Due 16th 4 PM

See John I just knew you were pouting over there. (SMILE)

Okay, this is very interesting. 1084 miles to the 90/92 Collision Site and 1082 miles to the wreck locale and we do not yet have the coordinates for the SOS position.

But it is still my understanding that the position date/time stamp is April 14, 1912 at 2:15am. At that day and time, Titanic was about 61 3/4 hours away from reaching NY at 4pm on the 16th. And not close to the area of collision or wreck site.

If the last time the distance traveled was set to zero was at midnight AND the distance traveled from that point was 260 miles to the place where Titanic stopped AND the "position" taken at midnight was radioed at 2:15am was 1284 miles, THEN the Titanic traveled approximately 50-60 miles from their last midnight position until the message was actually sent AND they traveled about 200 miles after that to the point of collision. The Collision point is said to be at 1092 to SANDY POINT. And 1092 to SANDY POINT is a possible run for an arrival on the 16th.

That is DO-able, right?

Another thing I have never heard is that the distance from the wreck sight is 1090 to SANDY HOOK AND in 1990/1992 it was decided that the distance from collision was 1092. The wreck site is certain and I knew that. But the part that is mentioned that there was a decision to accept the 1092 distance as the collision sight...who made that decision and upon what was it based?

Also, just two cents worth, but it seems that I have heard or read that the SOS position and the wreck are about 13 miles in difference.

This is all very interesting.

So given the wreck site coordinates as correct and that the SOS was 13 miles "off", I wonder if the actual collision coordinates were more like 1075 Nmi to SANDY HOOK, SOS more like 1077 Nmi to SANDY HOOK, and wreck site still 1090 Nmi to SANDY HOOK.

The reason that I say this is that there seems to be some thought to the fact that the ship continued straight two miles after collision, when the evidence seems to indicate that there was a maneuver to "port round" the berg. A ship 882 ft long traveling at close to 22.3 ground speed with passengers and other weight..I think would take some time to stop and a vehicle turning in a hard turn can actually have its outside to the turn speed up in that turn. I think that Titanic traveled in a U-turn perhaps not on its same track but a wide turn back in the dirrection it came. Taking it further away from NY and not closer.

Why is this important to this discussion, because I believe the Titanic was closer to NY by a few miles when the collision occured. And I believe that the ship could have made it reasonably by the evening of the 16th. I believe that Wilde was the senior officer on watch at 2:15am on April 14th with 3rd officer Pitman and 5th officer Lowe as junio officers and I think that Jewell and Symons were the lookouts at 2:15am when the message was sent based on what I have read in books. So, I think that Wilde as Senior officer of the watch or Captain Smith requested that Phillips or Bride send the message. I do not think it came from Ismay or Franklin, although Ismay may have been eagerly pushing for the earlier arrival aboard the ship, I believe that the captain or the officer of the watch requested that the information be sent. Perhaps based on a shipboard brain storming meeting of Andrews, Ismay and Smith that we will never know about, but regardless, I think that the crew had to author those types of messages and I do not believe that the marconi employees who barely knew the crew were authorized to wire ship navigational related messages of their choosing.

Just my two cents.
Maureen.
 
Mark (and all):

One thing that had always puzzled me was Phillip Franklin's quote of "1080" miles left, for Titanic to "arrive". I know this is essentially a side issue, but "arrive WHERE"?

He presumably was estimating the distance from the CQD position to whatever he intended as the "destination". But since the CQD position is about 13 nautical miles further along Titanic's track than the 90/92 collision point, Franklin's "1080" would actually be around Sandy Hook (less than a mile past, actually).

1080 miles (Franklin's) + 13 (to actual position) = 1093 miles. (Sandy Hook was 1092 miles.)

Is this perhaps the "horizon" David mentioned -- viewable from southern Manhattan (especially from the taller buildings)?

Cheers,
John
 
Interesting John. The US Capitol Building is 8 stories tall (80 feet) and you can see it from many points in Washington. How tall were the stacks and ship...I believe someone said they were about 149 feet above the water, how far off could a ship be and be able to see it given normal conditions in Manhatten as it "arrived"?
 
