A good tall tale has an element of plausibility. A 6km swim is a common workout for a college swimmer these days. If the river conditions were favorable, the story on its own was not suspect.
> Every schoolchild knows the story of the Titanic, the luxury ocean liner that hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. So why did the Empress tragedy, which claimed even more passenger lives a little over two years later, fail to embed itself in our collective national consciousness?
Because the Titanic was the biggest ship ever, it sunk on its maiden voyage, although it was said to be unsinkable. It's probably one of few stories from our time which will be remembered in a thousand years.
That, and there were survivors to tell the tale. Ships sinking with all on board lost was a reality. There was always the chance that one who went out to sea might not return. The Titanic's survivors made the story known and memorable.
> On May 28, 1914, the Empress began her 192nd trip across the Atlantic, from Quebec City en route to Liverpool, carrying 1,056 passengers and a crew of 423.
I have to say I'm surprised by the size of the crew, both from the economic perspective and from the fact that it's steam and not sails. I guess I'll need to read more on how these ships were run.
> After a minute and a half, the boiler rooms were flooded with the equivalent of nine Olympic swimming pools of water.
Tldr: 'Davidson stripped off his nightshirt and swam away from the ship. The suction took him down, and when he came up, he swam into a frenzied crowd. “They tramped me under three times before I got through them. I swam on a little farther, but the water was fearfully cold, and I was out of practice swimming,” he said.
Davidson was picked up by a lifeboat and taken to the _Storstad_, which survived the collision.'
The article was apparently edited to increase prolixity.
He says near the beginning that only 832 people died on Titanic, which is plainly untrue and made me stop reading because I felt I could no longer trust anything the author was saying without fact checking it. I mean that's a really basic thing to get wrong.
That's the number of passenger deaths, not total deaths. It's pretty close to the sum of passenger deaths in the wikipedia article on the Titanic [1], 818. According to that article, the total death count is unclear, so the discrepancy seems acceptable.
If you liked this story, you might like the game Return of the Obra Dinn, which is kinda just this but for ~60 different people on a fictional ship.
A very cool game by the author of the also interesting Papers, Please.
I second this recommendation!
Its amazing how much and how little things have changed when it comes to media. Good reminder to always be skeptical about sensationalism.
A good tall tale has an element of plausibility. A 6km swim is a common workout for a college swimmer these days. If the river conditions were favorable, the story on its own was not suspect.
I mean, there is this Icelandic guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%B0laugur_Fri%C3%B0%C3%BE...
who actually did swim 6km in freezing waters after his vessel sank in 1984..
Yeah, but that guy was well insulated with blubber.
Oceanliner Designs has a great recreation of this accident: https://youtu.be/-9ZLZ8hiA5Y?si=ElcaIqEQhTHsElkM
...and of the last 10 minutes of this accident: https://youtu.be/N5CxSRsiUys?si=wS42xVXUb5Awb95U
> Every schoolchild knows the story of the Titanic, the luxury ocean liner that hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. So why did the Empress tragedy, which claimed even more passenger lives a little over two years later, fail to embed itself in our collective national consciousness?
Because the Titanic was the biggest ship ever, it sunk on its maiden voyage, although it was said to be unsinkable. It's probably one of few stories from our time which will be remembered in a thousand years.
That, and there were survivors to tell the tale. Ships sinking with all on board lost was a reality. There was always the chance that one who went out to sea might not return. The Titanic's survivors made the story known and memorable.
> On May 28, 1914, the Empress began her 192nd trip across the Atlantic, from Quebec City en route to Liverpool, carrying 1,056 passengers and a crew of 423.
I have to say I'm surprised by the size of the crew, both from the economic perspective and from the fact that it's steam and not sails. I guess I'll need to read more on how these ships were run.
> After a minute and a half, the boiler rooms were flooded with the equivalent of nine Olympic swimming pools of water.
Oh for crying out loud
Tldr: 'Davidson stripped off his nightshirt and swam away from the ship. The suction took him down, and when he came up, he swam into a frenzied crowd. “They tramped me under three times before I got through them. I swam on a little farther, but the water was fearfully cold, and I was out of practice swimming,” he said.
Davidson was picked up by a lifeboat and taken to the _Storstad_, which survived the collision.'
The article was apparently edited to increase prolixity.
I thought he would explain how he figured all this out but it was not clear from the article how he did so.
I thought the background was interesting and helpful to know
It’s a book excerpt
He says near the beginning that only 832 people died on Titanic, which is plainly untrue and made me stop reading because I felt I could no longer trust anything the author was saying without fact checking it. I mean that's a really basic thing to get wrong.
That's the number of passenger deaths, not total deaths. It's pretty close to the sum of passenger deaths in the wikipedia article on the Titanic [1], 818. According to that article, the total death count is unclear, so the discrepancy seems acceptable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic#Survivors_and_victims