Alex, there was no weather condition to create a steady wind from a given direction that night. But there was ice floating on water, and slight differences in surface temperatures between ice and water near the icefield could easily create light, local convective breezes that would appear to come from differing points of the compass at random times between periods of calms. It was Stone who reported "the night being fine and clear with light airs and calms." Californian was surrounded by loose ice all the time she was stopped. The major icefield was immediately to her west about 1/4 mile off. It was there when she stopped at 10:20pm Sunday night, and it still there in the same place at 6am Monday when she started to cross the field heading westward. If Californian was caught in an eddy large enough to significantly change the compass bearing to Titanic and where Carpathia came up from, then the field of pack ice to her west would have moved with her by the same eddy. And not only that, a rotating eddy that would cause Californian to first get nearer and then move away from Titanic would change the directional trend of the icefield that was running along a line more or less northward to southward magnetic. That amount of movement of Californian needed to cause what was claimed to have been seen is quite significant. I'll have to post a pic to quantify it for you when I get the time.
www.encyclopedia-titanica.org
