Collapsible A

[Bob Read]

I have written an article which examines the technical aspects of launching collapsibles A and B stowed on the roof of the officers’ quarters. In the accounts I have read, they attached collapsible A to davit falls to try to pull it to the davits. What is missing from these accounts is which davit pair they attached collapsible A to. Did they attach it to the davits for lifeboat #1 or #3? In examining the possible ways of launching collapsible A, it became clear that launching it from davits for lifeboat #3 would have been considerably easier. But I don’t know if that’s what they tried. Anybody know? Here’s my article: http://www.titanic-cad-plans.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Collapsible-boat-article-1.pdf

 

[Dan E. Parkes]

Hi Bob. What a fascinating and detailed article, I enjoyed reading it. Many thanks for posting it.

Did they attach it to the davits for lifeboat #1 or #3?

There might be something that helps answer this..... the No. 1 davit on the wreck is in the upright (retracted) position and is the only davit on the wreck found to be in this position, which according to James Cameron/Parks Stephenson means the davit was brought back to an upright position to receive another boat (i.e. collapsible A).

 

[Bob Read]

Hi Dan: That sounds like a possibility but there were a lot of obstacles to getting that boat over to #1 davit. The one which would have taken the most time would have been unbolting the sounding machine from the deck. Time was the one commodity they were really short of.

 

[Bob Read]

I have edited the article I referenced above. Here is the new link: http://www.titanic-cad-plans.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Collapsible-boat-article-2.pdf

 

[Arun Vajpey]

What I need to be convinced, is some hard evidence that it was Keefe body found in A. A primary source - which, as good as it it, ET is not.

Agreed. But Olaus Abelseth was a primary source and this was what he said at the US inquiry.

Senator SMITH.
Do you know how many people there were in that lifeboat that you were in?

Mr. ABELSETH.
I could not say for sure; but there must have been 10 or 12. They got saved off this raft. There was one man from New Jersey that I came in company with from London. I do not know what his name was. I tried to keep this man alive; but I could not make it. It was just at the break of day, and he was lying down, and he seemed to be kind of unconscious; he was not really dead, and I took him by the shoulder and raised him up, so that he was sitting up on this deck.

Senator SMITH.
He was sitting on a seat?

Mr. ABELSETH.
He was just sitting down right on the deck. I said to him, "We can see a ship now. Brace up." And I took one of his hands and raised it up like that (illustrating), and I took him by the shoulder and shook him, and he said, "Who are you?" He said, "Let me be. Who are you?" I held him up like that for a while, but I got tired and cold, and I took a little piece of a small board, a lot of which were floating around there, and laid it under his head on the edge of the boat to keep his head from the water; but it was not more than about half an hour or so when he died.

As I said in another thread, although Abelseth could not recall the name of the man from New Jersey who had travelled in the same compartment as him on the Boat Train and whom the Norwegian tried in vain to revive on board Collapsible A later, the chances are that it was fellow Third Class passenger Arthur O'Keefe from New Jersey. Another poster suggested that it might have been Frederick Sutton but although he was also from New Jersey, Sutton was a First Class passenger and so very unlikely to have shared the same train compartment as Abelseth, much less got into a conversation with him.

Also, other than O'Keefe, is there any other male Third Class passenger who fits the bill of being from New Jersey and who could have reached Collapsible A only to die on board the lifeboat? So far I have not found any, but there might have been.

I agree with Mr Wormstedt; I am not convinced that one of the bodies found in boat A was that of Arthur Keefe.

Yes, there is no definitive proof, but Abelseth's testimony as above does suggest it. Also, I have seen unsubstantiated accounts on line and on ET that Abelseth referred to his acquaintance from New Jersey as "Arthur 'Keke'". There was no Arthur Keke on board the Titanic.