The Titanic Disaster

[Imasquare]

When the Titanic sank 1,517 people died.

There was a ship called The Californian visible about 3 miles in the distance. If they had been able to get the Californian to come to their aid some if not all of the deaths could have been avoided.

The Titanic tried to contact The Californian by radio / morse code without success. The Californian did not operate their radio at night. They also tried with rocket flares. The captain of The Californian when advised by his crew of the flares dismissed it as a celebration.

I was thinking about this as I lay awake unable to get to sleep a couple of days back and thought of a couple of possibilties that I have never heard suggested before.

1. Why couldn't the Titanic have sent a couple of crew members over to The Californian in one of the small row boats they had? Since it was visible it shouldn't be more than a few miles away should it?

2. The Titanic shut off the engines after the collison with the iceberg and remained stationary for the next 90 minutes while it sank. Maybe they should have kept the engines going and headed straight for The Californian.

My thoughts are that in the excitement and trauma of the moment no one thought of these possibilies. Or maybe The Californian was further away than I assume. It was visible so it couldn't have been more than a few miles away should it?

[Zebra]

Some interesting facts about the use of rockets here. (http://www.titanichistoricalsociety.org/articles/titanicmyths.asp)


This is a complicated subject and was hardly touched on in either the US Senate or Britsh Inquiries.

Company Signals are different from Distress Signals. Most people assume rockets are rockets and mean distress only. In the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894 the following may help to explain the confusion people have with the idea of a ship at sea firing rockets and what this form of signaling was also used for:

Article 27 (later Art. 31). When a ship is in distress and requires assistance from other ships or from the shore, the following shall be the signals to be used or displayed by her, either together or separately; that is to say, In the daytime (Text is omitted as it's not relevant to Titanic). At Night:

1. A gun fired at intervals of about one minute;

2. Flames on the ship (as from a burning tar barrel, oil barrel, etc.)

3. Rockets or shells, throwing stars of any colour or description, fired one at a time, at short intervals.

Titanic only fired 8 rockets out of a stock of 36. The rockets were not fired at the correct intervals (about one minute as laid down by international agreement) instead taking just over an hour to fire them at intervals ranging from 4 to 6 minutes as reported by those on board.



As far as the idea of putting a small bunch of men into a life boat and send it speeding to the California, well, what if they don't make it. Then you have a boat that should be holding passengers. I don't think lifeboats are designed to move very quickly in the water either.

[OttoDaFe]

This is worth exactly what you paid for it, but . . .

1. The primary function of the ship's lifeboats was, well, saving lives. Once the order was given to uncover and load them, passengers would most likely have taken priority.

2. The damage reports that Captain Smith was given ("she's torn to bits below" is one account I've read) may well have led to the impression that the ship suffered far more structural damage than was actually the case. Under those circumstances, it would probably have seemed irresponsible to strain the hull and risk a catastrophic failure.

In any event, such orders would have to originate with Captain Smith; and he seemed unable to make any decisions or give any concrete directions during most of the affair. According to one analysis I came across, it seems likely that he was simply overwhelmed by the enormity of what had taken place and was about to occur. In other words, after he gave the order to evacuate the passengers, he "checked out." Sounds like a somewhat harsh judgment, but I have to wonder how I would react under the circumstances — and I certainly can't see myself doing any better.

[enipla]

I'm surprised the flares did not get more attention. Or they where not shot off properly. I would think that any series of 3 would get a LOT of attention. Perhaps they did not do that.

Would a passenger ship like the California have the ability to pull people out of the water?

Does a modern passenger ship have the ability to pull 1000 people out of the water?

[OttoDaFe]

The flares did get quite a bit of attention (and discussion) on the Californinan, and a messenger was sent to wake Captain Lord. Lord basically told the messenger to quit bothering him with trivialities, and went back to sleep.

(Couple of side notes: it came out in the inquiries that Lord was a petty tyrant — sort of like Captain Bligh, but without Bligh's seamanship — who had browbeaten his crew into submission. In addition, the scratch log, which was almost as sacrosanct as the Captain's log, was missing the pages that would have covered the time period in question.)

