English: One of the major causes of death to passengers after the steamship RMS Lusitania was hit by the torpedo, was that the captain had no way to slow or stop the ship. Consequently, the lifeboats were battered on the sides of the fast-moving ship and the lifeboats overturned when they touched the ocean at high speed.

The torpedo strike had either killed the ship's engineers or cut off contact with them, and there was no means for anyone else to shut down the engines.

In December 1918, Popular Science Monthly reported that this problem had occurred so many times to other ships after the sinking of the Lusitania, that the British Board of Trade suggested that every passenger-carrying ship be provided with some means of stopping the engines from the deck or skylight hatchway. The magazine illustrated several such possible remote valve control methods to cut off engine steam from multiple locations.