards or posters by the ship’s owners but the word was used once in September 1910, publicity brochure advertising Titanic and Olympic. While the standards of the day and as well as they were able to Harland and Wolf Titanic’s designers had made their ships as Unsinkable as conventional. Wisdom and experience had taught them by including the phrase as far as it is possible to do so. The brochure’s wording was insinuating that it is actually impossible to build a ship that could never sink now while this may seem like a technicality or a small semantic difference, it’s that exact tightrope walk that kept companies like White Starline, Harland and Wolf in the clear legally while still maintaining an air of dominance.

When it came to talking about the safety of their ships, the shipbuilder which was a publication largely responsible for liners being advertised as Unsinkable in print may not have been so original in their reporting as one might think. According to Maritime historian Bill sorter much of the writing found within the pages of the shipbuilder had likely been supplied by the White Star Line directly with very few changes made to the copy between the shipping journals article. White star Line’s own publicity, the common idea of Titanic being touted as Unsinkable by dozens of independent papers journals and brochures before the sinking seems to really diminish in gravity. When you consider that the origin of many of those claims can be traced back to one not so impartial source word of mouth was a powerful tool.

For this type of advertising and it was especially effective in the booking process. This was 1912 of course and era well before the Advent of the internet and travel booking websites, in order to book passage on a ship you’d have to speak to a travel agent to help facilitate your plans arriving at the travel agency and undoubtedly brimming with questions potential passengers were reassured by White Star agents that yes of course the Titanic was Unsinkable and sure enough these claims of unsinkability spread and were beginning to seep into the Mythos surrounding the ship even before she departed Southampton and there are many examples and testimonials supporting this fact.

Real-life incident

Take this example one of the most notable passengers of all the Titanic was the British fashion designer lady Duff Gordon. She found herself in need of quick travel arrangements due to sudden and Urgent business in New York. But upon arriving at the White Star officers in Liverpool and meeting with the clerk she was told that due to the short notice they would only be able to accommodate her on the maiden voyage of a brand new ship the RMS Titanic. Though she had made the transatlantic Crossing several times before lady Duff Gordon found herself nervous at the prospect of sailing aboard a new and unfamiliar ship. The clerk scoffed at her hesitance and replied of, “All things I should imagine you could not possibly feel nervous on the Titanic while the boat is absolutely Unsinkable. Her watertight compartments would enable her to weather the fiercest storm ever known” which his last word in comfort and luxury then maybe as a final selling point to sway lady Duff Gordon, the clerk added, “This first voyage is going to make history in Ocean Travel.” Unfortunately he was right now.

Confidence?

Claims about Titanic’s unsinkability can actually be traced to the ship’s Builders and even some of her Officers and crew especially her captain one man recalled in a newspaper report from 1912 that Captain Smith had used the word Unsinkable to describe his ship. After a collision with the British warship Hawk apparently Smith had said the Olympic is Unsinkable and Titanic will be the same. When she is put in commission, why either of these vessels could be cut in halves and each would remain afloat almost indefinitely. Smith’s description of being able to cut or damage Titanic into sections and those sections ability to remain afloat is corroborated by three separate witnesses on three separate occasions and we don’t need to wonder very much where he got that specific turn of phrase from Eleanor Casabir, was a first-class passenger who recalled that Thomas Andrews Titanic’s chief designer had told her the exact same thing.

White star Harland and Wolf might have avoided heavy use of the word Unsinkable in their published brochures and material but it seems like the ship’s design team and crew were not afraid of spreading the word and it worked there are dozens of examples of witnesses and survivors recalling the word Unsinkable being used and spread between both friends and officials. Now unfortunately the spread of these claims had taken hold of many aboard once the ship said Sail to the extent that even once the ship was actually sinking many passengers and even officers still did not deign to question the Integrity of their vessel. Most assume that even though the ship was compromised listing and visibly going down by the head, she would still manage to stay afloat until rescue arrived like Republic had passengers were told to put on their life belts. But many considered the procedure needless aboard a ship that they believed to be Unsinkable and even once women and children were beginning to be ushered into lifeboats many hesitated to board them beneath their feet at the same time. The same two men who had told them the ship could be cut into two or three sections and stay afloat Thomas Andrews and Captain Smith were stood staring at tons and tons of water pouring in and calculating just how much time was left after the disaster.

