Dinsdale:
The Titanic was an exceptionally well designed ship for her time, the persistent “pig iron” myth notwithstanding, but she was inadequately provisioned with lifeboats due to outdated maritime regulations (life boat capacity was determined by tonnage, not passenger capacity, for some bizarre reason).
She was poorly managed/handled because, quite simply, ships of her size-class were too new for there to be much of a body of experience with them. Coupled with late Edwardian Anglo-Saxon arrogance…
Wireless telegraph was also too new for there to be any coherent, consistent procedures or regulations governing their use. They were essentially corporate assets, and made available to the passengers for their private use (those who could afford it, that is); it was outside the ship’s “chain of command,” and any ice warnings the operators received were passed on to the ship’s officers merely out of courtesy, and as time allowed.
Not out of any obligation of duty to warn them of impending danger. And the ship’s officers were free to give such warning as much or as little attention as they deemed necessary.
The magnitude of the disaster was exacerbated by a placid attitude of her officers. The ship was “unsinkable” after all.
But the whole “unsinkable” myth evolved out of an article in a maritime engineering trade journal which touted the class’ innovative design features, calling her “…virtually unsinkable.”
The popular press picked up the term, and the “virtually” was truncated. At no time did Harland & Wolfe Shipyards, White Star Line or International Mercantile Marine (the American company owned by J.P. Morgan which owned the White Star Line) ever publicly claim that the Olympic, Titanic or Britannic were unsinkable. Although J. Bruce Ismay, Managing Director of White Star Lines, was known to have publicly hinted as such (at least until April 15, 1912, that is).
Interestingly enough, J. P. Morgan was booked for her maiden voyage, but backed out at the last minute, contributing to some of the goofier conspiracy theories concerning the sinking of the Titanic.
So the ship’s command staff was slow to react to the disaster, to provide firm leadership in the face of the crisis apparent to at least Captain Edward J. Smith, Chief Engineer Joseph Bell, and Mr. Thomas Andrews, Managing Director of Harland & Wolfe Shipyards and a capable nautical engineer thoroughly familiar with both of the Olympic-class ships.
Capt. Smith knew that there were only enough lifeboats for about half of her people, and wished to head off a panic. But in a case of classic British understatement, he may have actually contributed to the death toll by not being more emphatic with at least his senior officers to convey a firm yet unpanicked sense of urgency to cram the lifeboats with as many people as they could safely hold (there is anecdotal evidence that the lifeboat’s capacities may have been understated by perhaps as much as 50%).
Captain Smith probably could be forgiven, though. He had a long and prestigious, if unspectacular, career. He had never faced danger, a crisis, on the high seas. A mercantile officer, his priorities were naturally to ensure a smooth, uneventful passage to the paying customers. The magnitude of the crisis he faced was beyond his scope of experience, yet he did well enough, all things considered.
So no, the Titanic isn’t “just a ship.” Her allure is that she was the grandest of the grand, built during a time when mankind felt that technology could solve anything, supremely confident of their mastery of the world and nature. She was a microcosm of Edwardian society, almost a caricature of Clemens’ “gilded age.”
She was flung at top speed on a moonless night into an ice field, with full knowledge of the danger which laid in her path by her command crew and corporate management. She had lifeboat capacity for only half of her people, because no one could conceive of a disaster of such magnitude to sink such mighty vessels.
As she sank for over 2 1/2 hours, she played out a human drama that consisted of the very best and very worst of mankind, with the range of emotions running from blatant scorn of such a notion as her sinking, to stunned incomprehension, denial, desparation, and finally acceptance, whether hysterical or calm.
She wasn’t “just a ship” that sank with a bunch of people; she was the symbolic death knell of an age, a way of thought, of all the safe, arrogant assumptions that promised social utopia through technology and technique. Quite a bit of difference from a Greyhound bus that runs off the road and over a cliff, or even from a train that has derailed. Those kinds of accidents are quick; the time-scale which they play out over is too brief for the kind of human drama that the Titanic, the Empress of Ireland, the Andrea Dorea, or the U.S.S. Indianapolis represent.
Salvaging some artifacts for posterity is appropriate; salvaging artifacts for profit is sickening.
While there are no known human remains left on or about the wreckage, there are still priceless artifacts to be had. If they can’t be brought back for the edification and enjoyment of all, they should be left well enough alone.
(if it is a joke)