Comments on: Remembering the Titanic

By: Ash pryce

Ash pryce — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 11:40:48 +0000

Thanks for the mention! I only just stumbled across this – vainly googling myself

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:26:08 +0000

The titanic dramatisation was pretty awful I have to say… that said, the ‘completest’ in me meant that I had to sit through all four (or was it three?… see, it was that bland!) episodes, on the off-chance it got better. I didn’t!

I thought I’d scoured all ‘catch-up’ TV for Titanic related shows, but it appears I missed out on ‘Titanic: The Aftermath’. If anything, this is the area I’m least knowledgable about on the whole subject mater – so am looking forward to checking it out…. all be its grim subject matter!

By: Will Stevens

Will Stevens — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:15:43 +0000

One issue which was raised in an article in this week’s Sunday Times is the differential survival rates of men, women and children. According to the statistics which I’ve seen, in all classes, the women and children did significantly better than the men. The article claims, though, that this wasn’t due to ‘women and children first’ gallantry; instead, it was due to the men being held back at gunpoint.

Yet, as far as I can recall, this doesn’t feature much in the accounts which I’ve read and seen. I should have thought that, to make the substantial impact on survival rates which it did, it wouldn’t have been enough for the odd ship’s officer to wield the odd revolver. Presumably, it would have needed the coordinated efforts of a number of armed men. I’d also suppose that there would have been some injuries or fatalities among the men trying to board the lifeboats, for, surely, it would have been necessary to shoot one or two ‘pour encourager les autres’?

This leaves me thinking that, either the Sunday Times story is untrue, and the outcome was due to genuine gallantry, or else some nasty and discreditable stuff has been expunged from the accounts.

By: Stephen Atty

Stephen Atty — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:47:57 +0000

The Titanic at 100 on History Channel (I’m in Maine at the moment) was pretty good. They debunked the “not enough lifeboats” myth pointing out that Titanic had all the lifeboats required – they were designed to ferry passengers to a ship close by, not for evacuating the whole ship. They also pointed out that unlike many other ships (Including the Costa Concordia) Titanic stayed upright right until it sank so all lifeboats could be used. Most fascinating was the work they did on the “unzipping rivets” myth – they built a replica of the seam that split when it was hit by the iceberg and at 35,000 pound per square inch one rivet blew but the rest held. Even when they found the drawings for the last minute change for the seam due to a leak on Titanic’s sister ship and they remade the join to that design they were unable to get it to fail.