STRANGERS ON THE HORIZON: Titanic and Californian – A Forensic Approach

[Arun Vajpey]

(People, I felt that discussions involving the Titanic and Californian conundrum were more appropriate in this thread , which is about another of Sam Halpern's excellent books. I mean rather than what we have been discussing for over a week in the Prelude To An Allison book thread, which is, of course, also by Sam but about the dynamics of the accident itself. Sorry, it is my OCD about such things)

The point is Lord Mersey was to condemn captain Lord for not rescuing all. So where was the Mersey rescue plan to take the ones of the Titanic.

Mike, Senator Smith and Lord Mersey were chairing the American and British investigations into the Titanic disaster and were therefore entitled to ask deep and probing questions to those witnesses who were summoned to the respective Inquiries. It was not their job to outline a theoretical plan for a rescue.

If you watch the long running TV series Mayday (aka Air Crash Investigation) those officials that are involved in the post-disaster investigations are appointed accident investigators. Some of them might have had piloting experience and in some investigations pilots might be involved but primarily they would be called in for their technical knowledge and experience in such matters and not for their flying skills. Such an official would never be required to explain how he/she would have avoided the accident that they were investigating at the time but analyze what went wrong, why and how such an accident could be avoided in the future.

Also, I don't believe Lord Mersey or anyone else "condemned" Captain Lord; if anything, he condemned himself. As I explained in another thread, Lord was given every chance to explain his actions - or lack of them - when he learned about the rockets fired by the other ship etc. Not only did he not offer any explanation, but chose to give ambiguous, monosyllabic answers that only made his situation worse. While Lord was censured by both investigations, neither levelled any direct charges against him or his crew; his dismissal by the Leyland Line was their own decision.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

I felt that discussions involving the Titanic and Californian conundrum were more appropriate in this thread ... Sorry, it is my OCD about such things.

Agree!! (I mean about the move to this threat, not necessarily about your OCD.)

 

[marina_irc]

@Samuel Halpern I've finally fully read Strangers on the Horizon. And I don't mean 'read' or took notes, but actually read all of the appendices first before reading the narrative and made sure I was fully following all the maths and the charts. This took somewhere around twelve hours while flying to and from some emergency work and grabbing a notepad to do some scratch calculations on the seatback tray table. It's a testament to your level of effort because I have a reputation among my friends as a blazingly fast reader who can go through a novel in four hours or so; you packed so much information into this work that while other works of history have barely served for a single leg, you got me from the west coast to Puerto Rico and back, and while at work I was doing dead reckoning calculations for the track of a hurricane to practice the maths and make sure I had it all right.

That is a fantastic level of effort that should be commended.

I consider it the final word on the matter of the Californian.

However, two things now have me hooked. The first one is -- do we have any chance at all of knowing the identity of the black-funnel tramp? Nonetheless I assume since she was trying to follow Mount Temple through the ice, it's categorically impossible that she had any contact with Titanic, except perhaps at most to sight her lights from the wrong side of the main ice pack. It seems like the most likely explanation though is that she lacked a wireless and her presence was pure coincidence.

Two -- is either the Black-funneled ship or yet another ship possibly "Ount"? I may have misunderstood but it seemed like the positions of Almerian did not strongly support her being close enough to Mount Temple at the right time, to receive the "Ount" signal. This could easily be a partial of a "foreign" name as well, it occurred to me.

That said ... All unidentified sightings, even the schooner, were west of the ice pack, were they not?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Th

I've finally fully read Strangers on the Horizon. ... That is a fantastic level of effort that should be commended.

Thank you for the kind words, and I'm glad that you enjoyed the book. A lot did go into bringing it all together. However, I'm not sure about it being the 'final word' when it comes to the Californian affair. I'm afraid there is no final word on the subject.

As for your questions, I agree with your assumption that the small black funneled steamer had no wireless. She apparently was forced to stop on the west side of the ice pack about the same time Mount Temple did, and was seen stopped along with Mount Temple, by Carpathia in the morning twilight around 5am by Carpathia's Capt. Rostron. He estimated they were 8 to 10 miles to his northward if I remember correctly. Mount Temple's Capt. Moore said she had stopped just a few miles to his south and started to move southward before he did when it became light enough to see things better in the morning before sunrise. If I recall, Rostron also wrote that he eventually noticed both vessels moving but didn't pay much attention to them as he was became busy picking up Titanic's lifeboats.

As far as the "Ount" business, that appeared in the Almerian story that Californian's Capt. Lord wrote. I don't think it can be supported. The navigational information that came out of Almerian's weather log does not put her close to Mount Temple as I covered in my book.

The black funneled steamer, the schooner, and Amerian herself were all west of ice pack. But there is the lights of this vessel that Capt. Rostron said he sighted off his starboard bow on way to the rescue at one point, That would have been on the east side of the ice.

 

[marina_irc]

Th

Thank you for the kind words, and I'm glad that you enjoyed the book. A lot did go into bringing it all together. However, I'm not sure about it being the 'final word' when it comes to the Californian affair. I'm afraid there is no final word on the subject.

As for your questions, I agree with your assumption that the small black funneled steamer had no wireless. She apparently was forced to stop on the west side of the ice pack about the same time Mount Temple did, and was seen stopped along with Mount Temple, by Carpathia in the morning twilight around 5am by Carpathia's Capt. Rostron. He estimated they were 8 to 10 miles to his northward if I remember correctly. Mount Temple's Capt. Moore said she had stopped just a few miles to his south and started to move southward before he did when it became light enough to see things better in the morning before sunrise. If I recall, Rostron also wrote that he eventually noticed both vessels moving but didn't pay much attention to them as he was became busy picking up Titanic's lifeboats.

As far as the "Ount" business, that appeared in the Almerian story that Californian's Capt. Lord wrote. I don't think it can be supported. The navigational information that came out of Almerian's weather log does not put her close to Mount Temple as I covered in my book.

The black funneled steamer, the schooner, and Amerian herself were all west of ice pack. But there is the lights of this vessel that Capt. Rostron said he sighted off his starboard bow on way to the rescue at one point, That would have been on the east side of the ice.

Thank you. I was thinking more about this and the schooner in particular, and I think that the schooner had probably been fishing the Flemish Cap, encountered the ice on the way home and had to commit to a lengthy detour to the south southeast paralleling the ice, and threaded her way through the ice during daylight on the 14th in roughly the same relative “place” in the ice flow that “Californian” did on the 15th at 0605 hrs, and was working to reestablish her course back toward Gloucester or one of the other New England ports when “Mount Temple” encountered her, badly slowed by the light airs of the night.

I also think a really rigorous search of maritime history archives might yet give some clues to the identity of the black funneled steamer.

Finally, is it safe to say that if “Ount” was a real ship she was not “Mount Temple” nor the black-funneled steamer? Looking over the tracks and times it seems a safe assumption.