BEWARE THE SCAM-2

Monday, August 29, 2011

Titanic Strikes Iceberg - Why?


It seems that tragic events usually have more than one cause. If this hadn’t happened, and that hadn’t occurred at the same time... Such was the case on the night of April 14, 1912.

In the first place, was the ship traveling too fast? Day by day, as it crossed the Atlantic, it covered more nautical miles than the day before. Although Titanic was supposed to be the largest, strongest and most luxurious ship ever built, speed had never been its goal. However, J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, was on board, and rumors abounded that he urged Captain Smith to increase Titanic’s speed. What a coup for him if they beat the Olympic’s record and arrived in New York on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Did the captain heed that advice? Whether he did or not, the ship was obviously traveling too fast for the conditions surrounding them that night.

There had been at least six warnings about ice during the day and evening, delivered by Marconigram. Titanic contained a special set of rooms on the Boat Deck for the Marconi Wireless Company and its operators. At about noon on Sunday, Captain Smith showed one such message to Ismay from the ship Baltic which stated that there were “icebergs and a large quantity of field ice” in the area they traveled. Ismay put the message in his pocket. But on Sunday night, the wireless set developed problems and Radioman Phillips spent four hours fixing it. By then he was swamped with messages from passengers that had to be sent. Did iceberg sighting messages go unheeded or unreceived due to that?

At the same time, the binoculars were missing from their usual place in the crow’s nest. When Fred Fleet and Reginald Lee, the two lookouts, took their turn at the watch, they complained to the second officer, Charles Lightoller, and a search was conducted but without success.

The night was bitterly cold, but there was no moon, and the sea was so calm it was later described as looking like “a piece of polished plate glass.” There was also no breeze to stir waves that might kick up at the base of an iceberg and reveal it.

Finally, at 11:40 p.m., Fred Fleet spotted something ahead. In seconds he recognized it as a huge iceberg, gave three sharp tugs on the bronze bell and grabbed the telephone connecting him to the bridge. He said, “Iceberg right ahead.” First Officer Murdoch shouted, “Hard a-starboard” to quartermaster Hichens (or Hitchens), then rang for “Full steam astern” (reverse direction) on both engines. Hichens immediately spun the wheel, and slowly the bow turned to port. As the ship glided past, they realized the iceberg had been hard to spot because it was a “blue” berg, recently turned over and still dark with sea water.

Thus, although the Titanic seemed to have missed the iceberg, the starboard side of the hull below the waterline scraped along the under-water mass of the berg. The tear, although more modest than originally thought, did immediate and irreparable damage, and over 1500 lives were doomed. However, in my next post you’ll learn about a woman who claims something else happened that night.

Reader: What do you think was most responsible for hitting the iceberg? Should the ship, like the Californian, have shut down the engines and stopped for the night?

Monday, August 22, 2011

TITANIC SINKING PREDICTED!



In 1898, fourteen years before the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank, a book was published by Morgan Robertson, which seemingly predicted the disaster. The book was “FUTILITY, Or the Wreck of the Titan.”

Yes, Robertson named his imaginary ship the Titan, long before the British shipping company, White Star Line, named its second of three enormous ships Titanic. But the similarities between the fictional and the real don’t end there. The Titan was the largest ship ever built at the time and deemed “unsinkable.” Around midnight on an April night, while sailing between England and New York, it struck an iceberg on its starboard side and--due to insufficient lifeboats--took most of its passengers down with it. Sound familiar?

There’s more. In both cases, the ships were made of steel, had three propellers and two masts, and could accommodate 3000 passengers. In addition, many details were close, if not identical. The Titan was 800 feet long, the Titanic 882. The Titan’s horsepower was 40,000, the Titanic’s 46,000. Titan had 19 watertight compartments, the Titanic 16. Titan carried 24 lifeboats, Titanic 20. There were 3000 people on board the Titan, 2228 on the Titanic. Titan’s speed at impact with the iceberg was 25 knots, the Titanic’s 22.5 knots. However, whereas in the novel a mere 13 people survived, 705 survived Titanic.

I’ve read FUTILITY, and the plot of Robertson’s book is nothing like any of the other novels about the Titanic that I’ve read or James Cameron’s film. Aside from that, it’s not well written and no doubt sank quickly after publication (pun intended) rendering it all but forgotten by April, 1912, when Titanic began its rendezvous with an iceberg and the leap into history.

Inasmuch as next year, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking, interest is mounting all over the world. At least two cruises to its gravesite are planned and even more books have been written about the possibly most famous ship ever launched. Robertson’s book was published in 1898 but I doubt it could be today. Who would believe a story in which (1) the largest and strongest ship ever built, (2) deemed unsinkable, (3) on its maiden voyage, (4) carrying some of the world’s wealthiest people (5) would strike an iceberg and sink in less than three hours?

In 1894 my grandfather, John Ashworth, emigrated to the U.S. via the New York, the ship which almost collided with Titanic in Southhampton in 1912, so I’ve had a lifelong interest in the ship. I wrote my novel COLD APRIL in 2008 and it was published in December of 2010. My extensive research led me to FUTILITY, along with many other facts that didn’t find their way into my book. This is the first of several Blog posts in which I’ll share them.