Disbelief

On the morning of April 15, 1912 the already sunken Titanic was still being lauded as Unsinkable to the Press Philip Franklin of the International Mercantile Marine which was Titanic’s ultimate owner was speaking to the Press regarding reports that the Titanic had struck an iceberg overnight. There had still not been any confirmation of her Sinking by that point and Franklin was determined to dispel any rumours that the ship had gone down. He made several different statements to different Publications assuring them and their readers that there was no danger of the iceberg having caused the ship to sink. He repeated again and again his conviction that no fatal damage had fallen Titanic emphasizing that even, if the ship had gone down several feet by the head it would not interfere with her successfully completing her maiden voyage. However later that day news began to arrive that yes the Unsinkable Titanic had in fact founded and Franklin made one final statement to the Press upon hearing the news with tears in his eyes he is quoted as saying,

“I thought, her unsinkable and I based my opinion on the best expert advice I do not understand it. So much Faith had been put into the design of Titanic’s watertight bulkheads doors and compartments and in theory the idea seemed sound enough but today we all know where the failure points were. The water line water could simply spill over the top and then have its run of the ship. The bulkheads slowed the sinking down to be sure but if they reached higher up then it’s likely Titanic could have remained afloat into the next morning and day.”

There is still some debate around exactly why Titanic’s bulkheads weren’t designed to be tall enough supposedly. The decision to keep the bulkheads from reaching the upper decks was due to passenger convenience. It would prove difficult to move throughout the ship with bulkheads separating larger areas making the already labyrinthine corridors even more confusing to navigate. Doorways and the elegant first and second-class corridors would be interrupted by thick ugly combings. This was considered to be a non-starter in an era when ocean liners were becoming known for their open and Airy spaces. Moreover it seems the shipbuilders considered the height of the bulkheads to be more than sufficient. They simply couldn’t conceive of an idea or a circumstance under which the bulkheads would need to extend any higher. Titanic could remain afloat with four of her forward compartments breached which was an amazing number the kind of disaster that would breach any more than that just had never been encountered before.

Aftermath

In 1882 an article from Scientific American they detailed the importance of fortifying ships until they were unsinkable stating a full 30 year before the Titanic disaster, that the whole thing is only a matter of money. An unsinkable ship is entirely feasible clearly this was a goal that had transfixed the shipping industry for decades and was not exclusive to Titanic. But unfortunately this thinking was a little too far ahead of its time because even in our modern era with all the cutting-edge technology we have at our disposal we have yet to master the art of the unsinkable ship. With doubtless learned a thing or two about hubris as a result of Titanic and Tragedies like it now as we look back it’s almost hard not to Marvel at the audacity of it all.

Conclusion

The arm is Titanic the mightiest grandest ship afloat sent to an untimely and grisly end when just mere hours prior officers and passengers alike had chatted about the great fortune that they shared being among the first to sail aboard an unsinkable ship. That was ultimately just as sinkable as any other. Remarkably though the story doesn’t actually end there because in the wake of the Titanic disaster her sister ship Olympic was pulled from service and fully refurbished her safety features were enhanced a full you know Hull was installed and a watertight bulkheads were raised high up the hull with many reaching as high up as B deck. She was laden with dozens of lifeboats and when she was revealed to the world she was referred to as the new Olympic the New York Times reported the White Starliner Olympic left Southampton today on her first trip for New York. Since she was fitted with a double steel bottom and additional bulkheads that are declared by her owners to make her Unsinkable around a month after the disaster in May 1912 Bruce Ismay the man who had dreamed up Olympic and Titanic made a statement in an interview and it’s poignant because Ismay was deeply affected by the loss of his ship. He would never be the same again, he said

“Everybody learns by experience one thing that I learned when the Titanic went down is that the laws relating to the preservation of Life are not adequate. They were based no doubt on the assumption that the great ocean liners were their highly developed systems of bulkheads were Unsinkable but experience has taught us that at present there is no such thing as an unsinkable ship. I admit that I was among those who were deluded on this point. I had gone along like the rest of the steamship men on the theory that our ships were Unsinkable.”

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