Not all can be blamed on Thomas Andrews. Ownership competed for transatlantic passengers with other passenger liners of the day. With their new unsinkable ship and every luxury afforded, The White Star Line wanted to set a record with a 6 day crossing. Despite 7 iceberg warnings, the unsinkable, luxury, marvel of man cruised through the ice flow and undeniably put 2,223 souls in harm's way.

Ownership cannot be solely held responsible for this disaster either. After all, they believed they had the fastest, practically unsinkable, most solidly constructed ship in the day. This was thought to be true by turn-of-the-century standards. With welding in its infancy stage, steel rivets were relied upon to fasten together the gigantic steel plates. With samples of steel and rivets collected and analyzed from the Titanic dive site, large amounts of sulfur were detected in the steel, demonstrating a weakness in the hull and rivets especially under stress of an impact.

So how did this happen? Owner's pressure on the designer, unrealistic goals for the schedule, and unforeseeable deficiency in the materials were all contributing factors to this horrible disaster. To me, there is no excuse for cutting corners and betraying your best judgment, period. It takes lessons like this to get where we are today, but sometimes these lessons don't have to be so painful and hopefully we realize even the worst case scenario is possible.  

Although the reports from that night vary, a picture had been painted in the books that I read and in the classroom lessons I learned. Still, though, this boat was unsinkable. As a kid who grew up on the beach and loves the ocean and boating, this was a scary predicament.