Maureen wrote: "If the last time the distance traveled was set to zero was at midnight AND the distance traveled from that point was 260 miles to the place where Titanic stopped ..."

Whoa. Hold up there, pilgrim! :)

That 260 miles was Mark's supplied figure for the distance traveled between *Noon* ship's time (10:10 AM New York Time) on the 14th -- not *midnight* -- and the 11:40 PM (ship's time) collision. That throws your following few sentences off wildly.

The 90/92 collison site is just a set of Latitude/Longitude coordinates determined during that Re-appraisal -- the long awaited "re-trial" (as it were) of Stanley Lord and the Californian. I just calculated distances from that using software I have. That position *is* directly on the S86W course Titanic was said to last be following (or at least the course line that intersects with the CQD position). The actual wreck location is slightly south (by W) of there, due to drift prior to the sinking.

The wreck location we know for sure; the 90/92 collision point is just an estimate. (But it's almost the same distance anyway, so it makes very little difference.)

Sandy Hook Light is roughly 8 nautical miles further west than Ambrose Light. It's about 1092 Nmi. from the 90/92 position and 1090 Nmi. from the wreck site. Since the CQD position is about 13 miles closer to Sandy Hook than the 90/92 position, the distance from the CQD position to Sandy Hook is about 1079 nautical miles.

But as for the message, I wouldn't even guess at this point. It's just too nonsensical to figure out. Did they really send it at 2:15 A.M.? Ya got me -- they certainly weren't anywhere near that *close* yet at 2:15. And by the time they were that close, they could never have made it "in" by 4 P.M. on the 16th. The ship just couldn't go that fast.

Cheers,
John
 
But even with my mistake the question is still there...if Titanic was traveling at 22.3 Knots and it "port round" the ice berg, it would eventually turn from facing west to facing nearly north east, how long does it take a fully loaded vehicle to stop on a paved street? How long does it take a big ship nearly fully loaded to stop? If it were going nearly directly westward, how much further west would the ship travel if it was porting round something at 22.3 knots?

I just do not think that the collision was east of the wreck. I think it was west of the wreck.

I need to go for now.

Maureen.
 
Hello Maureen,

Nice that you got something to do for me.
Some time ago I tried to work out a relation between the wreckage position and the place of the collision. And it gave me a lot of headache. At the end I found the distance should not be more than 2 miles.
First I worked out the way the ship need to stop.
For this I used formulas which apply for things below water. Cal Haines told me this is not correct, but I think for rough estimation this will do. And I found it took Titanic between 1.5 and 2 miles to stop, with engines stopped, not reversed.

Now what about the drift:
There are several currents in question. I got a nautical chart of that region. Gulf stream and Labrador Current meet there, and the boundaries are not fixed. In that nautical chart I found:
Gulf stream: 0.5 .. 1 kn East; Labrador current: 0.7 knot South-South-East; Slope-Water-Current: 0.5 kn East;
(By the way, What does Slope-Water mean? Could not find that in my dictionary.)
Now we can play with these various currents.
Titanic hit the berg, run 1.7 miles west to stop.
Then, with 1 knot gulf east 2.5 hours she will go back 2.5 miles east.
Result: Collison was 0.8 miles west of the wreck, as you suppose.

Now let's do the same with the Labrador, 0.7 kn SSE: This is about 0.3 knots East. Again Titanic hits the berg, and needs 1.7 miles to stop. Now she is driven back just 0.8 miles to east. And we find the collision was 1 mile east of the wreck. Which of this assumptions is right, i don't know.
I think it is not essential. Therefore in my calculation i always use as place for collision 41°44' N and 49°57' West with an uncertanty of 1, maybe 2 miles, not more.

