Possible Captain Smith Suicide

[Mark Baber]

Captain Smith was not going to retire after Titanic's maiden voyage

Hey, Jason---

Maybe more accurate would be that there's conflicting evidence on the issue; take a look at this thread and this one for what some of us have scraped together over the years. Doesn't conclusively support either conclusion, IMHO.

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

Thanks Mark, I stand corrected. I should amend that sentence to say that it may not have happened, but it's not definite either. I completely forgot about those threads...Doh! (slaps forehead)

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I like this theory of suicide.<<

Then you have a problem since this proposition can barely be described as a theory. It falls squarely in the realm of speculation which has scant evidence to support it and quite a bit to contradict it.

>>well let's think here. he ran the ship at full speed, even when it hit.<<

As pointed out, this is simply not true. The best the ship was known to have done was 78 RPMs on the engines and Titanic was capable of doing better. They may have intended to try a high speed run on the 15th, but if they did, a frozen roadblock canceled the plans in a vry permanent fashion.

>>he was going to retire,<<

A questionable premise.

>>... meaning he could be forgotten in history, and he had iceberg warnings throughout the ill-fated trip.<<

So he was going to ensure his place in history by...for all practical intents and purposes...wrecking a $7,500,000 liner and killing up to 1500 people which would mean he would face criminal charges of barratry and manslaughter if he survived and being remembered as a homicidal maniac if he didn't?

Riiiiiiight....suuuuuuuure he would.

>>and he had iceberg warnings throughout the ill-fated trip.<<

And so did everyone else. Information that would have been badly dated by the time he got to the positions in the reports. Perhaps you forgot to question some sailors and deck officers about their attitudes regarding reports. Well, since I'm a retired sailor, you're in luck.

We regard such reports as exactly that...reports...useful, but only insofar as any such gives us a heads up on places where we need to keep an extra vigilant watch. We know that icebergs move with the current, so the watch team is alerted and the lookouts are brifed to be on the lookout for ice. That's exactly what happened on Titanic. The watch was alerted, and the lookouts were given special instructions to be on the lookout for ice.

They still managed to hit one, but they tried very hard not to!

 

[Ernie Luck]

Matthew likes the suicide theory!! Pretty naff idea if you ask me. On a par with the submarine or aliens theory.

Every post of Matthew's so far has been controversial - I am beginning to wonder about him?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>On a par with the submarine or aliens theory.<<

Well if we're going to bring in the space aliens (Do they ever get a break?) don't forget to invoke the part of them using Elvis and Princess Di in their breeding experiments. (You guys want to do what with that test tube and petri dish?)

 

[matthew ewing]

ok, i made a mistake almost full speed, and i didn't say he was going to be forgotten in history, i said there was a chance. tell me how many cruise ship captains do you know of from the titanic to now? i don't know of any. that didn't sink a ship anyways.

 

[Mark Baber]

how many cruise ship captains do you know of from the titanic to now?

Cruise ship captains, none. Ocean liner captains, plenty.

i don't know of any

Look around this message board; you'll find quite a bit about commanders who "didn't sink a ship."

 

[Roy Kristiansen]

"thomas" has 5 posts - "matthew" has 8. matthew likes thomas's theory, wants to correspond with him - and they both type in lower case. ?????

roy

 

[John Knight]

Ernie Luck said "Matthew likes the suicide theory!! Pretty naff idea if you ask me. On a par with the submarine or aliens theory."


Yep, I reckon this time it was those nasty chaps the sniper dolphins. Poor Captain Smith, first of all his ship is sabotaged by suicide dolphins with tin openers then their brethren have the callousnes to shoot him. I hope those aliens paid them well.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>and i didn't say he was going to be forgotten in history, i said there was a chance.<<

What you said was "he was going to retire, meaning he could be forgotten in history,"

>>tell me how many cruise ship captains do you know of from the titanic to now?<<

Several, some of whom had quite illustrious careers. We discuss liner captains and their careers here in one context or another all the time. Also, a cruise ship skipper is a member of this board as are several other mariners. I don't know of any of them who were or at present are all that concerned with their place in history. If any of them were or are, you can be certain they wouldn't want to be remembered as blundering idiots who sank their ships and killed their passengers and crew.

It's embarrassing!

>> i don't know of any. that didn't sink a ship anyways.<<

Quite right, human error sufficient to lead to a collision with an iceberg did that.

 

[Mindy Deckard]

I still have problems with this because, simply, Smith was not even on the bridge when the impact occurred. He had no idea that an iceberg would be looming.

Unfortunate series of events, yes.
Suicide, highly improbable.

 

[Ryan McKeefery]

"Unfortunate series of events, yes.
Suicide, highly improbable."

Absolutely agreed.

 

[Ernie Luck]

I doubt whether suicide had been invented in 1912? Is this not something which has escalated in recent years? Come on Bob,(Godfrey) trot out the statistics.

 

[Ernie Luck]

I retract what I said in my previous post. Having just done a google search on suicide I find some famous people in history committed suicide. I did read somewhere though that despite the hardship suffered by our ancestors the incidence of suicide was very infrequent.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Either that, or so frequent that it didn't seem worth putting on record. Since you ask, Ernie, this site might be of interest:

http://www.a1b2c3.com/suilodge/fachis1.htm

I note in particular the Donatists, who couldn't wait to experience the wonders of the afterlife and hastened things along by jumping off cliffs or, in the absence of a handy cliff (or iceberg), were known to ask a stranger if he wouldn't mind doing them in - for a small fee, of course. For anyone who knew a lot of Donatists that could have been a nice little earner.
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