The quartermaster on watch aft when the Titanic struck states that the log, reset at noon, then registered 260 knots, and the fourth officer, when working up the position from 7:30 p.m. to the time of the collision, states he estimated the Titanic's speed as 22 knots, and this is also borne out by evidence that the engines were running continuously at 75 revolutions.
THE WEATHER CONDITIONS.
From 6 p.m. onward to the time of the collision the weather was perfectly clear and fine. There was no moon, the stars were out, and there was not a cloud in the sky. There was, however, a drop in temperature of 10-degrees in slightly less than two hours, and by about 7:30 p.m. the temperature was 33-degrees F, and it eventually fell to 32-degrees F. That this was not necessarily an indication of ice is borne out by the sailing directions. The Nova Scotia (S.E. Coast) and Bay of Fundy Pilot (sixth edition, 1911, p. 16) says:
No reliance can be placed on any warning being conveyed to a mariner by a fall of temperature, either of the air or sea, on approaching ice. Some decrease in temperature has occasionally been recorded, but more often none has been observed.
Sir Ernest Shackleton was, however, of opinion that­
If there was no wind and the temperature fell abnormally for the time of the year, I would consider that I was approaching an area which might have ice in it.
ACTION THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN.
The question is what ought the master to have done. I am advised that with the knowledge of the proximity of ice which the master had, two courses were open to him: The one was to stand well to the southward instead of turning up to a westerly course; the other was to reduce speed materially as night approached. He did neither. The alteration of the course at 5:50 p.m. was so insignificant that it can not be attributed to any intention to avoid ice. This deviation brought the vessel back to within about 2 miles of the customary route before 11:30 p.m. And there was certainly no reduction of speed. Why, then did the master persevere in his course and maintain his speed? The answer is to be found in the evidence. It was shown that for many years past, indeed, for a quarter of a century or more, the practice of liners using this track when in the vicinity of ice at night had been in clear weather to keep the course, to maintain the speed and to trust to a sharp lookout to enable them to avoid the danger. This practice, it was said, had been justified by experience, no casualties having resulted from it. I accept the evidence as to the practice and as to the immunity from casualties which is said to have accompanied it. But the event has proved the practice to be bad. Its root is probably to be bound in competition and in the desire of the public for quick passages rather than in the judgment of navigators. But unfortunately experience appeared to justify it. In these circumstances I am not able to blame Capt. Smith. He had not the experience which his own misfortune has afforded to those whom he has left behind, and he was doing only that which other skilled men would have done in the same position. It was suggested at the bar that he was yielding to influences which ought not have affected him; that the presence of Mr. Ismay on board, and the knowledge which he perhaps had of a conversation between Mr. Ismay and the chief engineer at Queenstown about the speed of the ship and the consumption of coal probably induced him to neglect precautions which he otherwise would have taken. But I do not believe this. The evidence shows that he was not trying to make any record passage or indeed any exceptionally quick passage. He was not trying to please anybody, but was exercising his own discretion in the way he thought best. He made a mistake, a very grievous mistake, but one in which, in face of the practice and of past experience, negligence cannot be said to have had any part; and in the absence of negligence it is, in my opinion, impossible to fix Capt. Smith with blame. It is, however, to be hoped that the last has been heard of the practice and that for the future it will be abandoned for what we now know to be more prudent and wiser measures. What was a mistake in the case of the Titanic would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future.
THE COLLISION.
Mr. Lightoller turned over the ship to Mr. Murdoch, the first officer, at 10 o'clock, telling him that the ship was within the region where ice had been reported. He also told him of the message he had sent to the crow's nest, and of his conversation with the master, and of the latter's orders.
The ship appears to have run on, on the same course, until, at a little before 11:40, one of the lookouts in the crow's nest struck three blows on the gong, which was the accepted warning for something ahead, following this immediately afterward by a telephone message to the bridge "Iceberg right ahead." Almost simultaneously with the three­gong signal Mr. Murdoch, the officer of the watch, gave the order "Hard­a­starboard," and immediately telegraphed down to the engine room "Stop. Full speed astern." The helm was already "hard over," and the ship's head had fallen off about two points to port, when she collided with an iceberg well forward on her starboard side.
