Cabins numbered 13

Yourj Benig

Yourj Benig

Member
NO CABINS NUMBERED in 13??????????? (no A - 13, B - 13, C - 13, D - 13, E - 13!)

I've been looking at the deck plans of Bruce Beveridge, and I noticed that there are no cabin numbered in 13... for example in D - deck... D- 9 then D - 11 , then D - 15 ....... This is so weird........ did they avoid 13 because it's unlucky??
 
You'll find the same in many hotels which have no room 13, and even in buildings which have no 13th floor. In the UK there are streets of houses where No 13 is missing also. It's a traditional superstition, and seafarers have always been especially superstitious.
 
that superstition is still popular today..... Well I think 13 isn't unlucky at all... It was proven by Lifeboat 13!! :D Even though they were drifted under the Boat 15............... haha.. isn't it?
 
I haven't been able to see any complete deck maps but, I am highly curious concerning whether or not they contain something. OK, I've been told no binoculars for lookouts, obviously, only enough lifeboats should the boat only 1/3 sink(not sure what other reasoning that was/ you can sink means more than enough for those on board/ you can't sink means none at all) and of course, far too fast in region known for icebergs. Now, I have seen structure maps with this number on structural compartments. I haven't been able to access complete maps of cabins and staterooms. What I want to know is, if after all this design and construction, only to be foolish w/ lack of binos & lifeboats and the Mario Andretti piloting, did they or did they not pander to the stupidstitious(as you can see my screenname MOCKS) did they do as tall buildings and make sure no cabins or staterooms where numbered THIRTEEN?
 
Hi 1313,

I don't believe there were any cabins with the number thirteen in them, however there have been a number of superstitious beliefs attached to the Titanic sinking in the past, including her identification number whilst being constructed reading "No Pope" as it was reflected in the water; a number of premonitions, etc etc.

If you'd like to check out the deck plans of the Titanic and what they mean in more detail, i'd recommend to you Tom McCluskie's "Anatomy of the Titanic".

Cheers,
Adam.
 
Hello, 1313MOCKbird and Adam

That's quite an interesting thing you say about the lack of cabins with the number thirteen in them. I'm afraid I can't answer your question, as I personally never knew that, but then again, I never looked at the deck plans with the amount of attention required to discover such a thing.

But if there were no cabins with the number thirteen on them, one has to wonder why there would be a Lifeboat 13, considering it would supposedly carry just the same amount of bad luck that a cabin with that number would. Considering what you said, that seems to be another demonstration of how much it was believed that the Titanic's lifeboats would never be used for more than decoration or filling up deck space - when in the end, we know how soon they had to be used.

And the most ironic part is that in the end, Lifeboat 13 actually was a very 'lucky' lifeboat when you think of it.
 
Hi Guilherme,

That is interesting; as you said they were probably not expecting to need the services of Lifeboat No. 13.

I don't think there would be any cabins purely with the number 13 anyway because if you look at it, they seem to all have letters in their combination as well - for instance, B-52, C-34, etc etc.

Cheers,
Adam.
 
Adam Went said:
I don't think there would be any cabins purely with the number 13 anyway because if you look at it, they seem to all have letters in their combination as well - for instance, B-52, C-34, etc etc.
Click to expand...

Hi Adam,

To begin with, hank you very much for your reply to my post. Also, thank you for correcting me - indeed, no cabin would just have the number 13 on it. But from what I understand, the whole point is that none had the number 13 in addition to the letter of the deck they were on. Not meaning to keep hitting the same key, I think that only lends more strength to the opinion that Lifeboat 13 was thought it would never be used, and so it was given the number for there not to be an odd skip between numbers of the lifeboats, which would be far more noticeable than a skip between numbers of cabins.

But unless we take chaos theory into consideration, I sincerely doubt having cabins with the number 13 in addition to the letter of whatever deck on which they were located would have meant any difference for the Titanic's fate.
 
Adam Went said:
Hi 1313,

I don't believe there were any cabins with the number thirteen in them, however there have been a number of superstitious beliefs attached to the Titanic sinking in the past, including her identification number whilst being constructed reading "No Pope" as it was reflected in the water; a number of premonitions, etc etc.

