I do not see how two ships can alter their bearings when stopped Lord Mersey

[Tad G. Fitch]

The direction in which some of the lifeboats rowed away from the ship towards the light on the horizon is also indicative of the Titanic having pointed in a northern direction.

"Ismay's Evidence in my view indicates that Titanic was swing a bit faster than those who rely on Rowe alone would have us believe"

The main difference between Ismay's observation and Rowe's, is that Rowe was helping to fire the rockets and was carefully observing the vessel, while Ismay was not. The observation that the ship was pointing North does not rely on Rowe alone, nor does the statement that she did not turn around much.

 

[Jesse D O'Neill]

Tad

I don't think me and you will ever agree on this subject. The only thing we seem to agree on is that the Californian saw Titanic's Rockets/Socket Signals. on the bright however, if I ever wrote an article that needed reviewing, I might ask you to review it, as it is my belief that your critic is also your best reviewer.

 

[Tad G. Fitch]

Hello Jesse, how are you doing? Good I hope. Haha! I agree that we'll probably never agree on this subject, but there's nothing wrong with that. We're both entitled to our own opinions, and there is nothing wrong with a friendly and spirited debate. This is one of the few times that I've ever seen a thread on this topic not degenerate into unpleasantness.

You wrote:
"The only thing we seem to agree on is that the Californian saw Titanic's Rockets/Socket Signals."

We definitely agree on that, and I believe that we both can agree that it is wrong to try pinning the deaths of those lost during the sinking on Captain Lord. Like Sam, I find his conduct and actions after the fact and the cover-up to be deplorable, but I just don't see any justification for making him a scapegoat, regardless of whether he might have been able to save lives if he or the officers on watch had taken different actions or not.

You wrote:
"If I ever wrote an article that needed reviewing, I might ask you to review it, as it is my belief that your critic is also your best reviewer."

Being completely honest, I would be more than glad to do so. If I ever write an article on this topic and you would be willing to, I might ask you to do the same. A critical eye is a really good thing to have when tackling a complicated or controversial topic.

Hope that you had a nice weekend, and a good start to this week.
Kind regards,
Tad

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>but I just don't see any justification for making him a scapegoat, regardless of whether he might have been able to save lives if he or the officers on watch had taken different actions or not.<<

Nor do I. Any accountability on Captain Lord's part is really a seperate issue and when you get down to it, he wasn't the one who caused the Titanic to have an unpleasant encounter with an iceberg. Smith and Company managed that much on their own without anybody's help. Absent that, the Californian would have been just another ship passing forgotten in the night.

 

[Paul Slish]

I think this thread is as good as any to post this question.

I have seen on a few threads on ET the formula used to calculate the distance to the horizon.

It is Nautical Miles = 1.17 * the square root of the height of the observer's eyes in feet.

I have also seen the multiplier as anywhere from 1.13 to 1.17.

I was talking to a physicist recently and he took some formulas based upon kilometers, and the earth's radius as 6378.1 km. We worked on converting the formulas to Nautical miles and height in feet.

It came out to 1.065 * square root of height in feet. This assumes the earth is a sphere (we know it isn't exactly) and no refraction.

Does anyone know where the multiplier of 1.13 to 1.17 comes from? How was it determined?

Thanks

 

[Dave Gittins]

Personally, I don't use the formula. I just look it up in Norie's Tables, as Captain Smith and most British mariners of his day did.

Norie's uses 2.095 * square root of the height of eye in metres. I make that 1.1566 * square root of the height of eye in feet.

It's hardly worth worrying about it when we remember that the earth is not perfectly round, refraction varies quite a bit and even the height of eye varies during a voyage as fuel is used up. Also, some older books used a British nautical mile of 6,080 feet (1,853.184 metres) and newer books use the modern nautical mile of 1,852 metres.

 

[Paul Wilkinson]

Hi Paul,

I asked this question a few years ago, having obtained a similar coefficient myself. Apparently the values of 1.13 to 1.17 include a semi-empirical correction for refraction by the atmosphere.

Cheers

Paul

 

[Dave Gittins]

Looking more closely at Norie's Tables, I see its tables include an allowance for average conditions and refraction.

 

[Paul Slish]

Thank you Dave and Paul. So the 1.13 to 1.17 multiplier is an attempt to account for refraction. Nories uses 1.16 in round terms.

As far as the earth no being perfectly spherical, I don't think it would make much difference when we are talking about distances in nautical miles of 30 or less. That is pretty small compared to the earth's radius of 3959 statute miles.