One hundred years ago today Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast Ireland was putting the final touches on a ship that would hold the title of the world’s largest passenger liner but her glory would be brief. On 15 April of the following year, 1912, she would claim a more ominous title as the world’s most infamous ship. Her name was the RMS Titanic.

Scores of books have been written chronicling the disaster but few take the time to understand the men behind the tragedy. In a new book titled HOW TO SURVIVE THE TITANIC, Award-winning historian Frances Wilson delivers a gripping account of the incident. By investigating the ship’s collision and sinking through the prism of the demolished life and lost honor of the ship’s owner, J. Bruce Ismay, Wilson brings a bright new perspective to the event raising provocative moral questions about cowardice and heroism, memory and identity, survival and guilt—questions that revolve around Ismay’s loss of honor and identity as his monolithic venture —a ship “The Unsinkable” — was swallowed by the sea and subsumed in infamy forever.

The book is more than a gripping tale of survival, it’s also a window into the role ship managers and shipping tycoons play in the instigation of maritime tragedies. The consolidation of major shipping and energy companies in recent years have created mega-conglomerates like Transocean and BP, companies in which CEO’s are responsible for the management of increasing risks and operational complexity.

While modern technology and regulations have made sweeping changes to the operation and safety of ships since the Titanic, as told by Wilson, the fundamental cause of disaster is the human element. The character, motivations and personality of CEO’s play an important role in safety at sea. This, unfortunately, has not changed.

The fundamental element of human nature and corporate decision-making on ship safety is just as relevant today as it was 100 years ago.

To help us understand the role of Ismay, the ship’s master Captain Smith and other executives responsible for the Titanic’s sinking, gCaptain sat down with Frances Wilson for the following exclusive interview:

John Konrad: What were the personality or cultural differences that caused Capt Smith to stay and Ismay to leave?

Frances Wilson: The crucial difference, as far as Ismay was concerned, was one of role. Smith was the Captain and therefore expected to go down with the ship, while Ismay, as chairman of the White Star Line, was in an ambiguous position when it came to survival. He was neither a member of the crew (with a duty to die) nor a regular passenger (he had not paid for his ticket). The subsequent inquiries into the disaster suggested that Ismay was a ‘Super Captain’ and should therefore have sacrificed his life, but he argued that he had no authority over Captain Smith, that he was simply on board the Titanic to report back faults in her design and possible improvements. Ismay left the ship, I believe, because he fell through all the important categories, but also because he had no identification with those men on board who were lighting up their last cigarettes and preparing to die. Ismay saw himself as a man who belonged to no particular group, and therefore as someone who could act according to personal will rather than social expectation.

John Konrad: If there had been enough lifeboats for every man, woman and child would Capt. Smith still gone down with the ship?

Frances Wilson: I think so. Smith seems to have collapsed more or less the moment he realized the Titanic was doomed. He had no desire to go on and live with the responsibility of the tragedy.

John Konrad: In your research what new information most disturbed you?

Frances Wilson: Without doubt, Ismay’s letters to Marian Thayer in the immediate aftermath of the wreck. They shine a bright light into a dark corner: this is the voice of a man trying to bare the unbareable. Most striking is the urgency of his desire to talk – Ismay, a man who has never wanted to talk to anyone, writes again and again that wishes he could talk to her in person, and that only she could understand what he is going through. Otherwise the letters repeat that the wreck had nothing to do with him, that he can’t function any more and that he feels bitter about his treatment at the hands of the press and the Inquiries. What transpires is Ismay’s sense that no one is suffering as much as he is: that other survivors are treated with generosity and pity, while he – who lost his ship as well as his reputation and has been blamed for the whole thing – receives no sympathy at all.

John Konrad: Besides Smith and Ismay who is most accountable for the disaster?

Frances Wilson: The Titanic’s designer. Thomas Andrews. Because Andrews went down with the ship he was seen as a hero rather than as accountable.

John Konrad: Today mariners complain that technology allows ship owners to micro-manage operations from afar. Did Ismay’s presence contribute to the outcome? If so… would the titanic still have sunk if he wasn’t aboard at the time?

