Titanic - shaping maritime future

At 12 noon on April 10th 1912 the most luxurious and ambitious ship in engineering design built for it's time set sail from the dock of Southampton bound for New York. It never reached New York. Instead it found itself confound to the History books for all time. The Titanic whom the press had dubbed "unsinkable" struck an iceberg and sank into the icy depths of the Atlantic at 2.20am on April 15th 1912 claiming the lives of 1,517 passengers and crew. Many theories have been given as to why this great Ship came to such a short, tragic end. Vast shortage of lifeboats, no binoculars on the crows nest, ice-berg warnings going amiss, no lifeboat drill training on the morning prior to the collision with the iceberg, the ship carrying on full speed ahead in spite of iceberg warnings being received from other liners, no ships coming to Titanic's aid, to name but a few. My belief is that it was simply a disastrous recipe of all the above ingredients. A cross between man made errors and pure fate if you believe in that. Going back to Maritime law of the day, it was standard practice to retain speed (which in Titanic's case was around a quick 22-23 knots) even when iceberg reports came through - hard to imagine I know, and it was no coincidence that any sailing post-Titanic would be guilty of negligence if they did the same thing.

So what other changes did the Titanic disaster bring about? First and I suppose obviously, in the future there would be enough lifeboats per craft for those on board. Also implemented on Ships therafter would be mandated lifeboat drills, 24 Hour ship radio with back up systems, red flares were to be officially recognised as distress signals (a famous rumour on Titanic was that their red distress flares were taken as celebratory firworks by nearby ships, therefore delaying any rescues.) In addition to these changes, the International Ice Patrol was founded which to this day still patrol the Atlantic for potential hazardous ice-bergs, sheet ice, etc.

So from one great ship came a set of new rules and standards that make todays nautical journeys all the more safer and secure. It's just unfortunate that, like so many things, mankind learns the important lessons needed for progress from a tragedy, in this case a tragedy that took the souls of so many innocent people and such dedicated crew....the ultimate price to pay for shaping our maritime future.