OK, mitfrc I respect your views on this; I noted that you are an engineer with a Masters' qualification in Hydrodynamics Stability (so I can foresee some interesting technical discussions with Sam Halpern!) and so know what you are talking about. But we have to consider the actual, real-life situation of how much difference the Californian could have made with the Titanic passengers and crew if the Leyland liner had responded immediately. Others have posted before that it could not have made a great difference; certainly some more lives saved, but there still would have been around 1400 deaths.
In the hypothetical "best case" scenario that I mentioned in reponse to the OP above, I had crews of both the Titanic and Californian acting with optimal efficiency and with full cooperation of passengers. We know that did not happen and so to be more realistic and to look at it from the Californian's perspective, we have to assume that things progressed on the Titanic exactly the same way that they actually did that night while all those on the Californian - Stone, Evans, Captain Lord etc - were much more pro-active. But given that ship's stopped position, distance from the sinking Titanic, icy conditions and best known performance, how long do you think it would have taken the Californian to get close to the Titanic? I personally don't believe that they could have made it before 1:40am, if that; and since we know what was happening at that time on and around the sinking Titanic, what do you believe that Captain Lord and his crew should/could have done?
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Answering the question of how long it takes to get to Titanic is highly contentious and not the subject of this thread. We will assume 0140.
Arriving at 0140, they are confronted with a problem. Their lights will show the ship is obviously in a severe sinking position. Captain Lord is now confronted with the problem that if he puts his lifeboats over the side, they will be totally inadequate at taking passengers off the wreck. We assume Captain Lord is in fact capable of recognising this as Captain Carey did, so the decision is made to lay alongside.
The boats would have previously been swung out; he’ll need to swing them back in as he approaches for this operation. Traveling at very low speed and issuing a series of helm orders to basically refuse the bow to “Titanic” while creeping in, the ships will almost certainly touch several times during this operation; “Californian” can keep herself safe a bit better by perhaps swinging the cargo booms out to the side on her masts to keep her from touching at very low speed. However, momentum is a law more ironclad than any other.
Laying alongside will take time and she will not have much left. At least ten minutes of careful low speed manoeuvring. At 0150 hrs Californian would be drifting, her engines stopped, a foot or two from Titanic. She’d begin to move immediately.
Young men will probably jump first. There were plenty of lifeboat jumpers. A lot of the distances will be such that they will be uninjured. Californian’s crew will probably spread tarpaulins, baling, mattresses and other things but the time means many men will be relying on luck.
Every so often one will go in the water and drown. Another will slam into the bulwark on Californian and bounce off into the water, dead instantly. If the ships shift closer together another will be crushed. The panic is well on them now, people will keep jumping anyway.
The ships will inevitably begin to separate. Lord will have to use plentiful experience as a seaman to put on exactly just enough power to draw them back together, without touching. The still night makes it like manoeuvring in a docking basin, Californian’s crew will doubtless recall later. The groans of despair when she was swinging out will give way to another desperate round of jumping. Many men will break their legs, some will be crippled for life.
Californian’s crew will organize on the decks, with passengers and crew from Titanic who have made it over uninjured. They’ll plead for the women to jump. Some will start jumping. Others will throw their children.
The ships will start to drift apart again, helm and rudder orders will bring them back together. A huge surge of humanity will now press to the rail, possibly impacting Titanic’s stability in the late phases of the sinking. A few minutes of frantic masses of people simply flinging themselves heedlessly over the side will ensue.
Some who go in the water will be hauled out on lines, but just one or two here and there.
There might be time for a fourth iteration, each lasting only a few minutes. The the breakup begins, Titanic’s lights go out. Captain Lord and his crew will see it clearly and he will briefly order astern engines to back off lest the stern swing out violently in capsize toward him. The across the deck transfers are over. Halting at about pistol shot they will watch Titanic’s final plunge as the boats are swung out again.
By the time Californian’s boats are lowered and sent into the crowd it will be thin enough for the boathooks to fend off the mass. A reasonable number of strong swimmers will just set out for Californian. Some will successfully be hauled aboard. Another 60 or 70 will be taken in by the boats. They will then return to search for the few remaining survivors in the water and recover a few more; they will also recover the survivors clinging to the two swamped collapsibles. Titanic’s boats will begin to converge on Californian.
On her decks the crew tries to care for hundreds of survivors, orphaned and separated children, dozens with broken bones from injuries during the jump.
No clear breakdown of who jumped and who was in the boats will ever be completed; when the final tally is made there are approximately 1300 survivors and approximately 900 people went to the bottom that night.
