April 15, 1912 was the fateful day that the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. Many lives were lost that night and a few lucky people lived to tell the tale.

Science teacher and Titanic expert, Anthony Serafini, has met four survivors of the Titanic and says, “The experience meeting each of these individuals was eye opening.  To hear it first hand from them the stories and the experience of their families really brought tears to my eyes.”

The NWN got the chance to speak with Serafini, about the Titanic’s sinking, his opinion on the ship’s durability, and a few facts about the ship.

NWN: Have you seen the Titanic film with Leonardo DiCaprio? Do you think that it is an accurate depiction of the events that happened on the night of the sinking?

Serafini: The movie paints a great portrait of what the ship looked like. They did a very good job attending to the details of the ship. For the most part, the movie did show how we believe the ship broke apart and sank. There is some speculation as to exactly how it happened, but the movie shows what we believed it looked like.

NWN: If you could go back in time and talk to the captain of the Titanic, what would you tell him?

Serafini: There are so many factors which played a part in this disaster. If I was able to speak to Captain Smith I would tell him he needs to slow the ship down and adjust his course to a more southern route. I would tell him the ice fields he is going to be traveling through are too dangerous to be taken lightly.

NWN: In your opinion, what was the Achilles Heel of the Titanic?

Serafini: One of the things which caused problems aboard the Titanic was the belief of people that the Titanic was “unsinkable”. This came about because several newspaper articles called it “unsinkable” due to the new safety features. Many passengers refused to get off the ship on lifeboats until it was too late because they refused to believe the ship was sinking. This may also have led to some of the officers and maybe even the captain taking the ice warnings for granted. The safety features of the Titanic were probably what caused the most problems for the ship.

NWN: What is an interesting fact that you learned about the sinking?

Serafini: I think one of the most interesting things about the Titanic is that there were not enough lifeboats for all of the passengers. If they had enough time only about half of the ship would have been saved. People do not realize Titanic was well within its legal right to not have enough lifeboats to accommodate all of the passengers.

NWN: Do you feel that the Titanic’s sinking is still important, even 100 years later? Why?

Serafini: The lessons learned from the Titanic disaster are still important today. On a very basic level is how heavily we rely on technology. We are able to build things bigger and better than we have in the past, but we should not depend on them entirely by themselves. We should have some knowledge about how things work and be able to understand how things operate. Another important lesson learned from the Titanic is how fragile life is.