by Opal Elaine Moyer

Created on: March 10, 2009

The Titanic. The Unsinkable Ship. Most people know the story of the sinking of the Titanic. Documentaries, movies and books have been written, documenting the story of the fate of this ship. Few people do not know about the Titanic and how it met its end. The very mention of the Titanic, the name of this ill-fated ship is synonymous with tragedy and death. This was to be the greatest ship of them all; this ship was said to be unsinkable-a ship of dreams. It was lavishly furnished and no expense was spared for this beautiful, unsinkable ship. The greatest contributing factor to the sinking of the Titanic was this arrogant belief that this ship was unsinkable- not the fact that they believed that they had built a ship that was was unsinkable, but rather the arrogance that came after the ship was built. It was this arrogance that led the ship builders to place enough lifeboats on board to only accommodate less than half of the ships passenger capacity and crew.

The attempt at breaking speed records on this ships maiden voyage was another contributing factor to this ships fate. Attempting to do this in iceberg ridden waters, on the ship's initial voyage, was yet another exercise in arrogance. What we now know is that this arrogance by the builders and owners of the Titanic is, also, an exercise in carelessness.

The arrogance and ineptitude of the upper class passengers in refusing to allow the lifeboats to be filled to capacity, caused more loss of life than there might have been. The fact that this was allowed by those who loaded the boats is virually unbelievable. Still more unbelievable is that fact that the third class passengers were locked down below, because chaos was feared when they discovered that the ship was sinking, rather than giving them a chance at survival. Unbelievable, but true.

A look at the events, during the building of the ship and the night that the ship sank, show that the tragedy of the Titan could have been avoided. As surely as that iceberg had been responsible for the sinking of the Titanic, so also were arrogance and carelessness. If normal speeds been maintained and sufficient lifeboats been kept on board, there might have been zero loss of life and the Titanic- that unsinkable ship-that "ship of dreams" might even still be afloat, today. What sank the Titanic? Carelessness and human arrogance did. Otherwise, why would an "unsinkable ship" sink?

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