To Murdoch's mind it made perfect logical sense to reverse the engines. Mind you he only had 37 seconds between time of spotting the iceberg and time of impact. If you put yourself in his position "hard-a-starboard and reverse engines to make the ship slow up as well as turn at the same time" isn't something you would even question as being a wrong move. To his mind, full speed ahead towards the iceberg while only trying to turn the ship seems wrong... because your still at full steam towards it. Little did he know using this move instead of his could have saved 1,500 lives. He didn't expect the ship to start pulling backwards as soon as he gave the command to the engine room, he expected it to slow the ship. Just stopping the engines would have allowed Titanic to continue along at a fast speed for a great while. Murdoch thought putting the engines into reverse would slow the ship enough so that the turning process would take effect. Thus follows the command of reversing the engines and putting the ship hard-a-starboard (slowing the ship gives more time to turn). If you think about it you can understand why he did it, and in the heat of the moment it just seemed like the right thing to do.

-Mark