As for the ability to pluck people out of the water, the Carpathia didn't do too bad a job. Granted that they were pulling people from boats rather than from the water itself, it should certainly be possible. But bear in mind that Captain Rostron of the Carpathia was almost the polar opposite of Captain Lord.

[BlakeTyner]

I think modern ships would do okay. There are lots of stories online about cruise ships recovering overboard pax. There is a large hatch just above the waterline where tenders load and unload for excursions. I can't remember if there is a launch on board, but I'd think so.

[Xema]

Does a modern passenger ship have the ability to pull 1000 people out of the water?
In reasonably calm conditions (as prevailed during the Titanic sinking) this would certainly be possible. But even if a ship had been summoned promptly, it's likely there would still have been considerable loss of life due to the very cold water.

[engineer_comp_geek]

On the show Deadliest Catch, a crewman got knocked off of his ship. One of the ships that they were filming on (Time Bandit) was nearby and immediately went over and picked the guy up. The captain of the Time Bandit commented that "the last time that happened we pulled a dead guy out of the water." The guy was dead before they could turn the boat around and pick him up.

Here's the clip from the show if anyone is interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1z-hdqEewI

On the show, they have commented that the survival time in the water with a survival suit is 30 minutes. Without a survival suit it is only 5 minutes.

The Titanic didn't go down in the Bering Sea, but the North Atlantic when the Titanic went down was just as cold. If there were 1000 people in the water, you'd only have time to pick up maybe a couple of them before the others froze to death.

[Nava]

1. Why couldn't the Titanic have sent a couple of crew members over to The Californian in one of the small row boats they had? Since it was visible it shouldn't be more than a few miles away should it?

"A few miles," rowing at night in open waters with no decent navigational means? Good luck reaching your moving objective!

[Dewey Finn]

FYI, when the James Cameron movie was released, I saw an article about a high school class that analyzed the Titanic disaster. As I remember, they suggested that a lot more people could have been saved if they did things like making sure that the lifeboats were full and using the wooden doors from the ship as makeshift rafts.

[RandMcnally]

The flares did get quite a bit of attention (and discussion) on the Californinan, and a messenger was sent to wake Captain Lord. Lord basically told the messenger to quit bothering him with trivialities, and went back to sleep.

What happened to that captain after that? One has to assume his future wasn't very pleasant.

[initech]

What happened to that captain after that? One has to assume his future wasn't very pleasant.

Nope. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Lord)

[OttoDaFe]

What happened to that captain after that? One has to assume his future wasn't very pleasant.He was roundly excoriated in the US inquest, and just as roundly (thoroughly more subtly) excoriated in the British inquest. He parted company with the Leyland Line (owner of the Californian) shortly after the Titanic incident; and while he remained at sea for a number of years, accounts indicate that his commands grew progressively "smaller and slower."

Lord does have his supporters (generally known as "Lordites"), and there is something of a perennial movement to rehabilitate his reputation. Much of the effort focuses on a "mystery ship" — supposedly an illegal Norwegian sealer — midway between the Californian and the Titanic, which each mistook for the other. That the vessel in question could not have left port, traveled to the scene, and returned in the time available doesn't seem to faze anyone.

Two (minor) points in Lord's defense: first, his primary responsibility was the safety of his own vessel; and second, even if he had steamed toward the Titanic, he probably wouldn't have been able to navigate through the intervening ice in time to do any good.

In the end, what ruined his reputation was not so much that he didn't do anything effective, as that he didn't do anything at all. It didn't help that his (in)actions stood in stark contrast to those of the aforementioned Captain Rostron, who put about immediately (the Carpathia was bound for the Mediterranean) and threaded his ship through the ice at a faster pace than it was supposedly capable of to reach the survivors in time to rescue them.

On preview, I see that initech has beaten me to the tape. Oh, well. . . .

[Snnipe 70E]

The California radioed the Titanic with ice flow warnings. The radio officer was rebuffed and told to stay off the air because the Titanic was running radio traffice for their passengers. Because of the Ice the Callifornia stopped.

A few miles of open sea has a different meaning than on line. I do not know for sure but it could have been as far as 15 miles.

