Some ten feet from the water. Stopped lowering the boat. We stopped lowering. And what happened then? Beesley wrote in his book 'The Loss of the S.S.Titanic": And all the time we got closer to the sea and the exhaust roared nearer and nearer---until finally we floated with the ropes still holding us from above..." Whew. Or, in other words, No. 13 sat above the torrent until the ship settled low enough in the ocean that the discharge was under water.
Oh, one moment, that is not quite right.
The boat was about 10 feet from the water when they noticed they would be swamped by the discharge (No. 11 got also close to it with its stern). The boat was stopped and they cut the fall which kept the oars together. Even several mentioned the boat was stopped (Ray, Barrett, Hopkins, Dr. Dodge etc.) no one said how long it was. However it was not so long that the discharge got under water.
Mr. Ray: .... The boat was lowered away until we got nearly to the water, when two or three of us noticed a very large discharge of water coming from the ship's side, which I thought was the pumps working. The hole was about 2 feet wide and about a foot deep, a solid mass of water coming out from the hole. I realized that if the boat was lowered down straight away the boat would be swamped and we should all be thrown into the water. We shouted for the boat to be stopped from being lowered, and they responded promptly and stopped lowering the boat.
We got oars and pushed it off from the side of the ship. It seemed impossible to lower the boat without being swamped; we pushed it out from the side of the ship and the next I knew we were in the water free from this discharge.
Barrett seems to confirm it but did not mentioned the discharge again (but others did)
2171. It was coming on top of you. Just tell us about that shortly? - Yes. When we found the discharge was coming out we stopped lowering and all the hose was tied up in the boat. I had a knife and I cut the hose adrift and shoved two oars over the forward end to shove the lifeboat off the ship's side. We got into the water and there was a bit of a current and it drifted us under No. 15 boat, and I sung out "Let go the after fall." Nobody seemed to realise what I was doing. I walked across the women to cut the fall, and the other fall touched my shoulder.
Similar statement by Beauchamp:
731. Did water come into your boat? – No. Everything lowered easily right till she got to the bottom, to the discharge, then we had a difficulty in keeping it away from the ship’s side, to prevent the water coming in.
732. Did you succeed in keeping her away from the side and getting off? – Yes.
Beesley (early newspaper version)
Down we went and presently floated with our ropes still holding us, the exhaust washing us away from the side of the vessel and the swell of the sea urging us back against the side again.
Mrs Dowdell: We were but ten feet above the water when we noticed immediately below our boat was the exhaust of the condensers. Just above the water line a huge stream of water came rushing from the ship's side. We became anxious, for we feared we would be swamped by the rush of water when we touched the level of the sea. Down, down we went. The force of the swell of the sea carried us directly under boat No. 14, [it was 15 of course]
Dr. Dodge: we pushed the bow of the lifeboat, by means of the oar, a sufficient distance away fr the side of the Titanic to clear this great stream of water.
However as I have stated earlier I do not see how No. 15 was lowered 30 second or 1 minute after No. 13. All the actions in No. 13 took time and no one mentioned how long the stopping of No. 13 was, then also to push away from the condenser exhaust and try to release the falls. (There is also mentioned that the falls get caught during lowering.) This all took time and as several mentioned the lowering of No. 15 was also stopped to give No. 13 time to get out of the way.