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Tuesday 29 November 2011

What's wrong with Titanic?

Obviously I mean the movie versions, not the actual ship, we all know what was wrong with her!I was channel surfing the other night when I came across a really interesting program about all the historical inaccuracies in the different Titanic movies filmed since the disaster.
Unfortunately I only caught the last 10 minutes or so and I haven't seen it repeated yet but the bits I did learn where fascinating!
Apparently one of the biggest inaccuracies in James Camerons Titanic was the fact that lifeboats were being sent out only half, or a quarter full and that there weren't enough life boats onboard for all passengers. This is true but the reason for it isn't.

Back then the shipping lanes in the Atlantic were a lot busier than they are today. There could be scores of ships out on the Atlantic at any one time so there just wasn't a need to have enough lifeboats to cover every single passenger. Instead the point of a lifeboat was to ferry passengers from one ship in distress to the 'rescuer'. This was also the reason why first class passengers were being sent out first on there own; no one thought there was a need.
The trouble came because the bridge crew had badly misjudged the distance of the next ship, so as we all know the expected help never came. As soon as this was realised they started to fill the life boats but by then it was a case of too little too late.

The other statistic I saw was the levels of casualties in the demographics onboard. There's a scene in James Camerons Titanic where the ships officers actually go to the length of locking third class passengers below decks to stop them getting out; again complete fiction.
In actual fact it was the male, second class passengers who were the worst hit. Women and children, as you would expect, were obviously first, but there was a concerted effort to get the underprivileged, poor, third class passengers to the life boats ahead of others. I'm not sure if this was due to pity, or good old fashioned British politeness, "no, no, I insist, you first", but they definitely weren't locked away.
Second class passengers didn't have the clout of first class passengers to demand a place and no one felt sorry enough for them like the steerage passengers to give them a place!

As I said at the start I found this program fascinating and it's a pity I missed so much of it so if any of you have any other interesting Titanic facts feel free to share them below.
Or if you saw the program and know what it was called or when it will be back on, please, please let me know.

Happy cruising.

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