MISTAKES OF THE VASTLY EXPERIENCED

"But in all my experience, I have never been in any 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 never had been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."

- MARK HATMAKER

Those words come from Capt. E.J. Smith. He spoke them in 1907. Five years later, he was awarded the command of the RMS Titanic, and we all know what happened there.

Walter Lord's masterly volume A Night to Remember, written in 1955, breaks down minute by minute the catalog of small errors that led to large-scale catastrophe. Smith was no amateur, no weekend sailor, no bumbler. He was an experienced seaman, well-trained and well-equipped to handle a transatlantic voyage.

Fate can and does rear its head to render diligent preparation minuscule, but in the case of the Titanic-and many other incidents large and small-it is less an encounter with something large (like an iceberg) than it is a failure to remain prepared for small deviations that have an adverse effect because people have been resting on their laurels.

Complacency can set in after long trends of "no worries." This is often referred to as the turkey problem. The fable goes like this: A turkey is living a pampered life on a farm. The farmer solicitously sees to its needs each and every day, with ample food and comfortable shelter. There are 364 days of bliss.