I come back again who come up with this idea that Captain Lord could of rescued the 1500 in the first place? A legal man called Lord Mersey. Was he a marine expert? Nope. What was more alarming to assist Mersey he had:
Rear Admiral S.A. Gough-Calthope
Captain AW Clark R.N.
Commander F.C.A. Lyon P&O Captain
Professor J.H. of Naval Architecture
Marine Engineer Mr E.C. Chaston R.N.R.
Did he ask this experts of such a feasible idea?
I cannot imagine for one moment they would ever agree to such a crazy idea as marine expects them self!
So did Mersey ever ask them in the first place?
I find it quite amazing a retired experience Judge a well respected man with a high standard of education, could come up without any concrete evident that such a plan was ever possible in the first place?
Or was something to do with POLITIC the key factor?
I suspect it was predicated on the assumption that the
Californian would physically come alongside the
Titanic, which would of course be recklessly dangerous for Captain Lord by any measure of sanity. Without the ships lashed together, which would be an unfathomable level of risk for any mariner, even the slightest swell would send dozens leaping the gap to their deaths, and the kind of consummate shiphandling required to keep the
Californian in that close is impossible with a single screw freighter with triple expansion engines. It would, again, permit the saving of a few hundred able-bodied men, exactly like standing of (the only real option) would. But it certainly has to be what Lord Mersey was 'thinking' would have happened. In reality, of course, it would be a struggle to even save hundreds with the boats because of the issue with the gangways actually being open. It's quite possible several more of the ship's officers would actually
perish, because when
Californian arrives they're likely to go below to organize the gangways, and find themselves still there trying to save as many as they can when the gangways go under.
I believe that with a ship on site for rescue and putting off the women and children, many men who simply pulled away in reality would have proved themselves incredibly brave with repeated efforts to take people off at the gangways up to the very end and in circumstances of utmost danger, but the logistics would have limited those feats to bare hundreds, not the full complement of passengers and crew. With
Titanic progressively sinking lower a breeches buoy would have saved a dozen at most, assuming
Californian had the rig for one.
Once the boats have done all that they could, as the ship's final groans begin, they would pull away as hard as they could with all they had aboard. At that point, Lord, standing by, would wait for the
Titanic to sink. When the stern finally slips below, with his cargo nets already rigged, he would go dead slow into the mass of humanity in the sea. Fully illuminated, she would at least be a clear, easy target for the surging mass. The strongest swimmers, in the water for a bare minute or two, would have the incredible advantage of hope and confidence, with safety and life only a hundred or two hundred yards off. They would have to reach the nets and with hands numb from the cold, drag themselves up to a point where the
Californian's crew could save them. The melancholy scene of horror and terror would see a thousand people drowning as they struggled to reach the lights of the
Californian and the desperate climb up her nets with the crew only able to rescue a few at a time with ropes in addition to those who could 'self-rescue' by the climb on the nets. It would create a very different popular dynamic to the wreck, too, since it is certain to even out the sex ratio--though the class ratio is likely to still be skewed because swimming was a de rigeur educational activity for young men of the middle and upper classes and they are the most likely to reach the nets.
NOTE -- this assumes
Californian arrives at least an hour before
Titanic founders without a shred of concern or reference to the actual time required -- just to demonstrate the extreme difficulty with the rescue. If she were only 5 miles off
Titanic and had extreme luck and utmost alacrity in responding to distress signals
, it would play out something like this, in abbreviated form; at any greater distance or even the slightest delay, the number she could save would be even smaller.