Captain Smith did try to go ahead on the main engines, but it made the flooding worse. What I would have tried in that situation was to run the engines astern and aim for the ship with lights. As it was some 10 miles away, even at 3knots it would cover some of the distance until the condenser intakes came out of the water, by which time and as the ship would be nearer, maybe they could have contacted it. If you are a sailing man, self-balers work with the venturi effect of the boat moving through the water, and going astern may have kept the bow up a little and possibly reduced the flooding, though not enough to save the ship of course. Interestingly, Lightoller during the war whilst on an RN ship, did exactly that after his bows were blown off, so maybe he thought the same thing after the event!