RMS Titanic Book 1

Why I Don't Believe The SS Californian Could Have Done Much

Just to make it clear: I'm not anti Lord and I'm not pro Lord either. Any opinions I have about Captain Lord are my own and I refuse to change them to make people happy. I'm far more interested in the ship and everything that happened that night then I am in vilifying people I've never even met. I am not interested in the Rostron vs Lord or Anti Lord vs Pro Lord crap.

A: The Californian crew didn't see the distress rockets Titanic fired until almost 12:45. 11:40 PM was the time the Titanic hit the iceberg. The Californian need to see those MUCH earlier then 12:45 if they even hoped to help.

B: Lord wasn't told about the rockets until 1:10 AM. Titanic sank at 2:20 AM.

C: The Californian's known speed is 13 knots. Carpathia couldn't even arrive at the scene until 4 hours later and she was at her full speed of 17 knots.

D: The Californian was surrounded by field ice, that's the entire reason they stopped for the night. That means her engines were completely off. She would need about 30 mins probably to even work up enough steam to get to Titanic. It doesn't help that there were icebergs in the area. Expecting a captain to put his ship in danger by going full speed towards a ship in the middle of the night with absolutely NO light source is ridicules. While Captain Rostron deserves a lot of credit for what he did, it doesn't change the fact that even him doing that was dangerous. And that's no disrespect towards him, he again deserves every bit of credit he got for what he did. I expect a captain to worry first when foremost about HIS ship.

Now let's see what would most likely be even more problems for the Californian if they miraculously make it to Titanic before she sunk:
A: The Californian would need to slow down and stop in an area that would make it safe for both them and the survivors.

B: Panicking passengers. Panicking people aren't exactly known for making the best decisions I believe. There's many situations where panicking led to bad things happening. Like the lifeboats on the HMHS Britannic being shredded by the still spinning propellers.

C: Some people on Titanic legitimately refused to leave the boat either without a family member or in general preferred being on the big ship instead of a lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in utter darkness in freezing cold water. Molly Brown literally had to be FORCED to get into lifeboat 6. Ida Straus refused to leave her husband Isidor side when she was given the chance to get into a lifeboat. Harry Widener refused to board a lifeboat at all.

D: Lifeboat transfer. This is where how lifeboats were seen at that time factor in. For this to work, a lifeboat from Titanic would need to row towards the Californian and those passengers would need to brought on. And the Californian is NOT a ocean liner, she was a steamship. The Californian could hold 102 people. While the Sundowner managed to fit a lot more then what her capacity limit was and was just fine, it's not exactly something that's guaranteed to always work. Plus Sundowner was a yacht with a capacity of 21. The fact that she carried that many soldiers from Dunkirk is actually a miracle. They would need to ferry EVERY lifeboat launched (which was 18) to the Californian. Collapsable A and Collapsable B were never even launched so we can count those 2 out.

When Titanic sinks and those people are stuck in the water? The Californian's crew would need to prepare the lifeboats to be lowered (which takes time) and they only had about 4 lifeboats and there would STILL be the fear of being swamped. That's the reason most of the lifeboats didn't go back for survivors to begin with. It would be impossible to save everyone, maybe they could save some but not many. Lowe didn't even save many and people in the water had at LEAST 15 minutes before they would die from hypothermia.

Back to the idea of the Californian bringing passengers onboard: It took the Carpathia several hours to even get the people onto the boat. The Carpathia arrived at about 3 something. The Californian arrived at Titanic's position at 8:45 AM. There is no way in hell it would be any different for the Californian.

Trained Crew: The Californian didn't have NEARLY as much crew members as Titanic did. They had one wireless operator, 21 were firemen, trimmers, and engineers. It would take multiple men to even launch a lifeboat. And the lifeboats could only hold 218 people and that's probably just them all together. Titanic had 20 lifeboats and couldn't even save more then 700+ people. What hope does the Californian have?

Lord's responsibility: This is probably gonna sound cold but Lord had NO responsibility towards Titanic. His job is to worry about HIS ship and HIS crew. He would end up putting his own men in danger just to even attempt this. The U.S Federal Code states that shipmasters are legally and morally required to assist aid to other persons if doing so doesn't put the crew, ship, or passengers at risk. This? Puts the crew AND the ship at risk.

Written orders by the Leyland Line: 
"Commanders must run no risk which might by any possibility result in accident to their ships. It is to be hoped that they will ever bear in mind that the safety of the lives and property entrusted to their care is the ruling principle that should govern them in the navigation of their vessels, and that no supposed gain in expediting or saving of time on the voyage is to be purchased at the risk of accident. The company desires to maintain for its vessels a reputation for safety, and only looks for such speed on the various voyages as is consistent with safe and prudent navigation. Commanders are reminded that the steamers are to a great extent uninsured, and that their own livelihood as well as the company's success depends on immunity from accident; no precaution which ensures safe navigation is
to be considered excessive."

It wouldn't even be safe to even ATTEMPT to move his ship until the day time where they can at least see what is going on.

While it can be said that they didn't do enough and they DEFINITELY should have woken up their wireless operator. I believe most if not all the criticism he gets is completely unwarranted. They make him out to be a incompetent monster who didn't give a shit. It doesn't matter his years of experience, he's still gonna be seen as incompetent. People love to call Captain Smith incompetent over what happened with Titanic yet they forget his 40 years of experience, the fact that he was referred to as a Millionaire's Captain or even the fact that he was in general well liked.

People expect captains to be perfect human beings who can never make mistakes. Probably people who don't even know the first thing about captaining a ship. And wanna know it's funny? Smith constantly gets shit on for the speed Titanic was going yet they are perfectly fine with the Carpathia going FULL SPEED in a area filled with icebergs and then they get mad at the Californian for not moving even though doing so would have put them at risk. Come on at least TRY and be consistent.

They also ignore anything the Californian DID do. They love acting like the Californian didn't try and warn Titanic about field ice, attempt to contact Titanic with a Morse lamp, or even showed up at the scene of the disaster once they were notified of what happened. It's not as if they said "fuck this ship. We're gonna let people die", I'm pretty sure had they known for sure what was going on, they would have helped.

I even have an example of exactly how long it would have taken to ferry passengers from the Titanic to the Californian.

The RMS Republic was rammed by the SS Florida at 5:40 AM on January 23rd, 1909 with 461 passengers. The Republic was worst off in terms of damage. The ferrying process began at 7:30 AM and was not completed until 11:30 AM. That is 4 FREAKING HOURS.

Carpathia arrived at Titanic's position at 4:00 AM and the ferrying process didn't end until at least 4 hours later.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the Californian couldn't have done much if anything at all. Everything would have to go right for that to work. There would have to be no field ice or icebergs at all stopping the Californian daytime when Titanic hit the iceberg which let's be honest: would probably not even happen due to them having a light source to use to spot a iceberg, enough lifeboats, calm passengers, AND really everything else.

The source I used was www.encyclopedia-titanica.com