Hindsight

[forthbridge]

From the Maritime Advocate on Line


Hindsight is a Wonderful Thing

"When anyone asks me how I can best describe my nearly forty years experience at sea, I say merely uneventful.

Of course there have been winter gales and storms and fog and the like, but in all my experience, I have never seen an accident of any sort worth speaking about.

I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea..I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."

[from a paper presented in 1907 by EJ Smith, whose final appointment was Captain of the Titanic]

[Klaatu83]

From the Maritime Advocate on Line


Hindsight is a Wonderful Thing

"When anyone asks me how I can best describe my nearly forty years experience at sea, I say merely uneventful.

Of course there have been winter gales and storms and fog and the like, but in all my experience, I have never seen an accident of any sort worth speaking about.

I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea..I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."

[from a paper presented in 1907 by EJ Smith, whose final appointment was Captain of the Titanic]


Complacency has probably been behind more accidents, on land and at sea, than any other cause. When I was sailing I used to keep a framed copy of that old quote of Captain Smith's on my bulkhead as a reminder of that. It still hangs above my desk to this day.

It goes along with another great quote from a very wise old captain I sailed with long ago, to wit: "Your schedule is more flexible than your ship".