Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/37

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC of her construction every pound of steel that he may wish to employ. In a vessel like the Titanic, which is to be entrusted with the care of three or four thousand souls, he should be permitted to double-skin the ship, and divide and subdivide the hull with bulkheads, until he is satisfied that the vessel is unsinkable by any of the ordinary accidents of the sea. When these demands have been met, he may pile deck upon deck and crowd as big a boiler- and engine-plant into this unsinkable hull as the balance of the weights at his disposal will allow.

Unfortunately the Board of Trade requirements under which the Titanic was built—and very conscientiously built—proceed along no such common-sense lines. Instead, the Board many years ago framed a set of rules in which the safety requirements were cut down to such a low limit, that the question of a ship's surviving a serious collision was reduced to a mere gamble with Fate. The Board of Trade ship may fill two adjoining compartments, and then with the top of her bulkheads practically level with the sea, in the opinion of the Board, she will have a fighting chance to live in smooth water! [ 15 ]