The Titanic stopped because to continue would have sunk the ship faster. With the slice in the forward part of the ship moving forward would have forced more water into the hole. Just look at the wake of a passing ship, even on a dead slow bell.

Yes a modern ship could pick up all the passengers that made it to the boats alive.

The sinking of the Titanic caused lots of changes in maritime law.

[ralph124c]

I am curious-were the watch officers on the Californian able to see the Titanic's masthead lamps? As I recall, the officer on watch woke Capt. Lord twice, and told him about the rockets. Lord asked the man "what color were the stars?"-the answer was "white"-the color should have been red. Because of this, Lord thought it was not a distress signal. Of course, the radio officer went off duty at midnight-had he staed on, he would have picked up the Titanic's distress call, and Lord would have (undoubtedly) fired up his engines and gone to the rescue.

[Guinastasia]

I am curious-were the watch officers on the Californian able to see the Titanic's masthead lamps? As I recall, the officer on watch woke Capt. Lord twice, and told him about the rockets. Lord asked the man "what color were the stars?"-the answer was "white"-the color should have been red. Because of this, Lord thought it was not a distress signal. Of course, the radio officer went off duty at midnight-had he staed on, he would have picked up the Titanic's distress call, and Lord would have (undoubtedly) fired up his engines and gone to the rescue.


Cite? I've never heard any argument that distress rockets should be red. If anything, I would imagine they should be white -- so they could be seen.


I would say the best account is Walter Lord's (no relation to Captain Lord) A Night to Remember. As he states, it was the rockets that really did in Lord's arguments -- he couldn't explain them away, or claim not to have seen them.
(I have a copy of ANTR and the sequel, The Night Lives On, I'll go and see if I can't find them)

Another problem -- even if he didn't save a single person -- the fact that he didn't even make an attempt to, is what did him in.

(As for ferrying over a lifeboat -- considering them sent them away half-full, it's not like it would have mattered. :rolleyes:)

[carnivorousplant]

the aforementioned Captain Rostron, who put about immediately (the Carpathia was bound for the Mediterranean) and threaded his ship through the ice at a faster pace than it was supposedly capable of to reach the survivors in time to rescue them.


He turned off the hot water to his passengers so he could get more pressure in the boilers, I understand.

[mlees]

1. Why couldn't the Titanic have sent a couple of crew members over to The Californian in one of the small row boats they had? Since it was visible it shouldn't be more than a few miles away should it?

This site says the Californian was 17 to 20 miles distant from Titanic:

http://www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources/dft_masafety_507706.pdf (PDF warning, see page 11.)

How long to row a lifeboat 17 miles? 8 to 10 hours?

2. The Titanic shut off the engines after the collison with the iceberg and remained stationary for the next 90 minutes while it sank. Maybe they should have kept the engines going and headed straight for The Californian.

It was probably to "heave to" and inspect damage. Once they realised that they had a gash/buckled hull for over one third of the ship's length, the Captain ordered the lifeboats out. The ship needs to be at a stop (or nearly so) to safely launch the lifeboats packed with passengers.

Time was critical, once the decision to abandon ship was made. As it was, it took over two hours to launch most of the lifeboats anyway. It would have done no one any good if the Titanic steamed another hour towards the Californian, only to stress the hull further, and possibly capsize.

[OttoDaFe]

I am curious-were the watch officers on the Californian able to see the Titanic's masthead lamps? As I recall, the officer on watch woke Capt. Lord twice, and told him about the rockets. Lord asked the man "what color were the stars?"-the answer was "white"-the color should have been red. Because of this, Lord thought it was not a distress signal. Of course, the radio officer went off duty at midnight-had he staed on, he would have picked up the Titanic's distress call, and Lord would have (undoubtedly) fired up his engines and gone to the rescue.I'm pulling this from memory, but my recollection is that the watch officer (Charles Groves?) saw not only her masthead lights but her upper works. In fact, about the time the Titanic seriously began to sink it was reported to Lord that the ship on the horizon had dimmed the lights in its public spaces (a common practice on liners to encourage passengers to retire).

