Jim Currie
Member
Fishing's good todayStill looking for that magic bullet by trying to analyze every single word spoken?
Titanic was not broadside to Californian, and her masthead light was about 146 ft above load waterline, not a mere 115 ft. Her length was foreshortened to less than 40% of her broadside length because she presented an angle on the bow of 2 points or less.
These are all statements from Stone:
"I observed another [flash of light in the sky] distinctly over the steamer which I made out to be a white rocket though I observed no flash on the deck or any indication that it had come from that steamer, in fact, it appeared to come from a good distance beyond her."
"She started to move as soon as I saw the first rocket. She was stationary up to that time. She was stationary by our compass, at least so far as I could tell."
"At 10 minutes past 1. I reported to the Master that she was altering her bearings ..."
"I have remarked at different times that these rockets did not appear to go very high; they were very low lying; they were only about half the height of the steamer’s masthead light and I thought rockets would go higher than that...But that I could not understand why if the rockets came from a steamer beyond this one, when the steamer altered her bearing the rockets should also alter their bearings."
It's a good thing there was another eyewitness to some of these events.
The reason I started this is because this particular bit of evidence does not meet with the requirements of factual evidence regarding what an observer should have seen had the nearby vessel been firing socket signals as supplied to the RMS Titanic. Stone was the observer in this instance, but if any observer did not see what I show in my little sketch, then he or she was not seeing the nearby ship firing a Cotton Powder Co, socket signal as supplied to RMS Titanic.Hi Jim,
I don't know what this is all about, and why you have started a new thread, which could have been better added to the 'Stanley Lord Guilty as charged' thread.
All we can surmise from Stone's evidence namely his 18th April Statement and his British Inquiry testimony is that the first rocket he saw was a surprise to him and seen as a 'flash', but yet he included it as one of his '8 white rockets seen' throughout much of his evidence. The clear implication is that Stone subsequently considered it a white rocket he had seen, otherwise he would not have included it as one of the 8 white rockets seen. You know the 18th April statements and the British Inquiry testimony of himself and Gibson.
As Sam has pointed out, if we accept Titanic ended up pointing northwards or slightly west of northwards then if The Californian was stopped heading at 12.15am or thereabouts as Sam describes - as Groves, Stone, and Gibson all describe, then little could be made out of Titanic, and little could be made out of The Californian from Titanic. Titanic had subsequently turned to starboard, pointing/facing northwards, and would just be showing her red port light to The Californian, and although Groves failed to explain it well (badly IMHO) it just about explains what Stone claimed he saw as well.
Then Stone fails to notice The Californian is still swinging around erratically clockwise, same as Captain Lord fails to take this into account the following morning despite it must have been obvious to both what had happened, but they both ignore the obvious. By then, other matters had become far more important, and the error went unnoticed; indeed the 1961 tape recorded interview transcripts between Harrison and Captain Lord make it abundantly clear that Captain Lord was still oblivious to this error a year before he died. (At this point in time 1958-1961 I don't think Harrison had a full copy of the transcript of the British Inquiry - he had Grove's copy loaned to him, and Captain Lord's papers included just a few days if but one day).
I must go to bed - I've spent all my free time since Saturday reading Sam's new book... And in Sam's new book you do get a mention, Jim!
Cheers,
Julian
Your right Dave. And there is a very simple way out.Sucked in!
A very wise decision.I will not hold my breath for an answer.
That is true. He positively identified the second sighting as that of a rocket and simply assumed that what he saw the first time was also a rocket. However, if the first one he saw had been a rocket, he would have seen the stars falling to the sea.Mr. Stone has never testified that the first rocket he observed burst into the stars. He testified that he was not sure if it was a rocket or a meteor. Meteors could produce some bright flashes, but it is doubtful that they could be mistaken with a bursting rocket. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that Mr. Stone did not see the exploding rockets itself at least concerning the first two rockets.
I’ve just asked Mila about this and she directed me to this site http://www.charlespellegrino.com/californian_incident.htmThe obvious question should be "why did not Stone or Gibson see ALL of the deck flashes?
Your reply emphasises what I have been trying to buck for a very long time.I’ve just asked Mila about this and she directed me to this site http://www.charlespellegrino.com/californian_incident.htm
“Before he was ordered away in command of Boat C, Rowe had hauled his crate of distress rockets to the Bridge and had assisted Boxhall in firing at least eight of them. One of his last three rockets misfired and flared out much lower and brighter than the others, lighting up the Titanic's decks so brightly that the finer details of her profile and her foremast could doubtless be distinguished up to ten miles away — so brightly that the quartermaster thought, for a moment, that he was about to be burned by his own rocket.”
So it appears that both Mr. Stone and Mr. Gibson saw the deck’s flash of the rocket that was misfired.
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