About the U-Turn:
Cal Haines sent me some time ago diagrams with turning cycles of ship's. From this one can say the diameter of a turning cycle is about 4 ship's lengths. In case of Titanic this would we 1000 meters, about half a nautical mile. The circumference will be 1.5 miles then. With 1.7 miles Titanic will return to the place were she has come from.

best regards

Markus
 
I don't know much about this sort of stuff, but is it possble that "4 PM" was Titanic's ETA at the Nantucket Lightship? I'm probably off base. I have no idea where the light ship would have been in relation to NY, but still...

Of course, it could be that the actual New York arrival time was set for 9pm 4/16 and somewhere between the telegraph operator and the editor the 9 got misread as a 4.

Or something.

David
 
Hello David,

Nantucket Lightship was 202 Miles before NY.
The distance between collision point and Nantucket is 883 N. With 22.5 knots Titanic would have had to travel 39 hrs 15 mins = 1 day 15 hrs.

The collison occured at 10.13 NYT. (Boxhall gave the time relation 11.46 TIT = 10.13 NYT). Now count from that point 1 day 15 hrs and we have Tuesday 1 p.m. (to avoid headache, go two days ahead and 9 hrs back). There was no problem to reach Nantucket 3 hours before that mystery 4 pm date. There is nothing spetacular about that.

In a book about Blue Riband i found a table with all Blue Riband times. The arival times were taken at Sandy Hook til July 1908 (Lusitania).
One year later Lusitania has beaten herself. This time she arrived at Ambrose. Sandy Hook does not appear anymore in these tables.

I can not prove, but from my feeling i think Ambrose is the point of real public interest. No passenger will get off at Nantucket.

Best Regards

Markus
 
Hey there Markus.

"Gulf stream: 0.5 .. 1 kn East; Labrador current: 0.7 knot South-South-East; Slope-Water-Current: 0.5 kn East; (By the way, What does Slope-Water mean? Could not find that in my dictionary.)"

Hmmmm, I think that SLOP WATER, is where there is like...hmmmm...confu sed sea...does that make sense. Like the sea does not know where it does. I would imagine that it means the current where the "rubber meets the road sort of"...Gulf meets Labrador. It is not like the Gulf nor the Labrador currents, but is unique.

But get this from a better person than I.
 
Markus wrote: "The collison occured at 10.13 NYT. (Boxhall gave the time relation 11.46 TIT = 10.13 NYT)."

Hi, Markus: Can you point me to this reference in Boxhall's testimony? It sounds almost like an erroneous assumption on his part that the ship's clocks had been set back, as planned. But they weren't *due* to be set back yet at 11:46 P.M., as far as I know. So I'm puzzled at how this could be the explanation.

The officially-reported time difference between Titanic time and New York time was, of course, one hour and 50 minutes, according to the British Report's Marconi message table.

Since the 10:13 New York time implies only a difference of 1:33 from ship's time -- a set back of about 17 minutes from the British Report's reckoning -- it fits Lightoller's similar time conversion given at the U.S. Inquiry (for 2:20 a.m. ship's time) during Pitman's testimony.

(I'm just as inclined to accept 1:55 as the likely difference between New York and Titanic's clocks. Viewed from that perspective, Boxhall's assumed set back would be 23 minutes -- spot on for the *expected* reset.)

I'm only guessing on the "Slope-water" -- send me a copy of the graphic, if you have it as a scan -- but it may be referring to the "Laurentian Slope", which refers to the submarine topography at the Gulf of St. Lawrence. So that would be fresh-water outflow from the Saint Lawrence River drainage basin (if I'm right).

The problem with trying to calculate in the effect of the Gulf Stream, in my mind, is that the unusual strength of the Labrador Current at that time may in fact have displaced the Gulf Stream to the south of Titanic's wreck locale, with the result that it may have had no impact whatsoever that far north.

Cheers,
John
 
Hello John, Maureen, David, all,

that ship's clock problem occupied me a full year, and at the end I found that the US version, 1 h 33 min is indeed correct, and the British version, 1 h 50 minutes is just an assumption, which has not yet been approved by testimonies.

But, as this is a different subject, I propose that we move to the appropriate thread.

Therefore I want to post the full answer to your question in the thread
Collision / Sinking Theories - New York Time of Collision

See You there.
Markus
 
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