Titanic....
Actually exceeded British Board of Trade regulations concerning lifeboats. The regulations of the time (based on gross tonnage, not passenger capacity) only required her to carry 16 lifeboats, and she had 20. While this does not excuse White Star Line, it does point to regulations not keeping up with the increased passenger capacity of North Atlantic liners.
I agree that the luxury of Titanic (and her nearly identical sister ship Olympic) was later surpassed. But these two ships (and their ill-fated sibling Britannic) were among the first super-luxury liners, offering comforts many people of the era had yet not experienced on land, let alone sea. It was not every day you could - as Lady Duff-Gordon did on Titanic - have hothouse strawberries in April. Having clean, smokeless, safe electric heat on-demand in your stateroom was previously unheard of. Having electric lighting as the sole illumination for all classes and all areas of the ship was pretty new. Being able to keep in touch with your business interests, family and friends on shore via Marconigram (wireless telegraphy) was a science-fiction wonder that had only been available for a few years at that time - it was the equivalent of a sat-phone today.
There were some things we'd consider "primitive" now, sure. Private baths were in only the most luxurious suites; everyone else bathed in bathrooms that had to be booked with a bath steward, even in First Class - an arrangement also common in luxury hotels on land at the time. But there was a swimming pool. There was a gym. A library. Cafes were open for between-meal refreshments. Fresh flowers were everywhere.
And for those who wonder why we still remember the Titanic disaster: We don't remember it half enough. The incompetent bureaucrats who did not require enough lifeboats for her are still with us in a new generation, making different laws, but paying no more attention to reality than they did in 1912. We thought Titanic was primitive in her safety features and that more modern ships would never fail so spectacularly - except that only this year, Costa Concordia could and did and capsized into the bargain, because modern ships are incredibly top-heavy, to accommodate today's demand for outside balcony suites. We're in a new century, but all we've accomplished is to invent new mistakes, because what we have NOT learned is how to stamp out incompetence, greed and hubris among our ruling classes.
And the biggest reason for remembrance is this: People died. One thousand, five hundred and fourteen of them, to be exact. The healthy ones froze to death in the icy North Atlantic. The older ones had fatal heart attacks as soon as they hit that freezing water. Some were electrocuted. Some were cooked alive by steam escaping from broken pipes. Some were crushed by fixtures breaking loose, by machinery, by pianos. And a few, trapped in spaces where there was still air, were turned into jelly by the pressure of the sea as Titanic plunged to the bottom. Those people did not deserve those fates; all they were trying to do was to get from one place to another. I think they will always deserve to be given a special place in our collective memory.
The magnificence of the United States will always be with me. I've been on luxury cruises since then, but no ship ever even close to the United States. Sad story today....rotting away in some harbor after several failed attempts to restore her.
