Strat Jacket
Senior Stratmaster
Something against boomers? Or cell phones?
If the Titanic went down today.
- Thread starter Stratafied
- Start date
Actually, it is a mellenial cell phone joke
nifnof70
Senior Stratmaster
Correct. In fact, it may have been one of the first times to use the S.O.S. callout.
My response was more about the selfies meme, as it showed they were more interested in getting the right photo vs the intended purpose of object in hand...my dry humor at work!
albala
Dr. Stratster
stratman323
Dr. Stratster
That's a very confident answer. If it was true, would they all have been able to get in?
IMO. It would not have sank today. It would not have ever left port. It would have not received a seaworthness certificate. All the errors and mistakes, it was a sad confluence of events that would not have occurred these days.
stratman323
Dr. Stratster
I'm not sure I share your optimism about that. The ironically named Herald of Free Enterprise shouldn't have sunk leaving Zeebrugge in 1987. But It did.
Wasn't that attributed to leaving the bows doors open?
stratman323
Dr. Stratster
It was. General sloppiness from top to bottom, an assumption that everything would be fine.
Titanic of our time sunk almost 100 years later to date. It's name was Costa Concordia. It was also a case of capitain's lack of imagination and recklessness. You can research for yourselves the amount of chaos that occured during rescue actions, including italian coast guard officer Gregorio de Falco yelling on the captain Francisco Schettino , that ran away from the sinking ship and called himself a taxi home - sentenced for 16 years of prison. Dude wanted to impress a stewardess and decided to alter ship's usual route to show her some beautiful little islands. Rocky ones, as later occured.
And just to remember - the biggest maritime catastrophe of all time was german ship Wilhelm Gustloff, sunk on Baltic Sea about 15km from my previous apartament, 6600 casualties, in winter 1945 during World War 2, by russian submarine (no international laws broken, a military ship in convoy - a big mistake for evacuating civilians and wounded soldiers from eastern front).
An interesting fact - my grandmother and her family was supposed to be evacuated onboard this ship during this exact cruise. My great grandfather, a postman in Gdynia, Poland in 1945, polish citizen of german descendancy, refused to be evacuated to Germany.
And just to remember - the biggest maritime catastrophe of all time was german ship Wilhelm Gustloff, sunk on Baltic Sea about 15km from my previous apartament, 6600 casualties, in winter 1945 during World War 2, by russian submarine (no international laws broken, a military ship in convoy - a big mistake for evacuating civilians and wounded soldiers from eastern front).
An interesting fact - my grandmother and her family was supposed to be evacuated onboard this ship during this exact cruise. My great grandfather, a postman in Gdynia, Poland in 1945, polish citizen of german descendancy, refused to be evacuated to Germany.
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stratman323
Dr. Stratster
True, but I think you're being too kind to the Captain. The CC sank because of his macho arrogance, bravado & recklessness. And then, as you rightly said, he literally deserted his sinking ship.
We may never seen anything quite as bad as Titanic again, but huge maritime cockups still happen & people still die.
uncle daddy
Senior Stratmaster
Wossat in real money?
@uncle daddy -2 deg. Celsius you lazy bastard 
. Salty water has lower freezing temp. Enough to kill Leonardo I suppose. If only Rose moved her fat ass on that piece of wood!
. Salty water has lower freezing temp. Enough to kill Leonardo I suppose. If only Rose moved her fat ass on that piece of wood!
ThreeChordWonder
Senior Stratmaster
International Marine Organisation (IMO) and Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) conventions (international law) came into place at least in part due to the Titanic sinking.
If I recall the regs properly, there are supposed to be twice as many lifeboat and liferaft spaces as the maximum number of passengers and crew onboard. They are also required to be distributed down both sides of a ship, so that if the ship is capsizing, the lifeboats and rafts on one side can still be launched. There are also strict regs on the lifeboat and lifeboat design and on the designs of the davits (winches) used to lower them to the water.
stratman323
Dr. Stratster
Yes I know that. But experience since casts doubt on that, to me at least. That may be how things should work but life often doesn't work out that way. In order to be able to load 2000 to 3000 people into lifeboats in an emergency, there need to be regular drills & staff need to be on their A game.
Since the Herald of Free Enterprise sailed out of Zeebrugge in 1987 with a gaping hole in the bow from open doors that nobody had bothered to check (and no safety systems to warn them!), what are the chances that a crew under pressure from their bosses would have carried out that vital drill?
And if someone of the calibre of Captain Schettino of the Costa Concordia was in charge, he'd be too busy preening & posing to bother about boring old lifeboat drills, which would only cause complaints from rich passengers anyway.
ThreeChordWonder
Senior Stratmaster
Lifeboat drills are frequently held on merchant ships. We frequently had whole ship drills on North Sea diving vessels I worked on in the 90s. Passenger ships, ferries, even the Isle of Wight Ferry, are required to have drills for the crew, maybe passengers and crew, I dont know, as I havent been on a "liner" since my school cruise on the SS Uganda 40-odd years ago.
Ship designs have moved on immensely since 1910. Watertight compartments are required to extend to at least main deck level, and there are rules about how many compartments can flood before a ship sinks, how long it will take to sink, etc. Many ships are also "double hulled" meaning there's a secondary hull inside the first, so an iceberg ripping down the side won't breach the secondary hull. Super tankers and offshore construction vessels are normally built this way, I don't know about ferries or liners.
As for rogue captains, well, the US Coastguard does a pretty good job enforcing the rules on US flagged ships as well as foreign flagged ships entering US waters. Other parts of the world? Well.
Best bet if you're worried is probably to stick to the local boating lake.
Ship designs have moved on immensely since 1910. Watertight compartments are required to extend to at least main deck level, and there are rules about how many compartments can flood before a ship sinks, how long it will take to sink, etc. Many ships are also "double hulled" meaning there's a secondary hull inside the first, so an iceberg ripping down the side won't breach the secondary hull. Super tankers and offshore construction vessels are normally built this way, I don't know about ferries or liners.
As for rogue captains, well, the US Coastguard does a pretty good job enforcing the rules on US flagged ships as well as foreign flagged ships entering US waters. Other parts of the world? Well.
Best bet if you're worried is probably to stick to the local boating lake.
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