Mr. Murdoch at the same time pulled the lever over which closed the water­tight doors in the engine and boiler rooms.
The master "rushed out" onto the bridge and asked Mr. Murdoch what the ship had struck.
Mr. Murdoch replied:
An iceberg sir. I hard­a­starboarded and reversed the engines, and I was going to hard­a­port round it, but she was too close. I could not do any more. I have closed the water­tight doors.
From the evidence given it appears that the Titanic had turned about two points to port before the collision occurred. From various experiments subsequently made with the steamship Olympic, a sister ship to the Titanic, it was found that traveling at the same rate as the Titanic, about 37 seconds would be required for the ship to change her course to this extent after the helm had been put hard­a­starboard. In this time the ship would travel about 466 yards, and allowing for the few seconds that would be necessary for the order to be given, it may be assumed that 500 yards was about the distance at which the iceberg was sighted either from the bridge or crow's nest.
That it was quite possible on this night, even with a sharp lookout at the stemhead, crow's nest, and on the bridge, not to see an iceberg at this distance is shown by the evidence of Capt. Rostron, of the Carpathia.
The injuries to the ship, which are described in the next section, were of such a kind that she foundered in 2 hours and 40 minutes.
III DESCRIPTION OF THE DAMAGE TO THE SHIP AND OF ITS GRADUAL AND FINAL EFFECT, WITH OBSERVATIONS THEREON.
The damage done to the ship was as follows:
EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE.
The collision with the iceberg, which took place at 11:40 p.m., caused damage to the bottom of the starboard side of the vessel at about 10 feet above the level of the keel, but there was no damage above this height. There was damage in­
The damage extended over a length of about 300 feet.
TIME IN WHICH THE DAMAGE WAS DONE.
As the ship was moving at over 20 knots, she would have passed through 300 feet in less than 10 seconds, so that the damage was done in about this time.
THE FLOODING IN FIRST TEN MINUTES.
At first, it is desirable to consider what happened in the first ten minutes.
The forepeak was not flooded above the orlop deck ­ i.e., the peak tank top, from the hole in the bottom of the peak tank.
In No. 1 hold there was 7 feet of water.
In No. 2 hold five minutes after the collision water was seen rushing in at the bottom of the fireman's passage on the starboard side, so that the ship's side was damaged abaft of bulkhead B sufficiently to open the side of the firemen's passage, which was 3 1/2 feet from the outer skin of the ship, thereby flooding both the hold and the passage.
In No. 3 hold the mail room was filled soon after the collision. The floor of the mail room is 24 feet above the keel.
In No. 6 boiler room, when the collision took place, water at once poured in at about 2 feet above the stokehold plates, on the starboard side, at the after end of the boiler room. Some of the firemen immediately went through the water­tight door opening to No. 5 boiler room because the water was flooding the place. The water­tight doors in the engine rooms were shut from the bridge almost immediately after the collision. Ten minutes later it was found that there was water to the height of 8 feet above the double bottom in No. 6 boiler room.
No. 5 boiler room was damaged at the ship's side in the starboard forward bunker at a distance of 2 feet above the stokehold plates, at 2 feet from the water­tight bulkhead between Nos. 5 and 6 boiler rooms. Water poured in at that place as it would from an ordinary fire hose. At the time of the collision this bunker had no coal in it. The bunker door was closed when water was seen to be entering the ship.,
In No. 4 boiler room there was no indication of any damage at the early stages of the sinking.
GRADUAL EFFECT OF THE DAMAGE.
It will thus be seen that all the six compartments forward of No. 4 boiler room were open to the sea by damage which existed at about 10 feet above the keel. At 10 minutes after the collision the water seems to have risen to about 14 feet above the keel in all these compartments except No. 5 boiler room. After the first ten minutes the water rose steadily in all these six compartments. The forepeak above the peak tank was not filled until an hour after the collision, when the vessel's bow was submerged to above C deck. The water then flowed in from the top through the deck scuttle forward of the collision bulkhead. It was by this scuttle that access was obtained to all the decks below C down to the peak tank top on the orlop deck.
