The " Titanic " was probably the most famous shipwreck in history. On a night in 1912 this ocean liner hit an iceberg on it's maiden journey and sank - with the loss of 1500 lives.
Now a new reason has been given for the disaster - and in many respects this sounds reasonable. In 1912 shipping was fast changing from sail to steam, and this change brought with it a change in the meaning of helm orders.
Put simply, under sail a helm order was an instruction on which way the tiller steering the ship should be turned. Under steam - which way the ship should turn - thus the same order wrongly interpreted could have the opposite result.
It is now claimed that Titanic actually turned towards the ice berg - not away, and continued towards destruction for two minutes before the error was noticed - and corrected. As a result, the collision was inevitable.
Certainly a very entertaining theory - but strange that it has taken near a century to emerge.
And doubly strange that the person revealing this " fact " is also on the eve of publishing a book on the famous shipwreck !
A new twist on an old mystery should have the cash registers ticking away as new interest drives sales.
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