Assumptions, Options and Emergencies

[[GG] SeaDogg]

In every major disaster since the beginning of civilization human nature has dictated that some people survive thru their own efforts and others dont. Perhaps some survive by preying on the weaker or more ignorant, while others make their way by their initiative and intelligence, sheer luck not to be excluded.

What do those who somehow make it have in common? One undeniable ingredient is initiative. The ability to control panic and think independently when the world is falling apart around you is everything, the most valueable thing left in your life if you are about to lose it. Its been called various things by various cultures- the ''cool head'', the ''stiff upper lip'', regardless of how it manifests itself those who do not accept death as inevitable sometimes go on to find what others have missed.

As another anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic approaches these same old questions return. Of all the analysis, investigations, reports on the tragedy there is one thing I have never understood.

Why, when it was obvious that the ship would sink, and when the only ship in site was dead in the water 10 -15 miles distance (the California to all known accounts)- why was a boat not sent towards her at the best speed one of those tubby life boats could make>?

Its been speculated that the California was aware of the presence of the Titanic; but did not know she had struck an iceberg. That therefore her morse code was not on. When rockets were launched from the bridge of the Titanic it is known that they were seen by this ship from eyewitness accounts. The explanations for no prompt response by this ship do not matter. The facts are that she was at a dead stop due to having sited the same ice field that produced the fateful berg. Therefore one could surmise that a deck watch still existed.

Had a boat been manned by a strong crew of oarsmen, double-banked with a reserve of men to replace those who tired at regular intervals, such a boat could have made very respectable speed, especially spurred on by a known and extreme emergency. Say the boat could make 6 knots, a conservative displacement hull speed for a 30 ' boat, and maintain it for an hour, more than half the distance to the stopped ship would be covered. And, for the sake of supposition say flares and rockets could have been launched from this life boat as it headed in that direction, say while oarsmen were being changed, an alert lookout with nothing else to do but stay awake at midnight on a cold nite might well have seen the difference in bearing from the smaller boat, the alarm could have been given in as little as an hour. If it took this ship a patheticly long hour to get up steam she still might have redevoused with the life boat, recieved confirmation of the emergency and been at the site of the sinking soon after if not before the Titanic disappeared. Even if people were in the water some of them would have survived, Further more many people were wet and died of exposure who were in the boats, a majority of those would have been saved as well.
There was no wind, so they couldnt sail, and small engines were all but non- existant at that time, but here was an option that was never considered, in a ship that was said to be unsinkable, yet had bulkheads open at the tops, and in an age when men were expected to stoically not enter the life boats so that the women and children could.

Poor planning and noble assumptions rule.

GG SeaDogg