Keys to locker containing lookout’s binoculars found, up for auction.
Is this the man who sank the Titanic by walking off with vital locker key?
I’m not sure. While I wasn’t there, of course, IIRC The Night To Remember was clear, but moonless, and the sea was described by one survivor (Mr. Elmer Z. Taylor) as “being as smooth as a millpond.” Without some wave action breaking against the base of the 'berg, I’m not so sure that even if they’d had binos available, it would’ve done them any good.
As someone commented on the article, it seems pretty improbable that there would only be one pair of binoculars available. I dunno though.
But never mind that! - did you notice this?
Charles Lightoller
Miles O’Brien
I thought the root cause was traveling at full-speed in an ice field. Trans-Atlantic speed records were a big deal for passenger liners.
True enough; reckless speed with (at the time) gargantuan, under-ruddered vessels were probably the largest contributing factors to the disaster. But the lookouts are the eyes/ears of the ship. Unequipped/underequipped lookouts certainly don’t help the situation.
Sounds like the passion some documentaries had for a while for blaming large historical incidents on one small isolated act.
It seems to me that there are several “small isolated acts” that we could blame it on. What if the Captain hadn’t insisted on going full speed, what if the ship hadn’t turned quite so much, thus not ripping such a long gash in the hull, what if the binoculars had been available…there are probably other elements too. All of them came together to make the disaster.
If the Titanic had proper safety procedures (enough lifeboats to hold everyone and an actual evacuation plan) there wouldn’t have been nearly as many deaths.
According to several accounts, sometime before or during the trip from Belfast to Southampton the binoculars were removed from their usual location by Second Officer David Blair, who put them in a locker in his cabin. Blair left the ship at Southampton as part of a crew shakeup, but neglected to pass on the location of the binoculars to Charles Lightoller, who had been bumped from First to Second.
One of the lookouts did report the missing binoculars to Lightoller, who said he would look into it. Whether he did or not is moot, since they weren’t made available to the men.
Interestingly, one of the “compare & contrast” points made between the Titanic and the Carpathia was that when the latter ship was making her mad dash through the ice field, Captain Rostron posted extra lookouts at deck level (since it was accepted fact / common knowledge that ice was easier to see from a lower elevation).
I read once that the situation with the lifeboats wasn’t one where the White Star Line deliberately skimped on boats, knowing they would put people’s lives in danger. It was thought that if any accident were to occur, the ship would either not sink, or at least take so long to go down that they would have time to get another ship into the vicinity and ferry people over in the boats.
The reason I mention this is because it really does seem to have been a “perfect storm” of events and misinformation occuring all at once that caused the tragedy.
As far as Captain Edwards going full speed, it was a common practice at the time, as was having lifeboats for some 900 passengers for ships massing 10,000+ tons (that was, in fact, the law at the time, however dated). This had been going on for some time, and while I agree it was foolish, it had also to that point not been a serious problem. It was the ice floes being so far south for that time of year that made those two a factor in the first place. Of more importance was Capt. Edwards somewhat blithely ignoring the ice warnings being radioed to him. If he had just heeded them, and altered course southward a bit, this whole discussion might be moot; binos (or lack thereof) wouldn’t be an issue
And, there’s evidence that the ship took damage to the bottom of the hull, even more egregious than the damage to the side.
Most witnesses agreed that the Titanic broke up pretty much the way Cameron depicted in his movie (even if the angle the stern attained out of the water was somewhat preposterous).
However…
There were a few conflicting accounts. Jack Thayer testified that the ship broke apart downwards from the middle, and even diagrammed it (or had it diagrammed by a passenger on the Carpathia). This would be somewhat consistent with bottom damage, even if the times shown were wildly conflicting with other accounts.
As to what cause the disaster, I agree, inasmuch as it has long been established and accepted, that many factors, some of them quite small, came together in an unholy fashion. We all know how the kingdom was lost for want of a nail.
But I like to look at these things, and find the nail(s), and pick it apart all over again.
Aha! I blame global warming!
I’m sorry that I don’t have more information, but I did read recently that a child that had been misidentified previously has nos been correctly identified through DNA testing with a known relative. This has happened within the last six months or so.
Hubris killed the beast.
Even if the account is true, and that this was the key to the locker with one of the only pairs of binoculars, it was not the guy who doomed the Titanic, but the captain who didn’t order the lock broken and the company which didn’t take enough safety precautions.
If a country is lost for want of a nail, then fire the logistics manager and the general who allows supplies to be short changed.
“The fools! If only they’d built it with six thousand and one hulls!!”
While we’re on the subject of what-ifs though, what if the titanic didn’t sink and enjoyed a long service? Perhaps ship designers would have concluded that steaming through the north atlantic was perfectly safe, and designed ever larger ships with fewer lifeboats. Until an even bigger disaster would finally act as the wake-up call.
Did you ever consider that? Did ya, did ya?
Many a times, my friend.
Some suggest that the Lusitania disaster would wake people up, except that the Lusitania went down so fast that it didn’t really matter how many lifeboats she had (or hadn’t).
Clearly you aren’t ready for the truth about Titanic.
I thought Rose and Jack doomed it by blocking the Officer’s view by standing on the bow. Just say’n.
Murphy doomed them the moment the Titanic was dubbed “unsinkable.”
Did the stillness of the water contribute? I think the icebergs would be seen farther away in rougher seas since the vertical motion of the bergs and the ship would have made them easier to spot. As far as I know, the number of lifeboats met the existing regulations although now those regulations seem hopelessly inadequate.