Titanic set sail from Belfast, Ireland on April 2nd, 1912. After sea trials were performed in the harbors of Ireland, Titanic had passed inspection and was approved to sail. As she arrived and docked in Southampton the general public was absolutely amazed by the size of the ship. While docked in Southampton a fire had broken out in one of her main boiler rooms. Although fires in coal bunkers onboard ships were not uncommon, the White Star Line crewmen tried their best to hide the fire from the public because if reported, by regulation her maiden voyage would have had to of been postponed until the fire was completely distinguished. At 9:30am on April 10th, 1912 first class ticket holders were allowed to begin boarding Titanic. First class …show more content…
Captain E. J. Smith was chosen from a list of highly decorated captains to steer Titanic on her maiden voyage. This voyage would be his retiring voyage as captain. Along with many other White Star Line crewmen, Captain Smith fell victim to the belief that Titanic was unsinkable. He famously uttered the words “God himself could not sink this ship!” during an interview prior to the departure from Southampton. He has himself and many others aboard the ship believing that the ship was unsinkable, with that assumption Captain Smith called off all scheduled practice drills as he thought they would be a useless waste of time. Little did he know that those scheduled practice drills could have made the difference of life and death during the chaos that followed with the initial hit of the iceberg. Without a run through of emergency practice drills the White Star crewmen floundered when they were ordered to load the lifeboats. Instead of filling them to the full capacity of 60 grown adults the crewmen only filled the first few boats to 15. “Every mistake, however small, reflected back upon Morgan and his company— both the White Star Line and the International Mercantile Marine. The White Star Line crew should have handled the situation differently; they should have managed the emergency, filling the lifeboats to capacity and managing the crowds of passengers aboard the decks. When the tragedy had occurred and was playing out in the newspapers over and over again, it was all too easy for the public to identify the cause of the disaster as the arrogance and incompetence of the ship manufacturers and operators, not to mention those who luxuriated in the first-class accommodations, believing themselves and their schemes indestructible while caring nothing for those who might become victims to their miscalculations.(Gittlemen)” Just one emergency drill could