He turned off the hot water to his passengers so he could get more pressure in the boilers, I understand.Indeed. Not just hot water, but steam to the cabin heaters or anything else that didn't have to do with propulsion. His thought was probably that his passengers could always pile on another blanket, but people were in peril of drowning out there.

He also called out the off-duty fireman watch, with instructions to keep the fireboxes full. As a result, the Carpathia, which had a rated maximum speed of 16 knots, reached between 17.5 and 18 on its dash north.

[Guinastasia]

I believe by the time Rostron retired from his career at Cunard, he was captain of the Mauretania. (Sister ship of the Lusitania)

Did anyone actually drown? I believe some were not able to get out of Third Class, because the gates were still locked (and no, I did not just get this from the movies -- I saw this in a documentary BEFORE I even saw the movie).

[ralph124c]

I remeber that the Californian was hove to, with the engines stopped-whatever he was guilty of, Capt. Lord was apparently a cautious mariner. He considered the ice field much too dangerous to sail through-would that Capt. Smith would have felt the same!
Anyway, consider that Lord got the message, roused the radio officer, and received Titanic's distress call. The Californian arrives 1 hour before the Tiatanic sinks-would they have been able save most of the passengers?

[rocking chair]

i think that the only thing titanic could have done to get california's attention with the rockets was perhaps aim the rockets at the california. without anyone in the radio room to hear the distress call, there wasn't much more they could do.

of course shooting a flare at a ship that you hope to rescue you may instead set the rescue ship on fire.

they def. could have filled the lifeboats more and used bathtubs, doors, and other floatables for people to climb up on. the trick is to keep as much of you out of the water for as long as possible.

[OttoDaFe]

I believe by the time Rostron retired from his career at Cunard, he was captain of the Mauretania. (Sister ship of the Lusitania)

Did anyone actually drown? I believe some were not able to get out of Third Class, because the gates were still locked (and no, I did not just get this from the movies -- I saw this in a documentary BEFORE I even saw the movie).I don't know offhand what Rostron's last command was, but he did retire as Commodore of the Cunard fleet.

Assuming that the question about drowning was prompted by my previous post, I was using kind of a shorthand — when most people think of death at sea, they think of drowning. In any case, I imagine that some of the engineers lived long enough to drown (if that makes sense); in addition there was the French and Italian staff of the à la carte restaurant, who were herded back to their quarters and locked in (though they may have been killed by compression when the stern section made its plunge).

I remeber that the Californian was hove to, with the engines stopped-whatever he was guilty of, Capt. Lord was apparently a cautious mariner. He considered the ice field much too dangerous to sail through-would that Capt. Smith would have felt the same!
Anyway, consider that Lord got the message, roused the radio officer, and received Titanic's distress call. The Californian arrives 1 hour before the Tiatanic sinks-would they have been able save most of the passengers?Good question, but I kind of doubt it. I don't know how many lifeboats the Californian carried, but let's say that there were 24 available for the transfer, with an average capacity of 70. That's 1,680 per trip, which means that clearing the Titanic would require one full load-transfer-unload cycle plus an additional return-load cycle for over half the boats. Even with superb organization and everyone remaining calm — neither of which was very likely — I don't see that happening in an hour.

The only remotely similar situation I can think of was the Republic several years before, when everyone was transferred safely to the Baltic except for the half-dozen or so who died in the collision with the Florida. But the Republic stayed afloat for a couple days, so it's not really a good comparison.

[carnivorousplant]

the trick is to keep as much of you out of the water for as long as possible.

Second Office Charles Lightoller (http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/c-h-lightoller-78-officer-titanic.html) stood balancing on an overturned lifeboat during the night.

One survivor could not attend sporting events. The noise of the spectators reminded him of the people crying for help.

More people lost their lives when the Sultana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat)) sinking in the Mississippi River near Memphis than Titanic.

[Guinastasia]

Second Office Charles Lightoller (http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/c-h-lightoller-78-officer-titanic.html) stood balancing on an overturned lifeboat during the night.

One survivor could not attend sporting events. The noise of the spectators reminded him of the people crying for help.

