Today is the 101st anniversary of the capsize of the SS Eastland on the Chicago River. The incident killed 844 people, making it the worst maritime disaster ever on the great lakes. Although the Eastland seems to have always had stability problems, they were made worse by the addition of more lifeboats before the accident. The lifeboats were installed to comply with a law passed in reaction to the sinking of the Titanic. Laws like this were the precursors to SOLAS. If you want to talk about unsafe safety practices, let’s do that here.
Here’s a page that tells the story of the Eastland:
Here is footage of bodies being recovered from that disaster: