SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA

Press, Volume L, Issue 14982, 1 June 1914, Page 8

SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA

PRECAUTIONS SINCE THE TITANIC DISASTER.

"The unsinkable ship has yet to be built" is a grim truism that has been voiced by many shipbuilding and seafaring experts during tho past two years. In April, 1912, the White Star

liner Titanic left Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. She was

the largest and most wonderful ship ever built, and with her complete system of watertight compartments, "so constructed that any two might be flooded and the ship still floated, she was proclaimed as practically, unsinkable. Yet before she had completed her first passage across the Atlantic, and while steaming at full-speed on a dark, clear night of perfect calm, sbo struck an iceberg at midnight on Sunday, April 14th. ripped her j sid.* open, and sank in a few hours, with appalling loss of life, 1300 people being drowned.

terrible story revealed that the Titanic had not nearly sufficient lifeboats to accommodate the 2000 people on board, and that many who might have been saved, refused to take to tho boats, vainly believing that the mammoth steamer could not sink. Several of the hcmto lowered from the Titanic were notlhalf full, and, considering that the steamer remained afloat long enough for every person to have taken to the

boats, had there been enough of them, the. loss of lifo was far greater than it need have been.

Tho awful lesson of tho Titanic disaster was not lost to the shipping world. Immediately there was a loud outcry for "boats "for all," and the steamship companies hastened to meet the demand, and* to-day practicaitj every ship afloat has more than sufficient boats to carry her full" complement of passengers and crew. In every ship-owning country experts and laymen came forward with schemes to ensure safety at sea. Many were practical, but m3ny others were hopeless. It was admitted that "boat- for all" was a wise provision, but 1 there must.ho proper means of handling and launching them in time of' disaster, and hundreds of devices and systems to meet this need have been put forward. Tt was universally recognised that the unsinkablo ship was not yet built, and human ingenuity set itself to tacklo the problem afresh. Tho Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic, was laid up for many mouths while a complete inner shell was buiit inside her hull, at a •cost of a quarter of a million. Tho Britannic, whose keel had been laid, was held up until the findings of the Bulkheads Committee of the Board of Trade had put forth its conclusions, and shipbuilding experts had stdWied the problem i

An International Commission sat for some time, taking evidence on the question of ensuring the safety of lifs at sea, and put forth important and tar-reaching recommendations. In every maritime country drastic regulations governing the equipment of ships were framed, and everything t*nat the in ventiye genius of man, backed by the" experience of shipbuilders, shipowners, o "*' and tbe b '«er lesson of the Titanic disaster could suggest. Titanic disaster,'but the awful calamityof the Empress of Ireland has shown once more that the strongest built and best equipped liner may be sent to the bottom in a few minutes under certain conditions. The Empress of Ireland equipped with wireless telegraphy subl marine signaling apparatus, "boats for an,. and an elaborate arrangement of water-tight bulkheads, whife stopped ni a dense fog, is rammed with terrific force heavily laden cargo tramn is.almost cut in two,.and sinks in ten minutes, with the loss of a thousan

And the collision occurred, not in mid-ocean, but in a land-locked river.