More people lost their lives when the Sultana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat)) sinking in the Mississippi River near Memphis than Titanic.

The greatest maritime disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff) - somewhere around nine-thousand lives were lost.

[audit1]

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/californian-incident.html Link to an article which points out how little Californian with its crew of 48 and six boats could have done had it arrived

[Guinastasia]

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/californian-incident.html Link to an article which points out how little Californian with its crew of 48 and six boats could have done had it arrived

The point was, they didn't even make the effort, or even attempt to contact Titanic.

[Imasquare]

This site says the Californian was 17 to 20 miles distant from Titanic:
Oh... Yes that's too far away. For some reason I had the thought that visibility to the horizon at sea level was only about 3 miles. I guess I was wrong.

Another thought I had last night was could they have used the ships powerful horns to send audible morse code signals to the Californian?

[mlees]

Oh... Yes that's too far away. For some reason I had the thought that visibility to the horizon at sea level was only about 3 miles. I guess I was wrong.

Another thought I had last night was could they have used the ships powerful horns to send audible morse code signals to the Californian?

I do not know how far sound will travel, and it will be variable on air temp, humidity, etc. None of the few accounts I have read mention any distress sirens being used. It's possible that Captain Smith did not use them (perhaps in fear of causing a stampede?).

The testimony of the watches on both ships state that they attempted to signal the other by morse lamp, but received no reply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Californian

Slightly before 23:00, after Californian had stopped, lights of another ship came into view on the horizon off Californian's starboard side. To Lord, Second Officer Herbert Stone, and deck apprentice James Gibson, the ship looked like a tramp steamer, similar in size to Californian. Third Officer C.V. Groves, who was on deck with Lord, thought the lights made the ship look like a passenger liner.

<snip>

At 23:30 Lord asked Third Officer Groves to try to signal the ship on the horizon, which he estimated to be 4-5 miles (8 km) away and stopped, with a Morse lamp. The vessel never appeared to respond. Slightly after midnight Second Officer Herbert Stone took watch from Groves, while Lord went to rest in the chartroom. Stone also tried signaling the ship with the Morse lamp, also without success. Around 00:45 on 15 April Stone saw a white flash appear in the direction of the "smallish" steamer. First he thought it was a shooting star, until he saw another one. He would go on to see five rockets before being joined by the apprentice. He called down the speaking tube to Captain Lord at 01:15, but it is unclear how many he told the Captain about. Lord said he was told of one rocket and asked if it had been a company signal. Stone said he didn’t know. Lord told Stone to tell him if anything about the ship changed and to keep signaling the ship with the Morse lamp.

<snip>

Stewart woke Evans at 05:30 who then turned on the wireless and found out that Titanic had sunk overnight. Stewart took the news to Captain Lord who immediately calculated the distance between the two ships, estimated it was 19 1/2 miles (31 km) away and began steaming towards Titanic's last reported position.

<snip>

Titanic's Captain Edward Smith felt the ship [the Californian] was close enough that he ordered the first lifeboats launched on the port side to row over to the ship, drop off the passengers and come back to Titanic for more. The lights of the ship were seen from Titanic's lifeboats throughout the night; one lifeboat rowed towards them, but never seemed to get any closer.

I am guessing that a mast light on a dark sea must have carried pretty far that night. They may have seen each other's masthead lights. IIRC, horizon at sea is roughly 15 miles, assuming clear weather. The masts high up can be seen further than that.

Also, I have read in WW2 submarine history books that, during operations in the Sea of Okhotsk (north of Japan) has shown extreme cases of light refraction, possibly because of weird temperature and humidty layers in the air. I wonder if similar conditions could be found in the N. Atlantic that night. The ice flows were indeed further south that time of year than most sailors involved could remember seeing/hearing of.

The question that occurs to me is why didn't the watch on the Californian become more proactive about the flare-rockets? I would have asked my radio operator to get out of bed, and see if the ship was in distress, or just having a party.

[Magiver]

If they had lashed the life boats together they would have acted like pontoons and have been more stable. A more stable platform could have taken on more passengers without tipping over.

