31. A lifeboat drill was scheduled for the morning of the disaster – but was personally cancelled by Captain Smith.
There are a lot of ‘what if?’ moments in the tragic story of the Titanic. And none more so than the fact that a lifeboat drill was scheduled to take place on the morning of 14 April – the very same day the ship sank. Quite why the drill was cancelled at the last-minute remains a mystery. However, there is one theory that, since it was a Sunday, Captain Smith cancelled it so that passengers could attend a church service. Given he was an old-fashioned and quite strict Christian, this may have been the case. Either way, the decision meant that, when the tragedy began to unfold, most crew members had no idea how to operate the Titanic’s lifeboats.