If the Titanic went down today.

[ThreeChordWonder]

I was in a band called "The Titanics" in the late 70's early 80's.

You can guess what happened to that one.

History or legend tells us that the band / orchestra was playing the hymn "Abide With Me" as they sank beneath the waves.

In the worst possible taste, what would the band of today be playing?

Here's a couple of suggestions to get the ball rolling...

 

[Green Craig]

Actually, it is a mellenial cell phone joke

Ah right, those Millennials (spelling) and their "Damn kids these days can't put their cell phone down" jokes.

 

[Boubou]

Ah right, those Millennials (spelling) and their "Damn kids these days can't put their cell phone down" jokes.

Actually it’s mellenials as in the narcissistic navel gazing “me”. I personally hate all this discrimination on age but there is always someone that starts it, sadly

 

[Green Craig]

Actually it’s mellenials as in the narcissistic navel gazing “me”. I personally hate all this discrimination on age but there is always someone that starts it, sadly

The "Me" Generation were Baby Boomers.

Age discrimination? You mean like making negative stereotypes and jokes about persons younger than you?

 

[Mansonienne]

Reminder: politics of mentioning any politician by name is strictly forbidden

 

[AntStrat]

 

[stratman323]

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.

I hope your confidence is justified. You paint a very rosy picture. But there's no point in having a double or even triple hull if you leave the doors at the front wide open & sail into open sea. And nobody notices or checks.

As for the Concordia, I'm not aware of the situation with lifeboats, but even if there had been regular drills, they wouldn't have been much use when faced with a "captain" who sailed into some rocks while illegally detouring to wave at his mates, & who pushed past passengers to get into a lifeboat to get away from the ship he sunk.

This thread is in remarkably bad taste even for Strat Talk where the bar was already pretty low. 1500 people died. To make it much much worse, many of them were American!

So what else is now OK to laugh about on ST? How about a thread about how hysterical 9/11 was? Oh those people jumping from the burning building! That Van Halen track would be perfect. How funny!! IIRC correctly, around 2000 people died that day, so it was in the same league as Titanic when you look at death count.

Anyone wanna start that thread? If not, why is this one OK?

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

I hope your confidence is justified. You paint a very rosy picture. But there's no point in having a double or even triple hull if you leave the doors at the front wide open & sail into open sea. And nobody notices or checks.

As for the Concordia, I'm not aware of the situation with lifeboats, but even if there had been regular drills, they wouldn't have been much use when faced with a "captain" who sailed into some rocks while illegally detouring to wave at his mates, & who pushed past passengers to get into a lifeboat to get away from the ship he sunk.

This thread is in remarkably bad taste even for Strat Talk where the bar was already pretty low. 1500 people died. To make it much much worse, many of them were American!

So what else is now OK to laugh about on ST? How about a thread about how hysterical 9/11 was? Oh those people jumping from the burning building! That Van Halen track would be perfect. How funny!! IIRC correctly, around 2000 people died that day, so it was in the same league as Titanic when you look at death count.

Anyone wanna start that thread? If not, why is this one OK?

Whether you like it or not, we all learn from disasters.

The Titanic, which sank over 100 years ago, wasn't the first ship to sink by any means, and the Olympic class liners even featured new, watertight bulkheads, a first, to try and make them "unsinkable". It was just a shame they werent extended all the way to the underside of the main deck, as they are today. A lesson learned from the Titanic disaster, as was making sure there's one lifeboat place for every person onboard.

What caused and what happened with The Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, 35 years ago, resulted in major changes being made to the design and operation of ferries across Europe. At the time, leaving port with the bow doors open, closing them as the ships left harbor, was common practice.

We've learned from countless minor and major air accidents, car crashes, you name it. But you can't use engineering to control idiocy like the Costa Concordia master who steered his ship onto the rocks, or the master of the ExxonValdez (drunk IIRC), or the rogue airline pilot who decides to end it all and crash his plane into the ocean.

To contend that the Titanic disaster was somehow worse because, oh my goodness, Americans died, is fatuous in the extreme. Would you care to comment on the values of the lives lost that weren't Anerican, or, say, on the lives lost on American-BUILT DC10s, 737Max8s, etc.?

And no-one is making fun of the 9/11 attacks.

 

[stratman323]

To contend that the Titanic disaster was somehow worse because, oh my goodness, Americans died, is fatuous in the extreme. Would you care to comment on the values of the lives lost that weren't Anerican, or, say, on the lives lost on American-BUILT DC10s, 737Max8s, etc.?

And no-one is making fun of the 9/11 attacks.

I was being ironic, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on that. I thought you described yourself as a Brit? Have you forgotten that famous Not The Nine o' Clock News sketch from around 1978 when Mel Smith plays the newsreader reporting on a fictitious plane crash? From memory, he said something like.

"The deceased included, in order of importance, 22 British, 12 Canadians, 5 Americans, 4 French, 3 Germans & several Africans".

I can't find that sketch but I found this.



I know that nobody is making fun of 9/11 & I'm not suggesting that they should do. But why not? 9/11 was every bit as funny (or not...) as the Titanic sinking. If one is funny enough to make 4 pages on here, why not the other?

 

[PonyB]

I know that nobody is making fun of 9/11 & I'm not suggesting that they should do. But why not? 9/11 was every bit as funny (or not...) as the Titanic sinking. If one is funny enough to make 4 pages on here, why not the other?

One was a terrible accident.
One was not.
Capiche?

 

[stratman323]

One was a terrible accident.
One was not.
Capiche?

No, that's a gross over simplification. Titanic was not a terrible accident at all - don't you know what happened? Is criminal negligence & a callous & arrogant disregard for human life amusing to you?

 

[PonyB]

No, that's a gross over simplification. Titanic was not a terrible accident at all - don't you know what happened?

Then have it at.
Best of luck.

 

[stratman323]

Then have it at.

What does that mean?

 

[PonyB]

What does that mean?

Equate the two incidents and justify it.

 

[stratman323]

Equate the two incidents and justify it.

That doesn't make sense, please try again.

If any of you think that 9/11 was too awful to joke about while Titanic was funny, you are badly screwed up & should be ashamed.

 

[PonyB]

That doesn't make sense, please try again.

If any of you think that 9/11 was too awful to joke about while Titanic was funny, you are badly screwed up & should be ashamed.

Okay, words aren't your thing.
Do you understand pictures?

 

[stratman323]

Okay, words aren't your thing.
Do you understand pictures?

Saying that laughing at the deaths of 1500 people is in bad taste is being a troll?

OK cool. I'm a troll & you're a complete idiot. Do you need a pic to explain that to you?

 

[PonyB]

Saying that laughing at the deaths of 1500 people is in bad taste is being a troll?

OK cool. I'm a troll & you're a complete idiot. Do you need a pic to explain that to you?

Calm down.
You're getting hysterical.

 

[Gardavan]

Calm down.
You're getting hysterical.

I think @stratman323 is having a bad day. I effectively told him to do the same in another thread today. I see he called you a complete idiot and me stupid . . . that tells the bigger story for sure!