[muldoonthief]

Oh... Yes that's too far away. For some reason I had the thought that visibility to the horizon at sea level was only about 3 miles. I guess I was wrong.

Another thought I had last night was could they have used the ships powerful horns to send audible morse code signals to the Californian?

Here's a nice horizon calculator (http://www.boatsafe.com/tools/horizon.htm). The horizon is about 3 miles away if your eyes are 6 ft above sea level. According to this (http://www.titanic-nautical.com/titanic-facts.php), the boat deck was 60 ft above sea level, giving a horizon of 10 miles. Presumably the lookouts were higher, and the Californian was a reasonably big ship as well, so it's likely they could see each other if they were 20 miles apart.

[RealityChuck]

If they had lashed the life boats together they would have acted like pontoons and have been more stable. A more stable platform could have taken on more passengers without tipping over.I'm sure that if they too had 97 years to think about it, they would have come up with that solution.

[Snnipe 70E]

He also called out the off-duty fireman watch, with instructions to keep the fireboxes full. As a result, the Carpathia, which had a rated maximum speed of 16 knots, reached between 17.5 and 18 on its dash north.


This is where I begin to wonder. The Captian could not call the off-duty fireman watch, he would not have the athority. Also extra firemen in the boiler room would only get in the way. You can only feed so much coal into a boiler until you will reach the endpoint of the firing rate. Extra coal would not mean extra pressure. The captian may have asked the Chief to get as many truns ont of the main engine as possable but there are mechanical limits.

[Snnipe 70E]

I
I am guessing that a mast light on a dark sea must have carried pretty far that night. They may have seen each other's masthead lights. IIRC, horizon at sea is roughly 15 miles, assuming clear weather. The masts high up can be seen further than that.

The question that occurs to me is why didn't the watch on the Californian become more proactive about the flare-rockets? I would have asked my radio operator to get out of bed, and see if the ship was in distress, or just having a party.


I was once told by a deck midshipman that the horizon was 15 miles from the bridge of the ship.

The radio officer had recieved one chewing out from the Titanic before going off air for the night I doubt he would have gotten up.

[mlees]

This is where I begin to wonder. The Captian could not call the off-duty fireman watch, he would not have the athority. Also extra firemen in the boiler room would only get in the way. You can only feed so much coal into a boiler until you will reach the endpoint of the firing rate. Extra coal would not mean extra pressure. The captian may have asked the Chief to get as many truns ont of the main engine as possable but there are mechanical limits.

Forced Draft consumes coal at a hugely accelerated rate. The coal may be burnt almost as fast as you can shovel it in. The "black gang" will get tired, and need replacing after a time, thus having the off duty watch on hand to rotate them in becomes neccessary.

Your correct in that there are physical limits to how much heat can be transferred to the water, how much coal can be in the firebox (thus some old books used to brag about a ship having a large grate area), how much energy a specific propellor can transmit to the water, how long the forced draught process can go before the fireboxes are clogged with ash, and so forth.

Please cite that the Captain of a civilian steamer does not have the authority to call up an off duty crew(man). I have never heard of that before. Some trade Union law?

[Magiver]

I'm sure that if they too had 97 years to think about it, they would have come up with that solution.
Because?????

It's just common sense to lash stuff together on water for stability. Catamarans go way back and members of the crew should have been aware of them.

[Snnipe 70E]

Forced Draft consumes coal at a hugely accelerated rate. The coal may be burnt almost as fast as you can shovel it in. The "black gang" will get tired, and need replacing after a time, thus having the off duty watch on hand to rotate them in becomes neccessary.

Your correct in that there are physical limits to how much heat can be transferred to the water, how much coal can be in the firebox (thus some old books used to brag about a ship having a large grate area), how much energy a specific propellor can transmit to the water, how long the forced draught process can go before the fireboxes are clogged with ash, and so forth.

Please cite that the Captain of a civilian steamer does not have the authority to call up an off duty crew(man). I have never heard of that before. Some trade Union law?

A hand stroked coal fired boiler could not have forced drafed fans on the boiler. And I believe it was only Navy ships with pressurized fire rooms.

