The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility
Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan was an 1898 novella written by Morgan Robertson. The story features the ocean liner Titan which sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. The Titan and its sinking have been noted to be very similar to the RMS Titanic which sank fourteen years later.
Synopsis
The first half of the book introduces the hero, John Rowland. Rowland is a disgraced former Royal Navy lieutenant who is now a drunkard and has fallen to the lowest levels of society. Dismissed from the Navy, he is working as a deckhand on the Titan. The ship hits the iceberg and sinks somewhat before the halfway point of the novel. The second half follows the adventures Rowland as he saves the young daughter of a former lover who happens to be onboard by jumping onto the ice with her. After a number of adventures, in which he kills and eats a polar bear (during which he seriously injures his arm), finds and sails a lifeboat washed up on the iceberg, is rescued by a passing ship and, over several years, works his way up to a lucrative Government job restoring his former income and position in society. In the closing lines of the story he receives a message from his former lover pleading for him to visit her and her daughter, which he did.
Similarities to the Titanic
Although the novel was written before the Titanic or her sister ships had even been conceived, the fictional ship, Titan, is a large British liner that hits an iceberg on a trip to New York. The Titan sank on her maiden voyage from New York as the Titanic sank on a trip to New York; however, Titan sinks on her third east-bound crossing. Like the Titanic, the ship sank in April in the North Atlantic, and there were not enough lifeboats for the passengers. There are also similarities between the size (800 ft length versus 882.75 ft for the Titanic), speed (25 knots for Titan, 24 knots for Titanic) and life-saving equipment on the ship and the number people lost in the disaster ("24 boats for three thousand people").[citation needed]
There are indications that 24/3000 was the minimum number of boats required by the law at that time and the author must be aware of the regulations being a seaman himself (‘As few as the law allowed’ / ‘As few as Board of Trade regulations permitted' [citation needed])
Similarities between Titanic and Futility:
1. Unsinkable / Indestructible
- The Titanic, world's largest luxury liner (882 feet, displacing 66,000 tons). The Titanic was considered "unsinkable".
- The Titan, 880 feet, 75,000 tons was described as "indestructible"
2. Number of Propellers and Masts
- The Titanic had three propellers and two masts
- The Titan was identically equipped with three propellers and two masts
3. Launched In April
- The Titanic steamed from Southampton,England on her maiden voyage in April 1912.
- The Titan was also launched in April.
4. Lifeboats
- The Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats, less than half the number required for her passenger capacity of 3000.
- The Titan carried "as few lifeboats would satisfy the law", 24 life boats, less than half needed for her 3000 capacity.
5. Struck an Iceberg
- Moving too fast at 23 knots, The Titanic struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912 in the North Atlantic.
- Also on an April night in North Atlantic, The Titan hit an iceberg while traveling at 25 knots.
6. The Unsinkable Sank
- The unsinkable Titanic sank, and more than half of her 2,207 passengers died screaming for help.
- The indestructible Titan also sank, more than half of her 2500 passengers drowning, their "voices raised in agonized screams."
7. Struck an Iceberg
- The Titanic hit the iceberg in perfect sailing conditions.
- The Titan hit the iceberg and crashed in bad, misty and foggy conditions
Differences between Titanic and Futility:
1. The ship does not make a glancing blow with the iceberg on a clear night, as in the case of the Titanic but drives headlong onto an ice "beach," possibly formed by the recent overturning of a berg, in thick fog, runs aground and capsizes before slipping backwards under the water, sinking so rapidly that the number of lifeboats was moot.
2. Titan was filled to capacity with nearly 3,000 onboard, while the Titanic was barely half full with 2,223 people aboard. About one third of those on the Titanic, or 705 people, were saved, while only 13 of those aboard the Titan survive.
Popular Culture
A copy of Futility can be seen in the apartment at the beginning of the PC game Titanic: Adventure Out of Time. The obituary of a Titanic survivor is used as a bookmark.
Similarities between the Titan and the Titanic were mentioned at the end of the episode "Night of April 14th" in the TV series One Step Beyond.
A dramatisation of the what led the author to write it and detailing the similarities between the events in the book and the Titanic were shown in an episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction
References
- "The Titan & the Titanic". Lux Aeterna Publishing Limited. Retrieved November 23.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Rutman, Sharon and Jay Stevenson, Ph.D. (1998). The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Titanic. Alpha Books. ISBN 0-02-862712-1.
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