If wishes were horses, 1,500 people would have galloped to Halifax that night.
All sorts of ideas have been proposed to keep Titanic afloat. They amount to nothing more than wishing for a better outcome after the issue has been decided. That's as useful as hoping the losing team will win a football game a day after the last play. All the wishing in the world won't change the score. Nor will it "save" one more of Titanic's victims.
"If" is one of those weasel words that leads us quickly into flights of fancy--unless we use the word as part of an experiment to learn how to do things better in the future. Asking "what if" Titanic had backed to Halifax, Bellfast, or Liverpool is pointless. But, asking "what if" we add lifeboats and improve the launching apparatus leads to safety improvements.
"Save" is another weasel word. You can't save any lives as all are destined for extinction. What you can do is influence the second date on the tombstone. If 1,500 flying horses had galloped in to rescue the poor souls aboard Titanic, how many eyewitnesses would be alive today? So, no lives would have been "saved," just prolonged.
There is a purpose behind this somewhat strange line of thinking. Improvements in safety do not come when you try to "save everyone." The Grim Reaper will demand his bill once a ship starts to founder with people aboard.
A serious attempt to keep trans-Atlantic passengers alive cannot be concerned with "saving" lives. Instead, it has to start with the concept that no lives should be put into jeopardy in the first place. That's why the International Ice Patrol has been more significant in preventing the early demise of trans-Atlantic passengers than lifeboats.
Lifeboats are simply an inferior second chance at prolonging lives when accident prevention either fails or is overlooked. True, the occupants of a lifeboat presumably do not die when their ship disappears beneath the waves. However, they are far from "saved." Imagine bobbing around in one of the modern encapsulated plastic bottles while sitting cheek-to-cheek with a bunch of other frightened people. Oh, and add the stench of vomit. Now, what if there is a force 9 gale and it's impossible to take people off your lifeboat and so your orange cocoon drifts away in the crashing sea. Alive? yes. Saved? not yet, maybe not ever.
Back to backing Titanic. Would steaming backwards have prolonged the ship's life? Nobody knows. But, let's say it could have extended the sinking time by 50 percent. In reality that would have meant a time of death for most victims of just before 4 a.m. Not much of an improvement. For a 25-year old, that extra time would have amounted to 0.0000068% of his or her total life. I doubt anyone would have cured cancer, written an immortal sonnet, or painted a new Mona Lisa in that period of time.
So, even a large extension (50%) of the time afloat for Titanic after the accident would have amounted to virtually nothing for the people facing death. In other words, there would have been no discernable benefit for taking the very real risk that backing the ship would more likely have shortened its remaining time afloat.
Here is where the penalty for a bad decision becomes harsh. If Titanic had foundered 50% quicker because it had attempted to steam backwards, then the foundering time would have been around 1:15 a.m. If that had happened, then everyone in the following lifeboats would most likely have perished as there would not have been time to launch: boat #6, 16, 14, 9, 12, 11, 13, 15, 2, 10, 4, C, D, and A.
It's quite obvious that the risk/benefit ratio of attempting to keep afloat by backing the ship leans heavily toward the risk side for little, if any reward. So, even if Captain Smith knew for certain that he could have extended the life of Titanic by 50% after the accident by backing it, his only proper choice would still have been to stop, lower the lifeboats, and perhaps utter a quite prayer. No man could have done more.
-- David G. Brown
