The Californian
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gus00 — 16 years ago(August 05, 2009 02:47 AM)
Nobody would ever let their ship power down like that in mid-ocean. Loss of power is a sailor's third worst fear after fire and flooding. No power means no control. Your ship would be completely at the mercy of the sea.
Gus
"It needs more cow-bell" -
deeveed — 16 years ago(August 05, 2009 10:27 AM)
You know a recently published book looking into the behavior of those on the Californian described Lord as a "sociopath". Hmmmm, pretty strong. A ship's captain? Sociopathic? I don't know. In his quest to get some closure on the Titanic tragedy and especially the Californian response, I'm wondering how far one can go in noting a diagnosis of the captain like that. Has to be a bit over the top.
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harryrstevens — 17 years ago(January 13, 2009 05:03 PM)
We know what happened in retrospect. At the time the Titanic was an entirely new size of ship which much of the marine industry was unfamilier, incuding her masters. What we're not accounting for is a typical human trait, one that we make a judgement about an ongoing event and then fit observations to our conclusion rather than changing our judgement. The officers of the California made a judgement that the Titanic had stopped because of the ice and were holding a celebration on board. All subsequent observations were interpreted to confirm that initial misjudgement.
Similar misjudgements about significant events have been made. For instance, when the Columbia space shuttle broke up upon reentry over Texas, the engineers refused to accept as credible that foam breaking off parts of the large fuel tank had enough mass to damage the tiles on the space shuttle. They continued to spend considerable time and effort to find other reasons for the breakup. It wasn't until a full test was insisted upon and conducted that the engineers were astonished at the amount of damage a piece of foam could cause. This engineering misjudgement is the principal reason the space shuttles are being retired with an entirely different design replacing them.
Consequently I find it entirely credible that the officers of the California just didn't realize that the Titanic was in trouble. It was inconcievable to them that a ship of the size and advanced design as the Titanic was could get into trouble so they fit their observations to confirm their initial misjudgement. Many new rules of marine safety were adopted because of the Titanic's sinking, incuding monitoring of wireless traffic during the night. -
nelliebell-1 — 14 years ago(December 12, 2011 02:47 PM)
That was not true was it.There was no information that would allow such assumptions to be confirmed.Titanic did more than merely launch flares,there were signals occassioned from the deck of the Titanic as she sank.The wires were so hot with "calls for help" that the indifference shown by the Californian as to the perils of the sea was litterally improper.Why in all the world would any cause seek to justify conduct as exhibited by the Californian.
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gamertrav — 10 years ago(July 08, 2015 03:01 AM)
I know nothing of the protocols used at the time but I've read that the correct distress signal using rockets at that time was to fire them at 1 minute intervals, whereas the Titanic was firing them much less often than that, which supposedly created the confusion.
Stillif a ship is stopped and firing rockets I think that would warrant some kind of action, not just completely ignoring it. I doubt ships would just fire rockets willy-nilly for no reason. -
silvergirl606 — 18 years ago(May 28, 2007 07:43 PM)
Regardless of the risks of attempting a rescue of the Titanic, and regardless even of Rostron's actions, the thing about Lord is that he didn't even TRY. He was told about the rockets, but he wouldn't even make the simple effort of waking up the wireless man to see what was going on. His crew said they saw the rockets and told him of them. The only thing to do in that situation is to at least find out what's going ON.
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rebel60 — 18 years ago(November 27, 2007 11:12 PM)
At the web site "The Great Ocean Liners" : (www.greatoceanliners.net/index2.html) there is an article on the Californian - it's history and its role in the Titanic disaster. Several points are brought up which I find interesting (although I'm still not sure if I buy all of them).
- The rockets used by the Titanic were white. This article states the standard color for distress rockets were red. Is this true? And, if so, did the Titanic carry any? Further, if they did, why weren't they used instead of the white ones.
- The article includes the "Samson" argument; i.e., the ship seen by the Californian was a Norwegian fishing barque. The ship was fishing illegally in the area and left the area (I assume because of the arrival of the Titanic) so as not to be caught. The first mate of the Samson stated on his deathbed that he saw the Titanic nearby. I have been in the desert on a very dark night. Distance and size of objects can be hard to determine. I'm sure it's similar at sea. Even the lookouts on the Titanic didn't see a good-sized iceberg until it was too late.
- Another argument states that the Californian was too far away to be of any help to the Titanic. The ice field would have slowed the ship down too much. This may be true, but, assuming Lord knew the Titanic was going down, it does not excuse him from trying.
