I think it's sometimes lost in the fascination with and dramatic romanticizing of the Titanic wreckage site that 1,514 people died. There were 2,223 people on board. There were 20 lifeboats that would hold 1,178 people.
Many of the lifeboats were launched less than full. Only 709 people made it onto those boats.
Consider this...the full ship's capacity was 2,435 passengers and 892 crew. If Titanic had been full on this her maiden and only voyage, there were lifeboats aboard for a third of the souls. And that was by design and in accordance with existing maritime law.
Have you heard the phrase "failure of imagination"? The builders of Titanic failed to imagine that anything could go wrong with their mammoth creation. They failed to imagine any possible need to remove every passenger and every member of the crew in the middle of a frigid ocean. Outdated maritime regulations failed to imagine that new laws must be enacted to ensure that every soul had a place on a lifeboat should any disaster occur at sea.
No technological advance has yet been invented to counterbalance the basic reality of human frailty in the face of disaster, and especially of disaster at sea. To decide that one has built an unsinkable ship, and to make a considered decision not to outfit it with enough rescue equipment to at least try to save every soul on board, is the height of human hubris and ego.
It is tragic that men were forced to choose death so that their loved ones could be put aboard those few lifeboats. It is tragic that many third class passengers couldn't get to the lifeboat decks, and so drowned. It is tragic that people put on life vests and plunged into frigid water, hoping to hang on until another ship came to save them, only to freeze within minutes.
On this, the 100th commemoration of the sinking of RMS Titanic, I remember those who died. I remember those whose lives were irrevocably altered by the loss of loved ones.
I remember how senseless and needlessly 1,514 people perished.
RMS Titanic and 1,514 souls
15 April 1912
Requiescat in pace
