The Irish Examiner featured an interesting story recently about the missing key for the Titanic's binoculars. Apparently, the lookouts in the crow's nest had no binoculars and, it was reported in the US enquiry to the disaster, if they had had binoculars they would have seen the iceberg earlier with probably enough time to avoid collision completely.Where were the binoculars? The binoculars were actually on-board the Titanic, but the key to the locker, in which they were contained, were not. In a twist of fate the owner of the locker, Second Officer David Blair, was removed from the crew at the very last minute to make way for a more senior and experienced officer from the Olympic. In the haste that ensued, Blair forgot to hand over the keys and the rest they say is history. This is one of the many little quirks of fate that ultimately contributed to Titanic's demise.
The key has since been purchased by a Chinese Diamond merchant. As reported by the Examiner, he uses it as a management tool to ask 'what procedures would you have put in place to ensure that the key was where it was meant to be?'
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