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Titanic Research Papers

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Titanic The sinking of the Titanic is one of the most famous maritime tragedies in the modern world. The Titanic sunk on April 15, 1912, while making her maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Even though the Titanic was deemed unsinkable by her builder, White Star line, she sank after striking an iceberg. This picture (NewYorkTimes.com) emphasizes the tragedy of the 1500 people that lost their life. While the loss of life was incredible, it could of have been prevented. There were only 20 lifeboats aboard the Titanic and this amount was not ample for the nearly 2,200 passengers aboard the ship. Another contributing factor to the loss of life was the lack of training on the operation of the life boats. (History1900s.about.com). Life boats were …show more content…

This number was only enough for 1178 passengers, only enough for about half of the 2,200 passengers aboard the Titanic (Fitch, Layton and Wormstedt, 116) She was able to carry up to sixty-four life boats, enough to carry 3,547 passengers, more than enough to carry all the passengers aboard the ship. There were several reasons given by Sir Alfred Chambers for the minimal number of life boats aboard the Titanic, to include that advancement in ship building made life boats not necessary, the latest boats being constructed were stronger and had watertight compartments, and the sea routes being used were well traveled making a collision at sea less likely (Fowler). The Titanic was originally planned to have forty-eight life boats by her designer Alexander Carlisle, however, the number of lifeboats was reduced to twenty to make the Titanic more aesthetically pleasing to the eye …show more content…

The crew was not trained in their duties to conduct the evacuation of the Titanic, this fact is evident in the fact that the first life boat launched from the Titanic was launched with only twenty eight passengers, instead of the sixty five that the lifeboat was designed to carry. The lifeboats aboard Titanic were assigned a crew member, who was responsible for the loading and lowering of the lifeboat; however, some crew members did not know their lifeboat assignments (Cale and Tate, 89). Another key fact that led to the crew not understanding their lifeboat assignments was the assignments were not posted until Saturday, the day before the Titanic struck the iceberg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. Ironically, also on Sunday April 15, 1912, Captain Edward Smith cancelled the life boat drill that was planned to be conducted for unknown reasons. Some of the reasons that are speculated to have caused the cancellation are blustery weather conditions and the fact that Captain Smith wanted to allow the passengers of the Titanic to attend Sunday church services. This combination of events led to the twenty lifeboats that were aboard the Titanic to be lowered with four hundred empty seats in them, dramatically reducing the number of survivors that survived that

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