The Californian

[monica e. hall]

I've read about the Edwardian mindset; deference towards authority, skipper being absolute master of the ship etc. etc. But even Captains have to sleep ("You must remember that we do not get any too much sleep, and when we sleep we die" - Lowe). I know Lord responded, in a way, to contact from the bridge during the night, but I'm not sure how alert he may have been. It is odd, to me, if the watch was so worried about the ship they were observing, which they evidently were when taxed about it at the Inquiries, that the senior officer didn't simply go down himself, instead of sending a timid apprentice, wake Lord up properly, and say "You must come and see this for yourself." But nobody did, so there we are. Maybe they were apprehensive. But in any event, all of them subsequently left aghast early the next morning and wondering how on earth to explain the night's events. Reminds me slightly of a night when I exhausted, was sleeping, and my husband apparently told me the baby was coughing (don't know why he didn't do something himself, but...) It seems I just muttered that he had a cold. I only awoke properly when the toddler came in to tell me the baby was in trouble (officer of the watch, children's bedroom, you see) and I shot out of bed to find the baby had pneumonia. It's easily done, and I had no real explanation. (Baby now giant 17-year old).

 

[Claire McConville]

quote:

It is odd, to me, if the watch was so worried about the ship they were observing, which they evidently were when taxed about it at the Inquiries, that the senior officer didn't simply go down himself, instead of sending a timid apprentice, wake Lord up properly, and say "You must come and see this for yourself."

Absolutely!! I only recently (since first entering this forum actually) heard about the Californian thing and thought he was just plain lazy for not getting up himself to take a look. I guess though, that it would have depended on the way the message was delivered to him.. i.e. the urgency of it. I do find it hard to grasp that most seemed a bit unsure of what these rockets actually meant as I've read that company signals were, more often than not, used more towards the inland. I think curiosity would have got the better of me and I'd have had to go look.

If Lord had indeed gone to look for himself and then decided it was too dangerous to head forwards then, that excuse would have been more plausible (to me anyway)

 

[Noel F. Jones]

"Fergedaboudit!"


I wasn't intending to go here but I do now – with reservations....

There is indeed a dearth of relevant information about Californian. The most I can gather is that she had not less than six hatches and was fitted with shell doors at tweendeck level. The former suggests she had not less than five lower holds and the latter suggests she was a shelterdeck vessel, surmounted by a bridge (or 'centrecastle') deck.

As far as I can divulge from some fuzzy photograph, her cargo working gear tends to confirm this configuration.

Allowing for the peaks and the engine and boiler rooms, six lower holds would subtend ten compartments and nine transverse w/t bulkheads. Safety considerations notwithstanding, fewer subdivisions than one per hatch tend towards stevedoring problems.

In a cargo vessel the transverse w/t bulkheads and the bulkhead deck itself have greater integrity than in a passenger vessel by reason of there being no compromising breaching to satisfy internal working arrangements. The only significant breaches respectively would be the shaft tunnel and the lower hold hatches.

A further advantage over passenger vessels is permeability; a notional 60% for cargo compartments as against 90% for below deck accommodation spaces.

A design optimum would be to coincide the compartmentation with the floodable length. This can be attempted by iterative calculation but an exact coincidence may not be practicable.

If the flooding versus permeability of one or more compartments takes her down to no more than her margin line she retains a survival capability. If it takes her down below the margin line it can be assumed that water pressure will lift the lower hold hatches and she will lose survivability.

(The margin line can be defined as a potential waterline tangential to the sheer line at the level of the bulkhead deck. A qualifier might be that the bulkhead deck has been built parallel to the baseline for ease of stowage towards the extremities in the tweendeck, in which case at the intercept with the material waterplane the bulkhead deck line may be assumed to be a curve with the same focus as the actual weatherdeck sheer.)

Which brings me to the conclusion that, taking into account the ameloriating attribute of permeability and the reserve buoyancy inherent in the shelterdeck, it may have been possible for the Californian to have survived the bilging of one if not two compartments and that this may represent a percentage of LBP approaching that of the bilged length of Titanic.

Ever conciliatory(!), in the absence of a definitive profile draft I am content to retreat from the 'two compartment standard' which I embraced earlier.

Noel

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Allowing for the peaks and the engine and boiler rooms, six lower holds would subtend ten compartments and nine transverse w/t bulkheads. Safety considerations notwithstanding, fewer subdivisions than one per hatch tend towards stevedoring problems.<<

Unfortunately, the cross sectional plan I'm looking at doesn't show any transverse bulkheads seperating the cargo holds. Zip, zilch, zero, none. Which doesn't neseccerily mean that some weren't there, but it sure seems strange that if they existed, that the builder (From whom Leslie Reade obtained this drawing) didn't think it worth including.

If somebody can dig up some working plans of the ship's structure which shows otherwise, I'd love to see them.

Any takers out there?

 

[Lee Gilliland]

"It is odd, to me, if the watch was so worried about the ship they were observing, which they evidently were when taxed about it at the Inquiries, that the senior officer didn't simply go down himself, instead of sending a timid apprentice, wake Lord up properly, and say "You must come and see this for yourself." "

Wouldn't this be dereliction of duty, or leaving an assigned post without authorization or some such? I know you can't do that in the armed forces, so I really doubt it would pass in the Merchant Marine.

