Exhibition of design flops should suit British sense of humour, says its founder, but also shows failure is a part of learning
There was nothing wrong with RMS Titanic. Her first sister, RMS Olympic, trundled along until being scapped in 1936 after the merger with Cunard. The issue with the Titanic was that she was driven into an iceberg.
EDIT: To understand the story of RMS Titanic, there are many superb books you could read (David Brown’s ‘Last Log of the Titanic’ is a favourite of mine) but I’d recommend reading this, which is IMO the absolute best: https://thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/report-into-the-loss-of-the-ss-titanic
EDIT 2: I’ve been a Titanorak for decades and used to post regularly on Reddit but I’m past all that now. I’m not an expert. If you want to read the opinions of experts, visit Encyclopedia Titanica and peruse the articles there. Avoid books pushing conspiracy theories (coal fire damage, swapped ships, etc.) and go to the original source material: the British and American Enquiries, both of which are available online. You’ll have a blast and enjoy the rabbit holes, and perhaps even make new friends; I did!
You’re confusing design/technical failure with failure in the broader, catastrophic sense. It was an ‘unsinkable ship’ that sank. As Picard said, it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.
If you read the article you’ll see that the exhibition is about failure in all its guises.
Possibly. It was never said to be unsinkable, that was a myth. Certainly any ship can be sunk by poor seamanship or adverse circumstances.
As with much of titanic lore, the myth of it being a myth is… a myth. Harland & Wolff publicity claimed it to be so, and this then made its way into the pages of the trade journal The Shipbuilder in 1911.
However, many historians including the Maritime Museum at Greenwich have fallen for the myth about the myth, so that’s some comfort.