Frances Wilson: The conclusion drawn by the US Inquiry was that Ismay’s presence on the ship had an ‘unconscious’ effect on Captain Smith. It’s an interesting term to use, given the birth of psychoanalysis at the time. What the inquiry was suggesting is that while it could not be proven that Ismay had ordered the Captain to keep up the ship’s speed prior to the accident, or to continue ‘Slow Ahead’ after the damage had been done, with his employer on board the Captain would have instinctively acted in accord with Ismay’s wishes. But my guess is that Titanic would have sunk even without Ismay on board, because of Smith’s insistence that ‘nothing but God could sink these ships’. Smith was becoming careless; six months earlier he had been responsible for a serious accident while he was commander of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic. The fact that the Olympic stayed afloat with a fifteen-foot hole in her hull confirmed to Smith that these ships were unsinkable.

John Konrad: What was Ismay’s greatest fault?

Frances Wilson: Ismay’s greatest failing was his inability to communicate. He hid his acute shyness behind a cold, charmless, domineering exterior which made him appear machine-like. Had he been able to use words to any effect in the US and British Inquiries he would not have come across as a more sympathetic figure to the press and the public. Instead he seemed inhuman in his clinical responses, indifferent to the catastrophe he had been a part of. What interested me was how he communicated with himself, how he lived with what Joseph Conrad called ‘the acute consciousness of lost honour’ without the use of language to help him through.

John Konrad: What lessons from the titanic (or Ismay) are still pertinent to executives today?

Frances Wilson: Do not put your faith in bigness.

The sinking of the Titanic in 1912, in which 1,503 people lost their lives, forced the first International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (the SOLAS Convention) just two years later.  The 1914 version was gradually superseded, respectively, by SOLAS 1929, SOLAS 1948, SOLAS 1960 (the first adopted under the auspices of IMO, then known as IMCO) and SOLAS 1974.  SOLAS 1974 is still in force today, amended and updated many times.

Mr. Mitropoulos said the selection of the theme proposed would provide an opportunity to:

• take stock of improvements in maritime safety during the 100 years since the sinking of the Titanic;
• pay tribute to the memory of those, who lost their lives in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic on that fatal night of 14 April 1912;
• highlight that the sacrifice of so many of the Titanic (passengers and crew) has not gone in vain;
• examine whether the lessons drawn from amongst the most costly (in human lives lost) accidents of the last 100 years have been learnt to the full;
• examine the safety record of shipping and identify those areas that have contributed the most to its improvement over the years;
• identify the most contributory factors (systems, concepts, mechanisms, etc) in the quest for ever-enhanced safety in shipping;
• examine which areas, within the overall spectrum of maritime safety (constructional, operational, cargo, human element, etc.), should be given priority consideration in the years to come;  and
• pay tribute to all those who, in the course of the 100 years, have contributed to improvements in maritime safety.

What do you think? Is “one hundred years after the Titanic” a good theme for the next World Maritime Day?

Via IMO

25 years after the discovery of the Titanic shipwreck, a team of scientists and organizations are getting ready to embark on an expedition of, well, titanic proportions. The expedition, which will commence in August, aims to literally raise the Titanic… virtually. The Associated Press has the details:

A team of scientists will launch an expedition to the Titanic next month to assess the deteriorating condition of the world’s most famous shipwreck and create a detailed three-dimensional map that will “virtually raise the Titanic” for the public.

The expedition to the site 2 1/2 miles beneath the North Atlantic is billed as the most advanced scientific mission to the Titanic wreck since its discovery 25 years ago.

The 20-day expedition is to leave St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Aug. 18 under a partnership between RMS Titanic Inc., which has exclusive salvage rights to the wreck, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The expedition will not collect artifacts but will probe a 2-by-3-mile debris field where hundreds of thousands of artifacts remain scattered.  Keep Reading

The expedition will be based on the R/V Jean Charcot, a 250-foot research vessel with a crew of 20. Three submersibles and the latest sonar, acoustic and filming technology will also be part of the expedition.

While the expedition is being privately funded with an undisclosed amount of money, hopefully this will open the doors for similar expeditions, or perhaps investigations, in the future.