At 12 o'clock water was coming up in No. 1 hatch. It was getting into the firemen's quarters and driving the firemen out. It was rushing round No. 1 hatch on G deck and coming mostly from the starboard side so that in 20 minutes the water had risen above G deck in No. 1 hold.
In No. 2 hold about 40 minutes after the collision the water was coming into the seamen's quarters on E deck through a burst fore and aft wooden bulkhead of a third­class cabin opposite the seamen's wash place. Thus, the water had risen in No. 2 hold to about 3 feet above E deck in 40 minutes.
In No. 3 hold the mail room was afloat about 20 minutes after the collision. The bottom of the mail room which is on the orlop deck, is 24 feet above the keel.
The water­tight doors on F deck at the fore and after ends of No. 3 compartment were not closed then.
The mail room was filling and water was within 2 feet of G deck, rising fast when the order was given to clear the boats.
There was then no water on F deck.
There is a stairway on the port side on G deck which leads down to the first­class baggage room on the orlop deck immediately below. There was water in this baggage room 25 minutes after the collision. Half an hour after the collision water was up to G deck in the mail room.
Thus the water had risen in this compartment to with 2 feet of G deck in 20 minutes, and above G deck in 25 to 30 minutes.
No. 6 boiler room was abandoned by the men almost immediately after the collision. Ten minutes later the water had risen to 8 feet above the top of the double bottom, and probably reached the top of the bulkhead at the after end of the compartment, at the level of E deck, in about one hour after the collision.
In No. 5 boiler room there was no water above the stokehold plates until a rush of water came through the pass between the boilers from the forward end, and drove the leading stoker out.
It has already been shown in the description of what happened in the first 10 minutes, that water was coming into No. 5 boiler room in the forward starboard bunker at 2 feet above the plates in a stream about the size of a deck hose. The door in this bunker had been dropped probably when water was first discovered, which was a few minutes after the collision. This would cause the water to be retained in the bunker until it rose high enough to burst the door which was weaker than the bunker bulkhead. This happened about an hour after the collision.
No. 4 boiler room. ­ One hour and 40 minutes after the collision water was coming in forward, in No. 4 boiler room, from underneath the floor in the forward part, in small quantities. The men remained in that stokehold till ordered on deck.
Nos. 3, 2, and 1 boiler rooms. ­ When the men left No. 4 some of them went through Nos. 3, 2, and 1 boiler rooms into the reciprocating engine room, and from there on deck. There was no water in the boiler rooms abaft No. 4 one hour 40 minutes after the collision (1:20 a.m.), and there was then none in the reciprocating and turbine engine rooms.
Electrical engine room and tunnels. ­ There was no damage to these compartments.
From the foregoing it follows that there was no damage abaft No. 4 boiler room.
All the water­tight doors aft of the main engine room were opened after the collision.
Half an hour after the collision, the water­tight doors from the engine room to the stokehold were opened as far forward as they could be to No. 4 boiler room.
FINAL EFFECT OF THE DAMAGE.
The later stages of the sinking cannot be stated with any precision, owing to a confusion of the times which was natural under the circumstances.
The forecastle deck was not under water at 1:35 a.m. Distress signals were fired until two hours after the collision (1:45 a.m.). At this time the fore deck was under water. The forecastle head was not then submerged though it was getting close down to the water, about half an hour before she disappeared (1:50 a.m.).
When the last boat, lowered from davits (D), left the ship, A deck was under water, and water came up the stairway under the boat deck almost immediately afterwards. After this the other port collapsible (B), which had been stowed on the officers' house, was uncovered, the lashings cut adrift, and she was swung round over the edge of the coamings of the deckhouse on to the boat deck.
Very shortly afterwards the vessel, according to Mr. Lightoller's account, seemed to take a dive, and he just walked into the water. When he came to the surface all the funnels were above the water.
