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Late Titanic thread....one second after she hit the iceberg, what would you

Bo-4

Senator
There were no binoculars, but there was also no fog. It was a very clear, calm night. There's a new theory out, and one that I can accept, that the temperature inversion caused by the conditions that night created a false horizon - a mirage (in the sense of the heat mirage you see over a barbecue grill) that made obstacles appear further away than they were in fact. This theory also explains why the men on the Californian thought the Titanic was further away and smaller than it was.
Interesting, thanks trap. It's been a many years since i saw the movie, but i was under the impression that there there was some fog (at least in the movie).
 

Bo-4

Senator
Thanks Friday...

Bo...read the article I linked above.
:doh:

The steersman took a wrong turn: Did the Titanic's steersman turn the ship toward the iceberg, dooming the ship? That's the claim made in 2010 by Louise Patten, who said the story was passed down from her grandfather, the most senior ship officer to survive the disaster. After the iceberg was spotted, the command was issued to turn "hard a starboard," but as the command was passed down the line, it was misinterpreted as meaning "make the ship turn right" rather than "push the tiller right to make the ship head left," Patten said. She said the error was quickly discovered, but not quickly enough to avert the collision. She also speculated that if the ship had stopped where it was hit, seawater would not have pushed into one interior compartment after another as it did, and the ship might not have sunk as quickly.
 

trapdoor

Governor
True....two important facts-

1. Smith and Andrews and others KNEW that the ship would sink. Smith should have given clear orders to the officers and crew to insist, at the point of rudeness, of getting people to the boats AND filling them to capacity. The lackadaisical attitude was inexcusable.
I'm not (and no one else is, either) certain what Smith himself was doing during that first hour. It is know that he spent at least part of that time surveying the damage, but there's a point at which no one knows what happened to him, and its a time that occurs after the iceberg and before the ship sank. Cameron dramatized him standing on the bridge -- which is I supposed possible but I think he'd have been noticed. I wonder if, experiencing his first-ever loss of a vessel in more than 30 years at sea, he didn't just shut down in some way. What I see in the overall failure of the "lifeboat drill" is a lack of leadership from the top down. This is akin to what we saw in the recent wreck of the Concordia (I think I have the name right) near Venice. There was effectively no leadership in that incident, either, and if there'd been effective command, probably no lives would have been lost.

Certainly more people from the Titanic could have been saved. Some of the early lifeboats left the ship with fewer than half their seats filled. There could have been actual crew assigned to clear and manage the collapsibles -- what you saw was an ad-hoc effort by some crew and a lot of passengers. Lightoller, the senior officer to survive, did so by getting to Collapsible B, while it was upside down, and organizing the people standing on it to preserve its flotation. If they'd had the sides up, and gotten both collapsibles upright so they would float off in good order, another 70 lives could have been saved.
 

Friday13

Governor
Perhaps a misstatement? He was trying to beat the time of the Olympic, a sister ship. Titanic was more of a Rolls Royce.
 

Friday13

Governor
As with many a modern tragedy, no one thing caused the tragedy of the Titanic. She was probably steaming too fast for conditions, but that alone wasn't the problem. She had too few lifeboats, but that also isn't a problem. She ignored radio-telegraph ice reports -- but the vast majority of the leadership had sailed for a good 20 years during a period when no such reports existed (wireless was the cutting edge tech of the day -- it was brand new and most ships didn't have it). They'd never hit an iceberg before they had wireless, why worry about them now? Add all this together -- you have the Titanic tragedy.

And the only reason we care now is that it's a compelling story, replete with class warfare, the elegance of the first class passengers, and the heroism of the first class string band, plus the fact that the Titanic was both the largest and most famous ship of her era, and sank on her maiden voyage.

More people were lost on the Empress of Ireland -- sadly, it's not as interesting a tale.
True that there were many factors that caused the Titanic to sink. 100 years later we can only speculate.
 

trapdoor

Governor
Perhaps a misstatement? He was trying to beat the time of the Olympic, a sister ship. Titanic was more of a Rolls Royce.
That might be true. Ismay, the ship's titular owner, apparently wanted full speed and asked the captain to light all the boilers. At sea, of course, Ismay had no legal authority and the responsibility lay with the captain.

There's a poem written by a newspaper reporter (he's famous, but I'm blanking on the name -- possibly Ben Hecht) that defines Ismay perfectly in my view.

"The captain stood where the captain should
For the law of the sea is grim

But the owner led
While the women fled
And no law bothered him.

To face the breath
Of icy death on the sea at night

Is a sailor's job, but to flee with the mob
Is the owner's noble right."
 

trapdoor

Governor
Sorry to resurrect an ancient thread, but I found the poem I tried to get from memory. It WAS by Ben Hecht, and here it is in its entirety.

Master and Man

The Captain stood where a
Captain should
For the Law of the Sea is grim;
The Owner romped while the ship was swamped
And no law bothered him.
The Captain stood where the Captain should
When a Captain's ship goes down
But the Owner led when the women fled,
For an Owner must not drown.
The Captain sank as a man of Rank,
While his Owner turned away;
The Captain's grave was his bridge and brave,
He earned his seaman's pay.
To hold your place in the ghastly face of Death on the Sea at Night
Is a Seaman's job, but to flee with the mob
Is an Owner's Noble Right.

Ben Hecht, Chicago Journal
 
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