Plausible PODs for averting Titanic sinking?

I'm working on a TL in which the main POD is the Titanic not sinking, allowing a certain historically obscure passenger to make some big changes ATL. However, as the rest of the TL has nothing to do with ocean liners and it's not my area of expertise, I am a little stumped on what precise change could stop the Titanic incident.

The most compelling POD I found through searches was the Titanic hitting the iceberg head-on instead of sidescraping it which could have sunk fewer compartments (2-3 instead of 5). However, others have said that could have resulted in an engine fire, so I'm looking for any alternate suggestions/ideas on how to avoid the accident.
 
Can I state the obvious: Miss the ice berg.

Bridge: Lookout here. Can you ask the captain to turn to the left a bit?

he is asleep. I have the watch. What is the issue

Might be an iceberg up ahead. Not sure. Sir. Also maybe ask the old man to slow down a touch. Safety first and all that.

yes, good idea. Helm - come left to course 257. Warn chiefy we might want to slow down in a bit.

Third officer I want you to personally make sure the chaps on watch have a hot drink and I want them changed every 2 hours regardless of regulations. I also want a double ice watch set.

but Sir the regulations clearly stat......

DAMN THE REGULATIONS MAN. It is freezing cold, we have been informed of ice and we are cracking on at full chat. Imagine how it would look if we were delayed into New York because of a bit of frozen water. We would be a laughing stock! Do you want to be the 4th officer on a bloody banana boat? Do you have any idea the influence the passengers on this ship have? Good god man it would be a public relations disaster if anything happened to them.

CAPTAIN ON THE BRIDGE!
 
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Make White Star Line Company more responsible in security issues and not enforce Titanic going as fast as possible. They knew that on the area was icebergs. And avoid fire in the ship which there was while earlier or at least fix damages caused by the fire.
 
Avert the bunker fire that had been burning since the ship left Liverpool. It’s heat fatally weakened some of the bulk heads. Plus what @MKD said.
 
Before anyone says it:
* Titanic never tried to break a record, she was bigger than the record holder Mauritania and had weaker machines. Also, it's not a bad idea to leave a dangerous area as fast as possible.
* In that night, there was a new moon, and the sea was so calm you couldn't see waves breaking on the iceberg.
* Ramming the iceberg would have caused more damage (there were people sleeping in the bow!), also it'd make the captain look like a big idiot.

What would have helped:
* Not forgetting the key to the locker with the binoculars. Hell, cracking it would have helped.
* If the radio was operated 24/7.
* If someone had actually passed all the ice messages to the captain. And if he had connected the dots to see they were going into water with icebergs.
* More boats.
* One more iceguard at the bow. Doesn't cost much.
 
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I think even if the Titanic avoided ramming the iceburg, there still would have been a Titanic-like event sometime later. The laws of the time made it inevitable, with too few boats for too many people. Combined with the fact that, when the Titanic went down, radio operators were trained by Marconi wireless and gave idle gossip priority over important weather reports, you have a ticking time bomb.
 

SsgtC

Banned
I'm working on a TL in which the main POD is the Titanic not sinking, allowing a certain historically obscure passenger to make some big changes ATL. However, as the rest of the TL has nothing to do with ocean liners and it's not my area of expertise, I am a little stumped on what precise change could stop the Titanic incident.

The most compelling POD I found through searches was the Titanic hitting the iceberg head-on instead of sidescraping it which could have sunk fewer compartments (2-3 instead of 5). However, others have said that could have resulted in an engine fire, so I'm looking for any alternate suggestions/ideas on how to avoid the accident.
You've got a few different ways you can go. Do you want her to not get damaged at all? Or is surviving the near sinking integral to your character?

Have somebody screw up some paperwork or something and the ship departs half an hour late.
Plausible. Or alternatively, have Olympic not throw a propeller blade, this requiring a stay in dry dock. That moves up Titanic's maiden voyage by a few weeks and PRESTO! No sinking.

Have the key to the locker that had the binoculars in it not be forgotten so someone can look ahead and see “oh shit an iceberg” in time to avoid it.
Eh. That's honestly questionable. The night was nearly pitch black with only starlight for illumination. Binoculars have a less than 50% chance of increasing your warning time.

Make White Star Line Company more responsible in security issues and not enforce Titanic going as fast as possible. They knew that on the area was icebergs. And avoid fire in the ship which there was while earlier or at least fix damages caused by the fire.
Both of these are hogwash. The ship wasn't even at full speed. She was doing about 21 knots at the time, top speed was 23. And there was no corporate policy forcing their ships to run at full speed. It was a clear, flat calm night. If there's a better time to run full speed (or close to it), I don't know what it is. And there fire thing really needs to die. Coal bunker fires were extremely common in that era. Not to mention, for the fire to have actually caused damage to the ship or weakened her hull, it would have had to have been blazing red hot. It wasn't. Like most coal bunker fires, it was just kind of smoldering.

Avert the bunker fire that had been burning since the ship left Liverpool. It’s heat fatally weakened some of the bulk heads. Plus what @MKD said.
See my above reply. The coal bunker fire had absolutely zero impact on the sinking.
 
AIUI the PoD has to involve the Marconi techs running the radio somehow. If the second round of ice warnings had been relayed to the bridge in a timely fashion, then Titanic would have changed course and slowed down, or perhaps even stopped for the night as Californian did. The White Star brass may have been hubristic about the unsinkable Olympic-class liners, but that hubris did not seem to affect Capt. Smith and his senior officers; had they been informed about the full extent of the dangers, IMO they would have reacted appropriately.
 
Mr Murdoch Sir the conditions have changed and the Captain Expressly said if the conditions change call him to the bridge.
You will not get him.
I have to Sir , the captain ordered it and he outran you
 

SsgtC

Banned
If so, Californian coming to Titanic's aid is the obvious POD.
And highly implausible. Californian was at least 2.5 hours away from Titanic. And probably closer to 3. By the time she could arrive on scene, she'd be just in time to watch Titanic go under. Or she'd get there right after.
 
That's not what I had in mind. IIRC, Thomas Andrews suggested that White Star put enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew on the ship. If they'd done so, there'd probably be talk of how disaster was only averted thanks to the ship having more than twice the number of lifeboats required by law, so lifeboat regulations would probably still be changed.
 
That's not what I had in mind. IIRC, Thomas Andrews suggested that White Star put enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew on the ship. If they'd done so, there'd probably be talk of how disaster was only averted thanks to the ship having more than twice the number of lifeboats required by law, so lifeboat regulations would probably still be changed.

If there were enough lifeboats for everyone, I can't see the death count actually being significantly lower than OTL.

Titanic's last fully-launched lifeboat (Collapsible D) was launched at 2:05, less than 20 minutes before the ship went under.
Two of Titanic's lifeboats (Collapsible A and Collapsible B) floated off the ship as the boat deck went under, one capsized and the other partly flooded, between 2:10 and 2:15.

Any additional lifeboats would have likely gone down with the ship.
 
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