Titanic Prophesy or Coincidence?

Olympic & Titanic (enhanced image)

In a previous blog entry, "The Largest Ship Ever Built", I mentioned the largest cruise ship in the world -- the Allure of the Seas. However, probably the most famous cruise ship in history, even though it never even completed one journey, is the Titanic. Its stature and brief history have become almost mythical in our culture. But there is something even more mysterious about the Titanic that happened even before it was a twinkle in the eyes of its designers.

One of the greatest ship disasters in history is the well known sinking of the Titanic in 1912. There are lots of books, both fact and fiction, about the event. A Night to Remember (1955), by Walter Lord, is considered to be the best non-fiction work, and it was made into a movie of the same name (1958). And speaking about movies, the highest grossing movie of its time, "Titanic" (1997), happens to weave a fictional tale built around the facts of the tragedy.

What would you say about a novel that was written about fictional characters, but included most of the actual facts of the Titanic's demise? I suppose you might think this would be a book "based on a true story," or the lame "inspired by actual events." Ok, that's reasonable. But what if I told you that book was written 14 years before the sinking of the Titanic? What would you say then? Prophesy or coincidence?

Prophesy can be imagined as a divinely inspired insight into future events. Or perhaps it's a simple result of complex algorithms -- based on previous events, present trends, and observational experience -- that someone is able to calculate in his mind, sometimes below the conscious level. For instance, if you track the movement of the Sun and the Moon in the skies, you can mathematically figure out (predict?) when there will be an eclipse. If a person were able to do that without using Math, but he/she happens to be a genius and it just "comes" to him/her, if that person accurately announces when the next eclipse occurs, is that information from a divine source or simply well wired neurons?

Coincidence, on the other hand, is simply the occurrence of random events that appear to be more than random. For instance, if you are thinking of your friend John, and you immediately receive a phone call from John -- that could very well be a coincidence. After all, how many previous times had you thought of John and he hadn't called, or how many times had he called and you weren't thinking of him at the time? Through odds alone, the two events eventually would occur simultaneously.

But back to this Titanic novel. What am I referring to? First, facts about the Titanic:

• Sunk: 11:40pm, 14 April 1912
• Location: About 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland
• Reason for sinking: While traveling over 22 knots, hit an iceberg on the starboard side
• Size: 880 feet long, 3 propellers ("unsinkable" largest cruise ship ever built)
• Casualties: Over half of more than 2,000 passengers/crew
• Reason for high number of casualties: Less than two dozen lifeboats (100+ persons/per boat)

But back, again, to this Titanic novel. You are still waiting for me to tell you something amazing, right? Here it is:

In 1898 -- 14 years before the Titanic sank -- Morgan Robertson wrote a book, Futility, about the largest cruise ship ever built. At 800 feet long, it was so huge that it had three propellers. Even though it was described as "unsinkable," in the month of April, the ship hit an iceberg on the starboard side "near midnight." It was traveling at over 22 knots, and was about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Over half of the more than 2,000 passengers and crew perished, primarily because there were only two dozen lifeboats, which averaged out to over 100 persons per boat.

The name of the doomed vessel? Titan!

Prophesy or coincidence? Perhaps Robertson heard about plans to build the Titanic? No. Work on the Titanic didn't begin until 1909, and its plans had been drawn up only a few years before that. Perhaps Robertson heard of plans to name the largest ship "Titanic"? No. It is a little known fact that the Titanic was actually one of three identical ships built concurrently (see below), and its hull wasn't even the first begun -- the hull of the "Olympic" had been laid down in 1908. This was still a decade after Robertson's book.

So was Futility simply a coincidence borne out of the imagination of its author? Maybe. But maybe not. About a dozen years after Robertson's book was written, the construction of the Titanic was conceived. A dozen years before his book, in 1886, British author W.T. Stead wrote The Sinking of a Modern Liner. The tale is about a large cruise liner that departs England and sinks after a collision at sea. Most passengers die because of a lack of lifeboats (is there a theme here?). Compared to Futility, there are not as many coincidences with the Titanic here, although it is interestingly similar. What makes this book even more mysterious is how the author, Mr. Stead, eventually met his demise: 26 years after writing The Sinking of a Modern Liner, Stead perished aboard the Titanic.

Titanic's "Twins"

Digressing from the topic of prophesy or coincidence, let's return to my offhand comment above that the Titanic was only one of three identical ships built at the same time. Since you never knew that before, you are probably curious about what happened to the other two twin sisters. Here you go:

Britannic

Would you believe that one of Titanic's "unsinkable" sister ships also sank early in its career as a result of a collision at sea? That's exactly what happened. Coincidence? The Britannic was launched in 1914, but was requisitioned the following year as a hospital ship for World War I. In November 1916, the Britannic struck a mine in the Aegean Sea near Greece. It sank within an hour. 

Olympic

The Titanic was not the largest cruise ship of its day, nor the largest to make the run across the Atlantic from England to New York. Did you know that? The Olympic -- the same dimensions as the Titanic -- was launched in 1910, and made its maiden voyage to New York in 1911. The captain? E.J. Smith -- the captain who went down with the ship when the Titanic struck the iceberg the following year. Coincidence? The Olympic had its share of collisions as well. In 1911, it struck a British naval cruiser. Because it was severely damaged, there is speculation that the Titanic was launched before it was ready, to take up the slack created by the Olympic's repairs that were underway. In 1918, the ship struck and sunk a German submarine during WWI -- the sub's entire crew was either killed or captured. In 1934, it collided with yet another vessel, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members when that ship sank. The Olympic finally had its last voyage in 1935. The seas were a much safer place after that.