Titanic Secret Revealed

A descendant of a sailor on the Titanic claims to have revealed a secret about the infamous breach.

Investigators never found the truth — an error at the helm caused the initial hole, but the sinking allegedly resulted from a decision to continue sailing. The BBC News explains the rationale behind the secret:

Louise Patten’s grandfather decided not to disclose what he knew and even kept his story from an official enquiry into the sinking.

“By his code of honour, he felt it was his duty to protect his employer – White Star Line – and its employees,” Ms Patten said.

“It was made clear to him by those at the top that, if the company were found to be negligent, it would be bankrupted and every job would be lost.

“The enquiry had to be a whitewash. The only person he told the full story to was his beloved wife Sylvia, my grandmother.”

The story thus could be updated to include a self-serving and unaccountable company, and a captain who was negligent in handling the situation. I assume false pride or incorrect belief in the ship’s ability to survive impact is what led him to steam ahead.

However, I have a hard time believing the first part of the revealed secret.

Mrs Patten said the tragedy had occurred during a period when shipping communications were in transition from sail to steam.

Two different systems were in operation at the time, Rudder Orders (used for steam ships) and Tiller Orders (used for sailing ships).

Crucially, Mrs Patten said, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another, so a command to turn ‘hard a-starboard’ meant turn the wheel right under one system and left under the other.”

She said when the helmsman, who had been trained in sail, received the direction, he turned the vessel towards the iceberg with tragic results.

I have only been a passenger on vessels of massive size but they give feedback on direction steered. A hard turn would especially have made the boat shift. It could have been corrected unless the iceberg was so close it was too late anyway. It seems that if he could not detect and turn the other way in time (and not because of a design failure) then contact with the iceberg was likely to happen no matter what he did. Steering the wrong direction thus may have increased the damage before they corrected but not been entirely at fault.

Continuing to sail after impact is a much more shocking revelation and thus requiring investigation.

The breach, in other words, may have been impossible to avoid even if they had steered the right direction upon first warning. The decision to disregard the breach’s effect and push the ship ahead is what led to much greater disaster.

When a system is compromised it usually comes from a simple mistake; a service was left enabled, a weak cipher was used, etc.. This historic event illustrates why management should not continue to use a compromised system even if they believe it to be “unbreakable”. It also illustrates how accountability for customer security may be viewed by some managers.

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