Ship diasters occur for various reason. Ships may be over taken by pirates, collison, fires, crash due to various reasons, bad weather, and some sank. The progression of ships has grown drastically with technology advances. Earlier ships may have not had proper survivial rafts because they did not anticpate such diasters.
Overtime, especially in the late 20th century, technology advances allow more ships to sail the seas with minial chances of diasters. This makes sailing one of the safer methods of transportation.
Source: Wikipedia Site:
As previously stated, ships have sunk for various reasons. Ships in the late 18th century and early 19th century, where not prepared sufficiently for the diasters which ulimately became the reason of their sinking. As a result being underprepared for diasters, there were many casualties. Plenty of ships had more men because more men used ships as a form of transportation in the 1800s and early 1900s, while women and child used ships more as time progressed.
Some ships carried cargo, while other were passenger ships. A few carried both. My ship, SS Princess Alice, was a ship which carried both Cargo and passengers. SS Princess carried both cargo, specifically coal, and passengers.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Princess_Alice_(1865)#The_disaster
S Princess Alice (PS Bute) was a passenger paddle steamer sunk on the River Thames of Tripcock Point in 1878. 650 people lives were taken making it known for being the accident most known for lives lost in Thames. SS Princess Alice was built by Caird & Company, Greenock. It launched in March of 1865 and was wrecked in collison.
Tickets were sold for two shillings. She carried passengers and coal. When it was wrecked, it was going to load up on coal after being repainted. Her Captain, Harrison, was sailing with an experienced pilot when the wreck occurred. Princess Alice was strucked and split in two sinking within four minutes. People were trapped and plenty of their bodies were found around the exits of the saloon, when he ship was brought to surface.
ONly 69 to 170 people were saved from the wreck, while more than 650 died. Over 100 people were buried in Woolwich Old Cementery in a mass grave.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Princess_Alice_(1865)#The_disaster
mean(SS_Princess_Alice$Survival, na.rm = TRUE)## [1] 0.1977654crosstab(SS_Princess_Alice,row.vars = "Survival", type ="c")## Survival %
## 1 0 80.22
## 2 1 19.78
## 3 Sum 100.00summary(SS_Princess_Alice)## Id_6 Ship Id Year Nationality of the Ship
## Min. : 1.0 Min. :6 Min. :1878 Length:898
## 1st Qu.:224.5 1st Qu.:6 1st Qu.:1878 Class :character
## Median :448.0 Median :6 Median :1878 Mode :character
## Mean :448.0 Mean :6 Mean :1878
## 3rd Qu.:671.5 3rd Qu.:6 3rd Qu.:1878
## Max. :895.0 Max. :6 Max. :1878
## NA's :3
## Women and children first Quick Cause No. of passengers
## Min. :0 Min. :1 Length:898 Min. :801
## 1st Qu.:0 1st Qu.:1 Class :character 1st Qu.:801
## Median :0 Median :1 Mode :character Median :801
## Mean :0 Mean :1 Mean :801
## 3rd Qu.:0 3rd Qu.:1 3rd Qu.:801
## Max. :0 Max. :1 Max. :801
##
## No. of women passengers Women passengers/passengers Ship size
## Min. :455 Min. :0.568 Min. :837
## 1st Qu.:455 1st Qu.:0.568 1st Qu.:837
## Median :455 Median :0.568 Median :837
## Mean :455 Mean :0.568 Mean :837
## 3rd Qu.:455 3rd Qu.:0.568 3rd Qu.:837
## Max. :455 Max. :0.568 Max. :837
##
## Length of voyage Gender Age Child
## Min. :1 Min. :0.0000 Min. : 0.00 Min. :0.00000
## 1st Qu.:1 1st Qu.:0.0000 1st Qu.:15.00 1st Qu.:0.00000
## Median :1 Median :1.0000 Median :27.00 Median :0.00000
## Mean :1 Mean :0.5496 Mean :28.37 Mean :0.04134
## 3rd Qu.:1 3rd Qu.:1.0000 3rd Qu.:41.00 3rd Qu.:0.00000
## Max. :1 Max. :1.0000 Max. :92.00 Max. :1.00000
## NA's :61 NA's :317 NA's :3
## Crew Passenger Class Nationality of Passenger Companionship
## Min. :0.00000 Min. : NA Min. : NA Min. : NA
## 1st Qu.:0.00000 1st Qu.: NA 1st Qu.: NA 1st Qu.: NA
## Median :0.00000 Median : NA Median : NA Median : NA
## Mean :0.04134 Mean :NaN Mean :NaN Mean :NaN
## 3rd Qu.:0.00000 3rd Qu.: NA 3rd Qu.: NA 3rd Qu.: NA
## Max. :1.00000 Max. : NA Max. : NA Max. : NA
## NA's :3 NA's :898 NA's :898 NA's :898
## Survival
## Min. :0.0000
## 1st Qu.:0.0000
## Median :0.0000
## Mean :0.1978
## 3rd Qu.:0.0000
## Max. :1.0000
## NA's :3mean(RMS_Titanic$Survival)## [1] 0.3224638crosstab(RMS_Titanic, row.vars = "Survival", type ="c")## Survival %
## 1 0 67.75
## 2 1 32.25
## 3 Sum 100.00In comparison to my ship, the Titantic (32%) had more survivors than my ship, SS Princess Alice (20%). My ship sailed in 1878, which was a couple of decades before the Titantic’s voyage in 1912. As time progressed, you can see more people were saved by comparing the results of both ships survivor rates. The rate of survivors increased by 12% between my ship, SS Princess Alice’s voyage and the Titanic’s voyage.
While as technological advances progress in the preparation of safer ship voyages, there are less heinous accidents.
Elinder, Mikael and Oscar Erixson. 2012. “Gender, Social Norms, and Survival in Maritime Disasters.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(33):13220-13224.
Ships data set in R studio
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Princess_Alice_(1865)#The_disaster