WI: The Titanic never sank

What if David Blair was never transferred off the RMS Titanic, therefore allowing the crew to have possession of the keys to the crow's nest lookout's binoculars which in turn, would've allowed them to see the iceberg and change course so that they avoided crashing into said iceberg and sinking?
 
She either gets scrapped in the 20's or runs into a torpedo in 1914 - 1918 and will be remembered by people who look into passenger ship history as a near miss but will largely be completely forgotten by the public.
 
People keep launching unsafe ships with far too few lifeboats until one finally sinks and we learn that lesson.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Short term, not much. Likely in WWI, a ship is hit by a Torpedo or otherwise sunk, the lack of boats dooms half the people on board. Regulations are changed after the war.

Longer term, Titanic likely survives into the 30s along with her Sisters. Olympic is likely the more famous of the trio being the first. Titanic is remembered by liner afficianados as the one time largest ship in the world and the first ship to offer private balcony suites.

The big change, is White Star likely survives. Titanic's sinking crippled the company and severely delayed entry into service of Brittanic. Butterfly away Titanic's sinking, and White Star would dominate the trans-Atlantic route. We also see the proposed Oceanic (and likely a sister) get built in the 30s to replace the Olympic-class.

(Shameless plug, I've got a time line that goes into this exact scenario, found here:https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/white-star-and-titanic-what-could-have-been.419242/
 
It's generally considered to be the case that binoculars wouldn't have helped. The subject came up at the inquiries and the lookouts answered that it is more useful to use the naked eye to search, binoculars being used mostly to identify objects after they are spotted. The officers invariably maintained their own watch on the bridge, and 2nd Officer Lightoller seems to imply, in his autobiography, that he did not completely trust the eyes of the lookouts. In a sense he considered them a backup for his own watch. So, it's probable that Murdoch could see the iceberg within seconds of the "iceberg, right ahead" message from the crow's nest.

That's why I consider simply giving Murdoch an extra few seconds as a likely POD to avoid the collision. Either move the iceberg a little bit to the north, or alter Titanic's course a little to the south. A couple of hundred feet would suffice. Or, have the lookouts (or the officer on deck) spot the iceberg a little sooner. IOTL, Titanic had somewhere between 35 and 45 seconds between the completed execution of the "hard-a-starboard!" order and the collision. An extra thirty seconds at full rudder would have probably been enough to avoid the collision.

That said, Titanic was just entering the ice field when the collision occurred. If the IOTL-deadly iceberg is missed, that doesn't guarantee that Titanic wouldn't find some other iceberg to collide with...

If the sinking doesn't occur, then, as mentioned, some other not-enough-lifeboats accident would have happened. However, that accident might not have had the sort of end-of-an-era effect that the sinking of the Titanic did. (In my mind, at least, the sinking of the Titanic is one of the first events that foretold how terrible the 20th century would be.) If the accident happened after the outbreak of WW1, then that effect is diminished. Also, it's rare for a ship to take 2 hours and 40 minutes to sink, although the Andrea Doria took longer (11 hours) to sink in 1956. Titanic offered enough time for real human drama to unfold, and it offered enough time to (almost) launch all the lifeboats.
 
What if David Blair was never transferred off the RMS Titanic, therefore allowing the crew to have possession of the keys to the crow's nest lookout's binoculars which in turn, would've allowed them to see the iceberg and change course so that they avoided crashing into said iceberg and sinking?

How about listening to the iceberg varnings and reducing speed/stoping?
 
It would be interesting to see the effect of some of the most famous passengers surviving, and this is without accounting for those who could have done something, hadn't they drown.

For exemple, how would David John Bowen have impacted boxing? Would Charles Melville Hays have created his second intercontinental railways? And what would have done for navigation those White Star workers who died here OTL?
 
How about listening to the iceberg varnings and reducing speed/stoping?
Titanic likely wouldn't have slowed down. It was standard procedure to go full speed through ice fields.
Best thing you can do is prevent Olympic from getting rammed by Hawke.
Then Titanic doesn't get delayed, ice hasn't managed to get as far south, Titanic doesn't hit the Iceberg, doesn't sink.
 

SsgtC

Banned
How about listening to the iceberg varnings and reducing speed/stoping?
That wasn't done in that time period. Liners operated on a fixed schedule. Adhering to that schedule was paramount. In addition, it was commonly accepted that anything big enough to sink the ship would be seen in more than time to avoid and anything they didn't see in time would be unlikely to damage the vessel. Californian had stopped, but she wasn't a liner.

Edit: ninja'd
 
She either gets scrapped in the 20's or runs into a torpedo in 1914 - 1918 and will be remembered by people who look into passenger ship history as a near miss but will largely be completely forgotten by the public.

Yes, the Titanic was beautiful and luxurious, but she wasn't exceptional. She would soon have been overshadowed by the German liner Imperator, launched in 1913. The Imperator was larger and even more lavishly equiped than the Titanic. Therefore, only specialists woule remember the Titanic today, just like many other beautiful ships of the era are now unknown to the general public.

However, the economic consequences of her surviving would have been important, as @SsgtC pointed out.
 
Yes, the Titanic was beautiful and luxurious, but she wasn't exceptional. She would soon have been overshadowed by the German liner Imperator, launched in 1913. The Imperator was larger and even more lavishly equiped than the Titanic. Therefore, only specialists woule remember the Titanic today, just like many other beautiful ships of the era are now unknown to the general public.

However, the economic consequences of her surviving would have been important, as @SsgtC pointed out.
Indeed, although the trio will be very successful.
It will be them going up against M&L and Aquitania, and Imperator and Vaterland pre WW1.
Post WW1, depending on whether or not any of the three liners gets sunk, they will likely be replaced by the likes of Majestic as War reparations.
With White Star in a better position, the merger with Cunard may be a 50% each thing, or even WSL taking the majority.
Olympic will likely be replaced in 1936-7 with Titanic following maybe a year or two later.
One might get converted to a cadet school, as Majestic did OTL. If Britannic survives WW1 she could be a troopship in WW2. Titanic maybe.
Post War, the one in best condition might survive until the late 40s or early 50s.
Preservation is doubtful.
 
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