“Neither that night nor that voyage, were we out for any records” Charles Herbert Lightoller – source. But despite this, they needed to maintain a timely schedule so the ship was traveling at her usual service speed to maintain that schedule.

Olympic and Titanic were sold on their luxury fittings rather than their speed. There were some accounts at the time that said that the Titanic was trying to beat some sort of speed record, but this has since been dismissed. Fog is very common on the Atlantic and if a ship is able to make up some time early in the journey, this means that it has some leeway should it later encounter bad weather and have to slow down.Īs this was the ship’s maiden voyage, there would be a lot of bad publicity if the ship arrived late. When crossing the Atlantic, it isn’t uncommon for a ship to want to sail as fast as they can when the weather is good. It is likely that Captain Edward Smith was worried about arriving late into New York, which is why he chose not to slow down despite warnings. Was The Titanic Sailing Too Fast?Īt the time of the accident, the Titanic was sailing at 22 knots (25 MPH) which many historians believe was too fast given the knowledge of icebergs in the area. There were many people who made mistakes or were reckless in their actions. It’s generally accepted that there was more than one person to blame for the sinking of the Titanic. Overconfidence, speed, damaged bulkheads, poor quality rivets, and delays spotting the iceberg also contributed to the sinking. The Titanic hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912, which caused considerable damage, this damage caused the ship to flood and eventually sink. It is possible that even if one of the issues mentioned in this post had been avoided, the death toll of the Titanic may not have been as high or she may not have sunk at all.

There were many decisions that could have been made that would have altered the outcome of the Titanic hitting the iceberg. In reality, there were numerous other issues that lead to the sinking of the Titanic, including some problems that were present before the ship even set sail. When thinking about the sinking of the Titanic, the majority of people assume that the iceberg was the only cause of the sinking.

Titanic hitting iceberg