More information on the expedition can be found at www.expeditiontitanic.com.

[Image via Associated Press]

Today, April 15th 2010, marks the 98th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  Here is a rundown of some great posts throughout the blogosphere on todays anniversary.  

The Amver blog has “Remembering Titanic”: 

The Amver program evolved from the tragedy and enrolls ships to assist in search and rescue cases where there are no other resources. The voluntary nature of Amver has spurred over 20,000 ships to commit to ensuring no call for help goes unanswered.

Click here to view the embedded video.

CGblog has “In 1912 the Titanic sank paving the way for an International Ice Patrol… you did know that right?“

The Coast Guard Compass has “How the sinking of the Titanic changed the world“:

Much like everyone remembers where they were on 9/11, the sinking of the Titanic captured the attention of the planet.  It was possibly the first truly global disaster for mankind. With victims from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and even Africa, not even the plague in the Middle Ages reached so many corners of the world.

Telegraph.co.uk has “Titanic ‘did not send distress signal for 45 minutes’, book claims“:

”They (the ship’s authorities) may have been considering the public relations aspect of it and was it going to sink or not because then they would have rather kept it quiet, there may have been a slight bit of delay.”

Popwatch has “‘Titanic in 3D is spectacular’.  Will you see it?“:

We’ve known James Cameron was working on converting Titanic to 3D — for an anticipated 2012 release to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sailing — but hearing someone say they saw a test makes it real. So now, we have to ask ourselves that question: Are we prepared to face (possible) ridicule again for seeing Titanic in theaters?

Sings of the times has “Titanic: Near-Miss at Southampon Docks that Could have saved Liner“:

As the Titanic left the Southampton docks, it came within two feet of crashing into another liner. 

Had the two actually collided, it would have cut short the Titanic’s maiden voyage and averted the catastrophe that was to claim 1,517 lives. 

Elite Choice has “The Last Supper On The Titanic Gets Recreated“:

The banquet, which was last served on April 14, 1912, consisted of foie gras pate, asparagus and watercress salad which was served with Champagne, rose water and mint sorbet. Chef Connor got all his supplies form the local markets, in fact, he was quite lucky to find an original wine list too. Apparently, in those days a different wine was served with each course. Though the menu has be changed a wee bit to suit the modern palate, but it sure is as authentic as it can get!

Blue Star has “Jones in Talks To Raise Titanic“:

According to reports, [Jerry] Jones is in talks to have a piece of the RMS Titanic’s hull removed from its watery grave off Newfoundland and put on display in Cowboys Stadium. The piece will be accompanied by a litany of artifacts taken from the site since its rediscovery in 1985, and may only be the first step in adding a full-fledged museum to the palatial venue.

Political Daily has “Titanic Survivors Study: A Closer Look at Self-Preservation“:

You’re on a sinking ship and you have just 10 minutes to make a decision: Do you save yourself, or do you help the other passengers to safety? 
Now, imagine the same scenario, except you have two hours longer to make your decision. Do you make the same choice? Maybe not, according to a study published in the journalProceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. 

Do you know any other good reads on today’s anniversary?  Let us know in the comments section below.

Peter A Mello of Seafever.org points us to 10 shipwrecks that capture our imaginations… well MSNBC’s imaginations anyway.  As Peter put’s it, “not sure that these shipwrecks will capture your imagination, but they captured MSNBC’s, plus it’s been Dugg a bunch.” Here’s the list:

1. The Titanic
2. Ancient Greek oil ship
3. 16th Century Portuguese ship off Namibian coast
4. Santa Margarita
5. Captan Kidd’s Quedagh Merchant
6. Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge
7. HMS Victory
8. Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes
9. S.S. Cyprus
10. Graf Zeppelin

You can also see MSNBC’s slideshow with a little information about the each wreck HERE.  If there are any you feel that are worth a mention and not listed, let us know in the comments.

