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With apologies, this is utter rubbish.

If a valuable piece of equipment is inaccessible while at sea the Captain or anyone of rank can order any necessary steps to recover it for use up to and including cutting torches.

The locks of that era were easily breached and no doubt at least one member of the crew could have done it on command.

The whole line of reasoning sounds like something from a Monty Python sketch.

"Oh dear, we've locked the binoculars away, what shall we do?"

Best regards,

The locks of that era were easily breached and no doubt at least one member of the crew could have done it on command.

Well, the only part of the 'key' argument that may hold merit has less to do specifically with the key, and more to do with Blair. If he had turned over the key, he presumably would have told someone what it unlocked, and what was inside.

Based on the quotes, it appears the crew didn't know where binoculars were, or even if there were any binoculars - perhaps they should have thought to break into the locker and check, but until they hit the iceberg, it probably never seemed urgent enough.

Except that the idea that a ship would encounter a situation such that there would not be enough room to get out of an iceberg's way was not in the mind of Captain Smith, so he probably felt the binoculars weren't that important. If the key was on board, they might have used the binoculars without even thinking of their importance.

Part of what doomed the Titanic was its sheer size, which was much bigger than any ship before the Olympic class. They didn't have experience operating such a behemoth. This was shown in an earlier collision when the ship, or perhaps it's sister, caused another ship in port to swing out toward it by the force of its movement in the water. Though as I recall Smith had captained an earlier ship that hit an iceberg he just didn't appreciate the danger. Indeed that earlier accident may have given him a false sense of security that he would come out of any iceberg encounter okay. Though some unaccounted for ships were probably lost this way over the years, without radio or even wireless no one was around to witness it. No one stopped to think how long it was going to take to swerve around an obstacle, or that the rudder was too small to work efficiently, or that throwing the engines in reverse would delay the effects of the rudder and cause a turbulence that worked against it. They would have been better to stop engines and ram right into it, bow first.

On the other hand, the conditions that night added to the circumstances that doomed Titanic. It was believed to be a black berg, and on a calm and moonless night it was very difficult to see. Not even the telltale white caps striking the berg at the waterline were there.

I am trying to remember the speculation about this factor is one of the books I read. I think it came down on the side of the advantages of binoculars, mostly as a barrier from the icy wet air that would have stung the lookouts' eyes more than any magnification. In any event, it's incredible there was only a single key, or really that they even locked them up at all.