It is a challenge to even know where to begin in pulling apart the difficulties inherent in this study. First, they did not analyze three hundred years of shipwrecks, but rather the time period between 1852 and 2011.
Second, a mere eighteen wrecks were surveyed, mainly because they were the only ones for which reliable data existed.
Third, and most importantly, human experience rarely lends itself to the sterility of arithmetic. Figures are important, but they do not and cannot describe circumstances and conditions.
I read the entire study and with the exceptions of the Titanic and the Birkenhead, found the statistics and conclusions deficient.