PS: Sorry for the photo, but at least there’s no Celin Dion playing in the background;)

Mental Floss brings us “Ship Happens - 10 Things To Know Before Boarding an “Unsinkable” Ship“:

So, on that note, today is the 96th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Yes, we all know about Jack and Rose and their brief-but-intense relationship aboard the ship, but which details did James Cameron get right, which did he exaggerate and what did he leave out altogether? Below are 10 things you may not know about the real Titanic.

Read the full article HERE then head over and buy the official “Ship Happens” t-shirt HERE. While you have the credit card out… might as well pick up a gCaptain t-shirt!

While some point to the ship’s excessive speed, the vessel’s design or the positioning of the ship’s compass as the cause of the incident the facts clearly show the titanic sunk as a direct result of the accident chain>. In other words the titanic sunk, not due to one large error but a combination of small errors that linked together caused the tragic circumstances. Remove one small link in the chain and the incident is avoided.

It is interesting to note that a string of small errors caused by human error is the cause of most large maritime incidents. The lesson to be learned….. next time you make a mistake aboard ship listen for the voice in the back of your mind and quickly ask yourself; is this an isolated incident or indication of larger problems?

Shrivan states; “Now I understand how important keys can be in ships” to which Fred Fry replies; “Keys are important. Keys are power!”

This comment reminded Jim of a quote from his Captain: “Give a man key with a clipboard and you’ll find out what kind of person he is. Give them in the morning and you’ll know by lunch.“

Things start to get serious around comment number 20 where Bob Couttie writes:

In the past I’ve used ‘error chain’ and ‘domino effect when discussing accidents but, at the risk of getting too theoretical I think both are inadequate since they are basically descriptions of single-point failure (A chain fails when a single link fails, a domino falls over when its neighbour hits it).

The best physical description I think is the wooden tower game, “Jenga” or “Topple” in which players take turns removing blocks from a stack. The first few extractions don’t do much harm but as the process continues the stack becomes more and more unstable until one reaches a point where removing any block at all will cause the stack to fall over.

If you think of the tower as ’safety’ and the individual blocks as the elements, precautions, procedures that make up safety, you’ve got a fairly good visual model for how accidents happen.

Kennebec Captain replies in agreement and points us to this post on his blog:

A more helpful model is the Swiss Cheese Model first proposed by British psychologist James T. Reason (nice name!).

This site (Dukes.edu) has a nice graphic of the S.C. model.

The Swiss Cheese Model provide a positive method of reducing risk, rather then seeking to break some invisible chain, one simply adds layers, or increases the effectiveness of the existing layers (making the holes smaller). As an example, one could add a layer of crew training, or seek ways to improve the effectiveness of existing training, or use additional care during passage planning.

On a well run ship you can observe the Swiss Cheese Model in action Each near miss, representing a hole in one layer, is evaluated and if needed procedures are modified. Near misses, lessons learned, Bridge Resource Management, careful passage planning can all be seen as adding layers of cheese. Of course it may not be called that. Another name for the application of the Swiss Cheese model is – good seamanship.

So from the Titanic to Swiss Cheese I enjoyed the comments… thanks to all who participated!

Fellow maritime podcaster and friend Peter Mello points us to this interesting theory about the sinking of the world’s most famous ship. The NYTimes writes:

Researchers have discovered that the builder of the Titanic struggled for years to obtain enough good rivets and riveters and ultimately settled on faulty materials that doomed the ship, which sank 96 years ago Tuesday.

The builder’s own archives, two scientists say, harbor evidence of a deadly mix of low quality rivets and lofty ambition as the builder labored to construct the three biggest ships in the world at once — the Titanic and two sisters, the Olympic and the Britannic.

For a decade, the scientists have argued that the storied liner went down fast after hitting an iceberg because the ship’s builder used substandard rivets that popped their heads and let tons of icy seawater rush in. More than 1,500 people died.

When the safety of the rivets was first questioned 10 years ago, the builder ignored the accusation and said it did not have an archivist who could address the issue.

Now, historians say new evidence uncovered in the archive of the builder, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, settles the argument and finally solves the riddle of one of the most famous sinkings of all time. The company says the findings are deeply flawed. Continue Reading….

(Note: We are republishing this post on Today, the 96th Anniversary of the tragedy.)

Blair was replaced with the more experienced officer Charles Lightroller, Chief Mate of the Olympic, by White Star just four days prior to the tragic events and hours before departure. In the rushed turnover he made a seemly small but potentially critical mistake.

For those readers not familiar with the duties of a merchant officer, turnover is a critical time aboard ship. Today most mariners work an equal time-on time-off scheduled. For example, you may work 3 months aboard a ship then have the next 3 months off meaning there are two officers assigned to the ship in each position. The turnover between the two, however, is often a hurried process. The industry has built in many ways to avoid problems but the fact is you have one person excited to go home and another just starting a long hitch and sometimes “things” are missed.

So the day Blair signed-off he likely briefed Lightroller on his duties and operational specifics then gave him written notes and any items needed for the job. The mistake? Blair accidentally took the key to the binocular locker home with him.

The Daily Mail tells us;

Blair’s rush to leave Titanic he carried this key off with him in his pocket and forgot to hand it to his replacement, Charles Lightoller.

“Had Lightoller had the key then there probably would have been a pair of binoculars in the crows nest.

“It is supposition but, in lookout Fleet’s own words, they would have seen the iceberg sooner with the binoculars.

“It is the key that had the potential to save the Titanic.”

Senator Smith, chair of the inquiry, asked Fleet: “Suppose you had glasses … could you have seen this black object [the iceberg] at a greater distance?”

Fleet replied: “We could have seen it a bit sooner.”

Asked “How much sooner?”, he said: “Well, enough to get out of the way.”

I must stop the story and make it clear this mistake was just that ….a small error… therefore should Blair be blamed for the accident? Of course not. While some point to the ship’s excessive speed, the vessel’s design or the positioning of the ship’s compass as the cause of the incident the facts clearly show the titanic sunk as a direct result of the accident chain. In other words the titanic sunk, not due to one large error but a combination of small errors that linked together caused the tragic circumstances. Remove one small link in the chain and the incident is avoided.

It is interesting to note that a string of small errors caused by human error is the cause of most large maritime incidents. The lesson to be learned….. next time you make a mistake aboard ship listen for the voice in the back of your mind and quickly ask yourself; is this an isolated incident or indication of larger problems?

Ship incidents caused by Error Chains;

• How Ship Captain’s Avoid Incidents
• Pasha Bulker – Part 1 & Part 2
• Tampa Skyway Bridge Disaster
• Exxon Valdez
• Empress of the North
• Cell Phone Causes Ship Grounding

(This article was originally posted Oct 2007)

MS Wilhelm Gustloff, 9,000 lives lost in 1945

With a death toll six times greater than the Titanic, new light has been shed on MS Wilhelm Gustloff, as a result a TV series that aired on Germany’s ZDF Channel last night.

The Independent is reporting:

“There was this sea of adult heads floating all around me, but alongside them there were hundreds of children’s legs half sticking up in the air. Their heads were under water,” Mr Schön, now 82, said. “They all drowned. Nobody realized that a child’s head is heavier than its legs.”

The Independent post is here.

An estimated 9,000 passengers and crew, fleeing East Prussia, perished (5,000 children) as a result of the the sinking of MS Wilhelm Gustloff back in January, 1945. Gustloff was carrying 10,000 refugees packed into every corner of the ship. Struck by three Soviet torpedoes, she took only 70 minutes to sink.

During her life, MS Wilhelm Gustloff saw many incarnations: Cruise ship, Hospital ship, Navy ship, and Rescue ship.

The sinking (from the Wilhelm Gustloff website) Sometime before 8PM , the first officer on the S-13 spots lights in the distance. Marinesko promptly makes his way to the conning tower. When the snow clears for a moment he spots in his words “the silhouette of an [enormous] ocean liner, even [with its] lights showing”. Over the next two hours, Marinesko shadows the Wilhelm Gustloff, fine tuning his plan of attack. His crew on board begin to sense that their luck is about to change.

MS Wilhelm Gustloff in better days

Her history is well chronicled here.

_________________________

This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd

]]> http://gcaptain.com/hitlers-titanic-ms-wilhelm-gustloff/?1222/feed/ 14