If you'd like to check out the deck plans of the Titanic and what they mean in more detail, i'd recommend to you Tom McCluskie's "Anatomy of the Titanic".

Cheers,
Adam.
Click to expand...

As far as premenitions go, pay no stock in them. 2/3rds are family stories and false memories--that anxiety you felt suddenly becomes prescience in light of events. Furthermore, I am a terrible flyer so I can attest to this personally, but there were probably dozens of people with a sense of foreboding and the certainty of disaster on every passenger vessel that ever left Southhampton for the New World. Except, the vast majority of those voyages did not end in disaster. This is just part of traveling, it is to some very stressful and anxiety provoking , and I imagine this is even more so for immigrants leaving everything they know behind.

As I've said, I'm a terrible flyer (I still can bring myself to fly, but its incredibly unpleasant). As such I annoy my wife for weeks before I fly about my certainty that this is going to be the flight that kills me. And look. I am still here.
 
Guilherme:

The most superstitious among us might disagree, but I agree with you that the number 13 would have made no difference to the fate of the Titanic. Besides, it would have looked a little odd if they'd skipped the number 13 on the lifeboats. Cabins you could get away with, but that is a bit of overkill and would have raised the eyebrows of the more pragmatic members of society and passengers travelling on board. As it was, hindsight has already considered her to be unlucky enough for other reasons!

Scott:

For the most part I think you're right, but there are a few genuine cases - people who canceled their tickets beforehand after a premonition, etc. But yes, hindsight and the "I knew it / I told you so" factor plays a big part as well.

I don't enjoy flying either, not so much because i'm scared of it but because at 6'4, you're not exactly blessed with room to move in an airplane, and it can be very uncomfortable on any flight which is more than about 2 hours long....

Cheers,
Adam.
 
Adam,

I am 6 '5 so I feel your pain! As for premenitions, well I am not at all supernaturally inclined, so I tend to think that even in the case of canceled tickets you have a few explanations. First is terrified travelers, as my fear of flying borders on a phobia, there are many times I have thought about canceling a trip. I always go, but can easily understand that someone who has greater anxiety than I actually choosing to cancel the trip.

Second, again with immigrants people may be searching for an excuse to delay the trip just a little longer. And related to this, those Americans on holiday may have had a number of reasons to delay/reschedule. They could want to stay a bit longer, add to their trip, or even just not want to deal with a maiden crossing and a crew new to their ship.

Only after the disaster, these reasons fall away and any anxiety that might also have played a role in those decisions become the reason.
 
Hi Scott,

Your reasons are of course perfectly plausible and would probably explain away most of the cases, everybody would like to embellish it a little after the fact and say that they had a premonition or predicted what was going to happen.

Having said that, travelling by ship in 1912 was the only way, and for older people one would expect they would be used to sailing - sailing on ships a lot smaller and unsafer than the Titanic at that. Especially when the virtues of the Titanic's size, luxury and safety had been drilled into them for years.

I do believe that there were genuine cases of premonitions......not to say that they amount to anything, anyone can have a bad dream or vision of anything, but there certainly was some curious instances leading up to the Titanic's departure.

Cheers,
Adam.
 
I always found it silly that there would be no cabin 13 but lifeboat 13 hehe
 
Third class cabins had only numbers, so there could have been a #13. It would have been in Section B on E Deck, but it was skipped as were A 13, B 13, C 13, D 13, E 13 in First Class and F 13 and G 13 in Second Class.

There was a #113, a 4-berth cabin in Section M of Third Class on E Deck. There was also a #213, a 4-berth cabin in Section S of Third Class on G Deck. And there was C 113, a two-berth inboard cabin. Weird-ish fact: C 113 was at the center of its deck, at Frame 0; its port-side bulkhead, shared with C 120, ran along the ship's centerline. It's not exactly at the 'exact center' of the ship, though. It's a little too high.

J
 
As I've posted in another thread, there were no 13s but there was a 1st class cabin C 113 and third class cabins #113 and #213. In hotels now, at least in North America, the norm is to skip anything that contains a 13 -- no 13, no 113, no 213, and no 13th floor. Casino hotels also skip anything with a 4 (including 14, 24, Room 204, etc.) because that number is unlucky in Asian cultures.

[Moderator's note: Two thread discussing the same subject have been merged to form this one. MAB]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top