Somewhere on this site I came across a comment that Captain Smith's comment "But she can't sink! She's unsinkable!" woul
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — A Night to Remember
collinskocik-33106 — 10 years ago(March 09, 2016 07:26 AM)
Somewhere on this site I came across a comment that Captain Smith's comment "But she can't sink! She's unsinkable!" would not likely have been spoken, because the White Star Line did not market the Titanic as unsinkable, so he would not have said such a thing with such surety.
I would just like to post this comment by Captain Smith, spoken in 1911 after the collision between the Olympic and the Hawke:
"The Olympic is unsinkable, and the Titanic will be the same when she is put in commission. Why, either of these vessels could be cut in halves and each half would remain afloat indefinitely. The non-sinkable vessel has been reached in these two wonderful craft. I venture to add that even if the engines and boilers of these vessels were to fall through their bottoms the vessels would remain afloat."
Maybe that was idle conversation, but it seems to me there's reason to believe that he genuinely thought the Titanic was unsinkableand this might even have contributed to his reckless confidence as he sped through the ice field. -
Deenglow — 10 years ago(March 10, 2016 07:16 AM)
The claim that it's a myth the Titanic was thought or marketed to be "unsinkable" is itself a modern myth. She was explicitly marketed as "practically unsinkable", and Smith, as you note, claimed that "modern shipbuilding has gone beyond" the possibility of vessels sinking.
I'm not quite sure who thought to make a name for themselves by claiming that the "unsinkable" tag was a revisionist myth, but they obviously didn't do their research, creating instead a myth of their own.