When any one asks me how I can best describe my experiences of nearly forty years at sea I merely say uneventful. Of
course, there have been Winter gales and storms and fog and the like, but in all my experience I have never been in an
accident of any sort worth speaking about.
I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea, a brig, the crew of which was taken off in a small boat in
charge of my third officer. I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that
threatened to end in disaster of any sort.
“I will say that I cannot imagine any condition which could cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital
disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.
Captain EJ Smith
RMS TITANIC
Southampton Dock
15th April 1912