Titanic

Everyone focuses on the lifeboat capacity and the lack thereof but remember that they barely had time to launch the boats they did have and the Titanic did not even sink particularly slowly.

The biggest tragedy, in my mind anyway, was that the Californian was less than twenty miles away and had even seen the rockets, but her wireless operator had retired for the night. The only communication between the two ships had occurred at 11pm when the Titanic's wireless operator had told the Californian's operator to "shut up."

The lifeboats could have been used to ferry passengers between the two ships. So many lives could have been saved. It took this tragedy to create new maritime laws requiring 24/7 radio watch.

I've read about 6 or 7 books on the Titanic. The Californian's captain was not particularly diligent in ascertaining why the Titanic was firing rockets by simply rousing his wireless operator. On the other hand his ship was stuck in floe ice on a moonless night, whether he could have started up his ship and maneuvered to the Titanic and saved many passengers from dying of exposure is debatable. Pinning him as the scapegoat is rather unfair; there was enough negligence on both sides that created this tragedy.

Only that it led to laws requiring 24/7 monitoring of the airwaves, something that seems rather obvious and prudent looking back. At the very least the Californian would have known and, even had a rescue not been possible, they could at least continued broadcasting a distress on Titanic's behalf. I personally think that had Lord known for certain of Titanic's foundering that he would have attempted a rescue. The Californian was empty so thus she had no passengers of her own to risk.

As a bit of a Titanic buff myself I fine plenty of blame to go around, not least of which is to not steam into bergs in the first place.

Both the American and British inquiries layed blame on him for his inaction. And I'm sure this was revived when the movie A Night To Remember came out. Whovever saw it will just recall the captain as the guy who slept in his bunk while 1500 people died. (Sort of the 1912 version of Bush reading My Pet Goat while people were jumping out of the Trade Towers.)

But even if he did act immediately, he might have saved just a handful of people.

Maybe more than a handful could have been saved. But even granting that, what's a handful of lives worth? What's one life worth? How many more might have been lost had Carpathia not responded? Seems a rather callous way of looking at things.

You're right, even if Lord acted immediately and saved only person, it would have been worth the risk.

I meant that many people then and today use a cause and effect approach of accusing Lord's inaction with 1500 people dying, when the ship builders, officers and English beauracrats should be held more liable for allowing the lifeboat deficiency to occur.

You know, then and now, Captain Smith is usually portayed as the gallant old seaman who heroically went down with his ship. Few people are aware that he recklessly drove his ship full speed ahead on a moonless night into a known ice field. He comes out of the Titanic saga far better than Captain Lord.

Regardless whether Bruce Ismay pressured Smith (that is debatable), Smith was the ultimate authority.

More lifeboats? Sure, but as I said earlier, they barely had time to launch the boats they had and the Titanic took over two hours to sink. They didn't even make full use of the boats did launch. One (the Duff-Gordon's) had only twelve people in a boat designed for sixty-five.

had Kate Winslet shared that headboard, or taken turns in the water. THAT'S fucked up.