 

[monica e. hall]

Lee, you may well be right. We'll have to hope a seaman has the answer.

 

[Philip Bowler]

A couple of bits.

1) I was always taught "If in even the slightest doubt, call the Captain". I have spoken to a Captain on a telephone, and he didn't appear. The situation didn't develop anyway so in the end I didn't need his advice. He had no recollection of me calling him only about 1 1/2 hours since he left the bridge after 4-5 hours in fog.

2) I have had a conversation with a crew member when I went to wake him. He sat bolt upright, spoke coherently for a few moments, then went back to sleep. He has no recollection of the incident.

3) I have been woken from deep sleep and had a nonsensical conversation with the officer I was due to relieve.

("You must remember that we do not get any too much sleep, and when we sleep we die" - Lowe).

Trust me, when you have a maximum of 8 hours off between watches, and in it you have to eat, sleep, write home and perform other duties you are tired. No weekend lie ins.

As for going to wake the Captain......
Wake God! who do you think you are?
In the early 80's as a junior officer I was not allowed to answer the direct line from the Captain and had to "disappear" when he walked onto the bridge. Imagine what it was like 68 years before that.

 

[Philip Bowler]

Forgot.

Have you seen the inquiry into the Californian fairly recently done by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch?
I forget the exact website but MAIB as a search should do it.

 

[monica e. hall]

Hmmm. Rather as I suspected. Not very comforting, though, Philip.

 

[Philip Bowler]

Don't worry. it is very different now.

 

[Tracy Smith]

Thanks, Philip. Your comments have been most enlightening and tend to back up what I've suspected about what happened with Captain Lord when Gibson went down to speak to him.

 

[Noel F. Jones]

"If somebody can dig up some working plans of the ship's structure which shows otherwise, I'd love to see them."

Her entry in Lloyds Register should specify the number of bulkheads. Unfortunately I don't have access to this record as I write.

The veracity of the plan you refer to is of course dependant upon its being faithfully reproduced for publication. Is it a facsimile reproduction with the builder's frank on it?

Noel

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Wouldn't this be dereliction of duty, or leaving an assigned post without authorization or some such? I know you can't do that in the armed forces, so I really doubt it would pass in the Merchant Marine.<<

See Philip's answer. One does not simply walk away from ones post without one helluva compellingly good reason, especially if all one has to say is "I don't know what's going on, but something is so you better get up here."

Something like that...especially with the words "...you better..." delivered to the Captain by a junior officer in 1912 would have gone over as well as offering v~~~~~® to the attendees at a eunoch's convention! The consequences would not be pleasant!

What they should have done was wake the Chief Officer, spell out the situation, and let him go to the skipper. Unfortunately, this didn't happen.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch's homepage can be accessed at dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_control/documents/contentservertemplate/dft_index.hcst?n=5464&l=1

The report itself is at dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_maritmesafety/documants/page/dft_msafety_507706,pdf

It requires an Adobe Acrobat Reader to access. The document is 1498 Kb so it may take a spell to download if you're on a dial up modem.

Noel, the plan I have is an illustration that was part of Leslie Reade's private collection and it appears in the section with the illustrations. It has "S.S. Californian No.159" along with a few basic dimensions set to one side so it certainly looks legit. I don't see where else he could have obtained them.

If you have access to the Lloyd's records at some point, I'd be interested in what they have to say.

 

[David Haisman]

Your post Philip brings back a few memories of when I was on the Canadian run on the Ascania in 1956 and later, the Saxonia.
On the old Ascania, we would stop overnight in the ice off the Bell Isle Straits waiting for day break before proceeding into the St Lawrence seaway. Ice fields in my experience, on beautiful clear nights reflect many strange images and you sometimes wander what you're looking at some times.
My jobs during the 12-4 watch was to record wet and dry temperatures, air temperatures, sea temperatures and engine revs every hour when under way and of course, fetch the coffee or tea and sandwiches from the officers pantry!
As you mentioned, officers of the watch, especially the master, were fearsome creatures at the best of times and it was good sense for junior ratings to keep well out of their way. When waking an officer, you were never allowed to physically touch them and always just gently shook their pillow.
I can remember taking a tray of tea on the bridge one night and placing it on a small table by the radar. As the wheel house is always in total darkness, the officers pour out their tea in a well practised blind fashion adding milk and sugar almost by feel.
On this particular night they began to splutter and curse at how the tea was as weak as piss and reckoned I was a good candidate for a keel hauling job.
They were in the process of drinking pure boiling water. I had forgotten to add the tea!
This is an indication of tiredness and cold and forever straining your eyes looking out of the wheelhouse windows at a most deceiving wilderness. The perils of lack of concentration are all too apparent!

Those were the days!

All the best,
David

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>They were in the process of drinking pure boiling water. I had forgotten to add the tea!<<

Ooops! At least they didn't hang you from the yardarm.