Sea travel is safer today than at any point in history, but that doesn’t mean some people
don't get cold feet when it comes to getting their feet wet.
Everyone can name at least one famous shipwreck, and some would rather keep their feet on solid
ground, rather than risk a stay in Davy Jones' Locker.
But how worried should we be?
Could a Titanic-like disaster happen today?
Well, strap on your life jackets and man the lifeboats, because you're about to find out.
Not that your ship is about to sink or anything.
I don’t want to panic anyone watching this from the middle of the Atlantic.
Speaking of that, let me know in the comment section which cruise destination you'd most
like to visit!
Um, did anyone else hear splashing?
Eh, it was probably nothing.
Before we can answer our main question, we need to know what led to the sinking of the
Titanic becoming one of the worst maritime disasters in history.
Everyone knows the basic story: the ship hit an iceberg, there weren’t enough lifeboats,
and Rose had the necklace the whole time.
Oh, was that a spoiler?
Sorry.
Ignoring the exploits of fictional characters, all of that is basically correct, but missing
a few key details.
The first big issue contributing to the ship's demise had to do with the culture of early
twentieth-century ocean liners.
The captains of these ships were under constant pressure to keep a tight schedule of arrivals
and departures.
These schedules were challenging to keep in ideal circumstances, and frequently required
pushing the vessels close to their limits.
It's also not clear if the captain was fully aware of the danger.
At the time, it was common for ship's radio operators to work for a third-party company.
Relaying messages to the crew was the second priority to sending private telegrams for
the passengers.
This went so far as the Titanic’s radio operator telling another ship to shut up about
icebergs because he had a backlog of private correspondences.
Additionally, it was widely believed that icebergs didn’t pose any significant danger
to ships.
In fact, a few years earlier, a German liner called the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm managed to
complete its route after having its bow crumpled by a collision with an iceberg.
Around that time, Titanic's future captain, Edward Smith, would dismiss the possibility
of a potential maritime disaster by saying, "Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”
People today mock how the Titanic was advertised as unsinkable, but back then, it barely even
counted as a boast.
Regardless of the reason, Captain Smith chose to continue ahead at full speed.
He did have the presence of mind to order the Titanic's lookouts to watch for ice, but
due to a clerical error, they were never given binoculars.
The lack of lifeboats was also due to a misunderstanding of how any potential collisions would play
out, and not just because they would be redundant on an invincible ship.
At the time, it was generally accepted that if a ship ever needed to be abandoned, the
passengers and crew would be picked up by another vessel in the same area.
No one had ever anticipated the need to evacuate everyone on-board onto lifeboats.
That also helps to explain why the evacuation was so disorganized, with many boats leaving
only partially full.
While that's a pretty big oversight, the original plan could’ve worked if someone had picked
up their distress call in time.
You see, by 1912, ships weren't yet required to have someone operating the radio 24/7.
This meant that the radio operator of the SS Californian, the nearest ship, and the
one Titanic's operator had told to shut up, was asleep when the distress calls went out.
Making matters worse was the fact that the Titanic's radio operator reported the wrong
coordinates in his SOS.
This meant that even the ships that received the call had trouble finding where the Titanic
had gone down.
So, those were the main problems facing the Titanic on that fateful night; overconfidence,
poor communication, insufficient lifeboats, and the inability of rescuers to find her.
Now that we've established all that, it's time to answer our main question: What if
the Titanic disaster happened today?
After the Titanic sank, many new procedures were established with the hope of preventing
similar disasters.
One of the first was the establishment of regular ice patrols in that region of the
North Atlantic.
In the early days, this meant guys with binoculars freezing their noses off in boats and planes,
but fortunately, today is not one hundred years ago.
Another reason today is better than a century ago is that our iceberg detection has gotten
a lot more sophisticated.
The United States Coast Guard and Canadian Ice Service regularly patrol the area with
radar-equipped HC-130 aircraft to scan for any icebergs coming too close to major shipping
routes.
With the added assistance of global positioning satellites and reports from passing ships,
the two agencies can provide daily updates on the position of icebergs in the North Atlantic.
Individual vessels also have a much easier time spotting icebergs in their vicinity,
thanks to technologies such as radar and sonar becoming commonplace.
These advancements have done a great deal to make sea travel a lot safer, but they aren’t
fool proof.
Accidents can still happen, so it’s a good thing large vessels are now required to carry
enough lifeboats for everyone aboard, and the crews receive training in proper evacuation
procedures.
Modern ships are also required to have a radio operator on duty at all times.
That's good for several reasons, one of them being that no one wants to be the guy who
slept through a crisis.
The captain of the Californian got fired over missing the Titanic's call, and he hadn’t
even been breaking any rules.
Emergency radio calls have been standardized to a greater extent than they were in 1912.
Additionally, GPS tracking means that if a ship needs help, responders will know precisely
where the trouble is going down.
Pardon the pun.
Rescue efforts are also much more coordinated then they would’ve been in the early twentieth
century.
The Coast Guard maintains a variety of emergency response vehicles, ranging from small boats
and helicopters to large ships and planes.
They’re also better able to coordinate with and dispatch help from other civilian and
military traffic in the area.
So, what would a modern-day Titanic scenario look like?
Well, a good example might be what happened during the 2012 Costa Concordia disaster.
Sure, this shipwreck occurred in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, and the Concordia
struck a rock rather than an iceberg, but the aftermath was similar enough that some
comparisons can be drawn.
The full story is as follows: the Italian cruise ship was passing close to the island
of Giglio when it collided with the edge of an underwater plateau.
Believing he knew the channel well enough to navigate on his own, The Captain had disabled
the collision alarm for the Costa Concordia’s onboard navigation system.
It was later revealed that there were numerous distractions on the ship, such as the presence
of the Captain's girlfriend.
Unlike the Titanic, the Concordia had more than enough lifeboats to get everyone off
safely.
Unfortunately, no amount of policy reform can completely make up for human error, and
poor communication -- and failure to follow emergency procedures delayed the evacuation
by more than half an hour.
By the time the order to abandon ship had been given, the Costa Concordia was already
beginning to list so severely that the crew was unable to launch many of the lifeboats.
When the surf settled, thirty-three people lost their lives, and another sixty-four had
been injured.
As bad as that was, things could have been much worse since the location of Concordia's
collision did the passengers and crew a number of unexpected favors.
For starters, they were within sight of land when the accident happened.
This meant that help arrived reasonably quickly once the Captain got around to sending his
SOS.
In fact, with the help of their life jackets, many passengers were able to swim all the
way to solid ground.
No one would be swimming very far if they'd struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
When the Titanic sank, it was about 400-miles from dry land, and the water was a freezing
28 degrees.
The good news is that in the modern world, things might never have gotten to that point.
If the Titanic had struck the iceberg today, the Coast Guard would’ve deployed a small
fleet of boats and helicopters to assist in the evacuation.
Not just that, but every ship in the area would’ve made a beeline for their coordinates
the moment that SOS message went out.
With a competent commander overseeing an organized evacuation, this modern Titanic might not
be considered a disaster at all.
On the other hand, Costa Concordia shows what can happen when safety precautions are ignored.
Now don't let this scare you away from planning that Caribbean getaway.
You're still much more likely to get hurt driving to work than sailing the seven seas.
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