A few suggestions about how Captain Smith could have better prepared the Titanic:

A few suggestions about how Captain Smith could have better prepared the Titanic:

White Star Line required Captain Smith to cross the Atlantic in record time despite icebergs; this is not unusual for engineers to face conflicting guidelines, but he could have been better prepared;

I suggest the following:

·         Collision Avoidance Maneuver planned in advance to help Titanic steer from an iceberg.

·         Give lookouts binoculars; as I understand, they did have them on board.

·         Use the Ship’s head light to better illuminate the path, especially for a white piece of ice on a clear but Moonless night crossing.

I am sure other engineers have their own suggestions. Example, my friend, Kenny Lukas suggested dumping all mattresses overboard to clog the relatively small cracks in the Titanic’s hull plates ( 1 meter total area); the ship would still sink, but a rescue boat may have been able to reach the site in time. While there were not enough lifeboats to fully evacuate the crew and passengers, they could have off loaded all people in shifts – if a rescue boat was available to them.

As many know, the ship might have not sunk so fast if the Captain and crew did not avoid collision; a head on hit was designed for by the engineers who designed Titanic. I have a more radical idea; have the ship swing around and deliberately re hit the same large iceberg! The idea is to jam the bow of the boat on the berg; the ship could then keep a minimal forward speed while the lifeboats are all deployed.

Again, the ship did stay afloat for over 2 hours; just 4 more and the Carpathian would have reached it.

*if* there were smaller bergs – likely – the passengers might have been evacuated to the icebergs!

The main one that Titanic hit was afloat for 2 years; all you would need is a few relatively flat pieces of ice. Even ones the size of cars could hold a passenger or two; again, my suggestion is to use the lifeboats they had to move passengers around. Yes, sitting on a berg all night would be uncomfortable, but it would be survivable.