- One point has always bothered me - why didn't the Titanic see the Californian Morse signals? And why didn't the Californian see the Titanic signals? I have heard that the Californian log was "doctored" after the fact. Could Lord have changed any references to the Morse signals in order to make it look like his crew tried to signal the "mysterious" other ship?
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markrob-3 — 18 years ago(December 06, 2007 06:47 PM)
I would think that it would be very difficult to read morse from a low powered lamp over such a distance. Lights from a distance at night tend to appear to flicker anyway making the reading of morse difficult.
When all is said and done the most obvious thing was to wake the sparks (radio operator) on the Californina and get him to listen. The rocket firing ship (Titanic) had been identified as a large ship which would most certainly would carried wireless equipment. -
medic249a2 — 18 years ago(December 22, 2007 11:37 PM)
I can't address the first 3 questions, but as to the 4th - the Titanic did see the Californian's morse signals, but because of the small light the Californian's crew was using, Fourth Officer Boxhall & Quartermaster Rowe attributed it to a masthead light flickering. In any case, Boxhall said he was unable to make any sense of it.
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anthonyjenkins2001 — 15 years ago(April 20, 2010 06:43 PM)
UPDATE
website revision http://www.thegreatoceanliners.com/californian.html
YoungAdult Novels. Sci-Fi/Horror/Suspense/Poetry:
www.thenewvoice.info -
nelliebell-1 — 14 years ago(December 18, 2011 11:06 AM)
A Red Light or Red Flare is a recognized maritime distress signal,however the Laws of the Sea prohibit the use of flares for a purpose other than for the use of signalling distress.That seemed to be the jist of the body of laws that I read.It does not preclude any assumption that if a flare is a color other than Red it is not a recognized distress.If in fact any conduct should of been forthcoming The Flares being white should of compelled a need to know.Though the Red Flare is indeed a recognized maritime distress signal, the signal itself may very well be sufficent to compel a warrant that is a need to know if in fact there was cause to assist.Though Red is right it need not be only Red to signal distress.
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TheGuyWithTheFeet — 10 years ago(July 14, 2015 09:11 AM)
They found rockets on the wreck and they're multi-colored.
http://www.titanic-titanic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1413 -
arbilab — 17 years ago(May 30, 2008 02:48 PM)
Not 'studied' on the issue. But from the little I know:
The bulk of Titanic survivors would not have overloaded Californian. Even if they had to stand shoulder to shoulder on the deck, that's better than freezing to death in the water. And other rescue ships could have taken the burden off Californian within hours.
Californian was a commercial ship on a schedule. Cold as it sounds, I think Californian's command felt they had plausible deniability not to get involved, and elected not to as it would interfere with their mission.
We all see and hear what we want to. That includes Morse, Marconi, and rockets. Californian could have interpreted what little they knew as distress. It seemssuperficiallythey chose not to. -
nelliebell-1 — 14 years ago(December 17, 2011 08:31 AM)
This area of interest,that is the area of interest whereby the Californian should of responded is full of what not to do.There was so much information that placed the Californian as a legitmate problem rather than the source of a possible rescue that one dares not to wonder.One of those contentious areas was when the one of the ships crewmembers entered the cabin of the wireless operator and litterally connect the reciever to the broadcasting with the wires coming alive.There was so much noise and even crackling as it were that if the noise did not wake the wireless operator the electricity would of as the very environment echoes its presence.Iam unable to accept this premise as it certainly feels as if this was a wilful denial as much as it may very well have been a unmistakable ability to deny its presence.Iam not able at this point to excuse the conduct of the Californian,It the Californian should of most definetly been noted as willful in its neglect and equally as it were upsetting deliberate in its attempt upon the travelers of the sea.
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jaybird7-2 — 17 years ago(July 04, 2008 01:30 PM)
There's been a lot of argument that the Californian wasn't really as close to the Titanic as the film made out. Firstly, the captain gave his position as nearly 20 miles away in which case he could have seen the Titanic or her rockets. That was disputed at first but then the Titanic was found to be off course. Second, lets say the Titanic was 20 miles away, unless the officers woke the captain up immediately they saw the other ship stop there still wouldn't have been time to reach her before she sunk. oh and survivors reported seeing another ship in the area that sailed away from them. Its often been proposed that there was another ship between the Titanic and Californian, remember the captain and senior officers said the ship they saw couldn't be the Titanic because it wasn't a liner. It was only at the investigation that the junior officers said it was. So the whole titanic story isn't as simple as it seems.