A captian has no authority in the engine room. In fact the captian has to ask the Chief Engineer for permission to leave port. On a ship where officers wear uniforms the captian and the Chief both have 4 stripes.

My dad saw a Second Assiatant Engineer pick up a captian by the seat of the pants and throw him out of the engine room. the captian did not ask permission to come into the engineroom.

I was on a ship once where the captian ordered 130 truns on the main engine. In the officers solon the Chief told the captian at that speed in the seas we were in it was going to damage the ship. The captian would not back down. The Chief went into the engineroom and put in the Day Orders book that the max turns was 110 turns unless the Chief approved an increase. Made the Captian mad but there was not a thing he could do.

The deckies know how to manuver and load a ship, but do not have a clue of what goes on in the engine room. These rules came with Liciencing laws in most countrys.

[tomndebb]

There was a ship called The Californian visible about 3 miles in the distance. If they had been able to get the Californian to come to their aid some if not all of the deaths could have been avoided.

. . .

1. Why couldn't the Titanic have sent a couple of crew members over to The Californian in one of the small row boats they had? Since it was visible it shouldn't be more than a few miles away should it?From The Californian's Story (http://home.earthlink.net/~dnitzer/Frameset.html) At 6:00 they received a wireless message from the Frankfurt, and then the Virginian, "Do you know the Titanic has struck a berg, and she is sinking?" Captain Lord started his engines and headed for the last known position of the Titanic. Within twenty-five minutes, Lord radioed to the Virginian that they were close enough see the rescue ship Carpathia taking on passengers from small boats. About this time, Stewart woke up Third Officer Groves with the announcement, "The Titanic has sunk, and the passengers are all in lifeboats in the water ahead of us." At 6:50 am Third Officer Groves arrived on the bridge and noticed that the Carpathia and the lifeboats were due east - it had taken them less than an hour to arrive at the same latitude as the lifeboats. When they finally arrived alongside the Carpathia, the last of the survivors from the Titanic were just being taken aboard. So, even acknowledging a checked speed to avoid bergs, the Californian took about an hour under power to reach the Titanic's location. Without getting into the responsibility/culpability of Captain Lord, the answer to the question I have quoted is that a journey by lifeboat to get the attention of the Californian would have been fruitless.

[Xema]

The Captian could not call the off-duty fireman watch, he would not have the athority.
Even if this were the case on board the Carpathia (which I doubt), the Captain need only have said to those off duty "Boys, a ship is sinking and we are needed to rescue survivors. Do you agree our honor demands we do our utmost? If so, head to the fireroom and offer any help your on-duty shipmates can use."

[Daylate]

I've been fascinated by the Titanic story ever since finding a book about it in my sixth grade school library back sometime around 1942 or so.

One of the things I've read, and which does make some sense, is that they could have delayed the sinking if the watertight doors had not been closed. Closing these doors kept water from running immediately thru the ship, but it did cause the first five compartments (the ones affected by the gash in the hull) to fill, and then water ran over the top of each bulkhead astern in succession, flooding the ship from the bow. This forced the bow under water, and then the normal hull openings - portholes, hatches, etc., - let water rush with increasing volume into the hull, resulting in the rapid sinking. And modern research indicates that the angle the hull assumed as it sank probably caused a catastrophic breakup of the hull when a great deal of the ship was still above water.

Had the watertight doors been left open, the water would have filled the entire hull from the bottom up, and it would have sunk on a relatively even keel. Estimates I've read state that it might have stayed afloat until the arrival of the Carpathia had this been the procedure. This approach would have caused other problems - loss of heat and light as the main engines and generators were flooded, forcing all the steerage passengers up higher into the ship (no bad thing, actually), but these effects would not have been anyway near as bad as what happened.

However, it would have taken an extraordinarily self-assured, quick-thinking, skilled, and forceful sailor to have made that decision at that time and place.

It is interesting to note that the entire area of the gash was no larger than the average refrigerator door. Unfortunately, it extended over the first five compartments, and the watertight bulkheads didn't go all the way to the top of the hull.

[Imasquare]

Thanks for the input everyone. There's some very interesting points been made here.