Aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, we crossed over the exact spot where the Titanic sits on the bottom of the North Atlantic. The date was April 14—ninety-six years after the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank early the next morning. In the cold and rain and amidst somewhat rough seas, the officers of the QE2 placed a wreath in the water in memory of those who lost their lives.
It wasn’t hard to imagine how terrifying it must have been in the dark with the April weather as it is and the ship slowly sinking. But as terrible as the tragedy was, Commodore Warwick (retired Cunard captain of the QE2 and QM2) reminded us in a lecture of the changes that were brought about world wide because of that loss.
There is now an iceberg patrol which is why we happened this trip to be on the southerly crossing course. It is faster to go by a more northerly course but the ice this year had forced our crossing further to the south and thus over the Titanic. Commodore Warwick said he felt the captain of the Titanic was following a southerly course as a matter of safety. In all his years of transatlantic crossing, Warwick said he only saw ice this far south two or three times.
The other safety measures of course include having enough lifeboats for all aboard and measures for safe evacuation. No ship will ever again be considered “unsinkable.”
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