What An Empty Ship

[Sahand Miraminy]

Hey Everyone,
It's kind of strange how the Titanic was so empty. I would imagine a ship like itself would have been much more booked. The ship still had much room even after they had transferred passengers on to her due to the coal strike. The first and second class dining rooms would only be half full. Many cabins would be empty. This also shows that many paintings are incorrect when showing so many portholes lit up..... Just thoughts I had.

 

[David F. Smith]

Hi Sahand,

It has been said that most people who may have been traveling had not planned on crossing then due to the coal strike. By the time the strike was settled they had changed their plans to sail on different dates.

Also, experienced travellers avoided Maiden Voyages due to the fact there can be alot of problems that happen on a new ship. (Just look at all the problems Jim Kalafus noted on his Maiden Voyage on the QM2.)

It is fortunate that the ship only had 2200 peolpe on board instead of the potential 3500+ it could have.

David

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>It's kind of strange how the Titanic was so empty.<<

Perhaps not so strange, and all for the reasons David stated. Why travel someplace where there were ongoing troubles when there were so many others to choose from? One has to wonder also how many cabins were actually ready for paying passengers. With complaints of the smell of fresh paint as well as things like heaters not working, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Titanic had a few cabins unfinished and they can't sell them if they're uninhabitable. (Ahhhhh...well...they could but you can bet they would have regreted it later.)

Even if such is not the case, as David pointed out, experienced travelers were wary of maiden voyages because of all the things that can and do go wrong. Not always in such a grand fashion as what ultimately went wrong on Titanic, (Sinking the ship is about as grand a foul up as you can get!) but irritating enough where those in the know would prefer to travel on ship where such things wouldn't be an issue.

 

[Sahand Miraminy]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for your posts. I think it would just be more festive to be on the maiden voyage. Seems more .....fun lol.

 

[Wesley Burton]

^
You still think it would be fun knowing what happened?

I think it is a good thing it didnt have 3500 or more on board.The death toll would be well over 2000. Maybe even close to 3000.
I have heard that some people had to take second class because first class was taken up. This obviously wasnt true. So is it because the rooms were not completed?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I think it would just be more festive to be on the maiden voyage. Seems more .....fun lol.<<

Expereinced travelers have tended to find out otherwise, and word does get around about that sort of thing. Equipment that doesn't work, heaters on the fritz, service not always what it could be...small wonder that seasoned travelers tend to avoid them. Still, as bad as some might have been, I don't think they'll ever top what Titanic did. As bad things happening goes, sinking is a bit tough to beat!

 

[Sahand Miraminy]

Hey Guys,
Yes it is great that more people werent on the ship. I was just saying if it was a successful trip it would be kind of cool. Well to me at least! I guess Im sort of a weirdo!

 

[Michael H. Standart]

If it were a successful trip, we'ed probably be discussing a different ship!

While a the above is a bit lighthearted, I have to wonder if not Titanic, what ship would have served as the wake up call to avoid icefields. With larger ships being built with greater passenger capacities even as Titanic got underway, the possibilities are sobering. It's just as well we never found out.

 

[Jonathan Granato]

I guess the comparison is: would anybody on this board fly the Airbus A380 on its maiden flight?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

If by that, do you mean maiden revenue flight? By the time this aircraft is certificated for passenger service, it will have already racked up several hundred hours of flying time by way of flight testing. Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with getting aboard one of these planes.

 

[monica e. hall]

"Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with getting aboard one of these planes."
I would. I know it's illogical and silly. But I'm put off these giants by the airshow in the town where I live when (every two years - and this is the year .... arrrgh!)the Antonov Galaxy clone shows itself off by doing very low, very very slow, very very very tight turns right above my chimney pots. The cats dive under the bed, and I do not like this either. There's nothing physically disputable with these behemoths ... until it goes wrong. Lucky indeed the Titanic was not full - and these huge modern liners. Well, they look like they could roll over to me. But what do I know?

 

[Alicia Coors]

It's extremely unlikely that another ship would have met Titanic's fate. The confluence of conditions that caused the disaster had never happened before, nor have they since:

Flat calm - very infrequent (never in 40 years of one captain's experience)
No illumination at the particular time - a few hours per month
High speed (relative to the distance ice could be seen) - hadn't happened until the 20th century
Number of lifeboats - was in the process of being increased by the BoT
Lack of 24-hour wireless watch - would have ended within a few years

So it can be seen that the "window" leading to this particular accident was extremely narrow, and if Titanic had missed it, everyone else might well have, too.

p.s. A Certificate of Airworthiness is no guarantee of safety: the Comet, Electra, Concorde, and DC-10 were all thoroughly tested, and all fatally flawed.

 

[Wesley Burton]

Yes, I doubt another ship will go down with the same type of circumstances Titanic went down under.

I wouldnt fly on any aircraft. I fear flying, but even if I didnt, the way I see it is if a plane crashes, youre dead. A ship sinks, well there are lifeboats.

Well for most of Titanic's passengers and crew they didnt have a lifeboat.

 

[Jack Devine]

"p.s. A Certificate of Airworthiness is no guarantee of safety: the Comet, Electra, Concorde, and DC-10 were all thoroughly tested, and all fatally flawed."

Other than the Comet, I think I would have to disagree. The Concorde served for over three decades with one rather freakish accident, which is really an excellent record. The DC-10 was generally considered to be a safe aircraft, but had a number of weather-related accidents. It gained a bad reputation with the traveling public, and that made them no longer commercially viable.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

It's wise to remember that in the case of the Concorde, the plane had a run in with debris that had fallen off of another aircraft. Foreign object damage has always been a nagging problem with aircraft, especially with high performance aircraft. They can be toughened up to better deal with this sort of thing, but like anything touched by human hands, nothing is ever 100% foolproof.

Having said that much, Alicia has a valid point. The Comet One for example was the plane where they learned about certain dynamics of metal fatigue the hard way. Befor the advent of pressurized aircraft, it wasn't really an issue. The Comet changed all of that and the lessons learned there have been incorperated down the line ever since.

The same applies to everything else. Flaws cropped up, lessons were learned, and life goes on. For all of that, nobody has ever been able to take human fallibility out of the picture. It was a factor in flawed aircraft designs and it was a factor in Titanic...a big one!