How to Survive the Sinking

[Arun Vajpey]

One could in no way be blamed for being tempted to risk swimming to a boat and attempting to get in it. The chances were far better

Agreed. In fact, as I said above, after being washed overboard during the final plunge, August Weikman is supposed to have managed to briefly haul himself onto a thick coil of ship's rope. But he got so cold by staying still that he decided to keep swimming and did so - eventually to reach and being pulled on board the waterlogged Collapsible A and survive. I believe that 52 years of age Weikman was the oldest person to survive on board #A, a year older than Peter Daly.

However and it should be noted for the record and for clarkkent, that one third class passenger survived on a wooden door

I have read that account in several books including a mention in Lord's ANTR I think. I do not disbelieve the story but have often wondered how the passenger came by a detached door, especially if it was bulky enough to support his weight. I did not think it could have been before the break-up, which meant that the man must have been already in the water and found the door among the debris just like Weikman found his coil of rope.

 

[Steven Christian]

Agreed completely. As a former scuba diver, I know how it feels to be partly in the water after we surfaced at the end of the dive and waited for the dinghy crew to pick us up one by one. This was with a BCD (inflatable buoyancy jacket) and in comfortably warm water most of the time. Clambering onto anything flat in the water where there is no proper foothold is difficult even for an athletic young person and then balancing on it afterwards is not a piece of cake either. If someone had somehow managed it onto a deck chair that night, they would have been so awkwardly off balance that they would have been tempted to jump back into the water despite the conditions and take their chances of swimming to a lifeboat.

That's about the only option I could see maybe working if one was a really good swimmer. Try and spot the nearest boat and swim like hell. But you would need to have that plan in your head before you hit the water. Probably 99 out of hundred couldn't do it. When I was in my 20's I once swam across a pool water that was only about 25 yards wide. But it was ice cold water. Sucked the breath out of me. By the time I got to other side my feet and hands were numb and it hurt. My dog on the other was luvin it. I had to call his ass out of the water. Didn't faze him at all. Today I would probably keel over dead just looking at the ice cold water.

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

When I was in my 20's I once swam across a pool water that was only about 25 yards wide. But it was ice cold water. Sucked the breath out of me.

This reminds me of our annual "Courage Polar Bear Dip" here in Canada. Every January in the dead of winter, people raise money for charity in Lake Ontario which is bitterly cold, at that time of year. The expressions on some people's faces is just that: they had the breath sucked out of them. If more people did that, they may very well have a better appreciation of the water conditions that night.

 

[Steven Christian]

This reminds me of our annual "Courage Polar Bear Dip" here in Canada. Every January in the dead of winter, people raise money for charity in Lake Ontario which is bitterly cold, at that time of year. The expressions on some people's faces is just that: they had the breath sucked out of them. If more people did that, they may very well have a better appreciation of the water conditions that night.

Yes. I have seen that on the news several times. Well it's for a good cause. My cause was I decided to save hiking down the canyon another mile where you could cross just getting your feet wet. All my further fishing trips in that canyon I took the hike...

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

My cause was I decided to save hiking down the canyon another mile where you could cross just getting your feet wet. All my further fishing trips in that canyon I took the hike...

A terrible shock to your system! As Lights so eloquently described it, "a thousand knives being driven into one's body".

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I meant not searching for such an object in the water but actually looking for something on board the ship that is able to float and using that straight from the beginning. I also learned that the most important thing is to keep the torso out of the water to survive, so it wouldn’t be absolutely necessary to find something to float onto with the whole body. At least this would buy some time.

Thinking about this in practical terms, I found several major problems with someone - even an athletic young man - being able to achieve this to any degree of success. To explain, I'll take the example of a hypothetical tough and strapping young Norwegian named Lars travelling alone as a Third Class passenger on board the Titanic.

If Lars found himself on the boat deck just after 2:05 am, he would not have been able to make it to any properly launched lifeboat, thus prompting him to "look for something" to support him once he was in the water, as suggested by Clarkkent. A deck chair thrown overboard would not suffice for this burly young man, but where would he find an alternative at that stage? There would have been no loose doors lying around and with the interior flooding rapidly in a forward dipping and port-listing ship, it would have been next to impossible for him to find a table or similar and "use it straight from the beginning" ie drag a big enough table outside and toss it overboard. Even if Lars somehow managed that, he would have to jump into the water after it and swim over to haul himself on board, an extremely difficult task under those conditions, as Jason, Steven and I pointed out earlier.

If Lars had waited till the final plunge, he would very probably have been washed overboard by the 'wave' and so found himself in the freezing water. In the catastrophic break-up of the ship that followed, debris would have been scattered all over and the swimmers who were not injured by them, including our Lars, would have had to frantically swim away - like Richard Williams, Carl Jansson, John Collins etc did in order to avoid being sucked down or crushed by more debris. Under those circumstances, the chances of a freezing, disorientated and exhausted Lars finding a suitable piece of debris to clamber on to so that he could get out of the icy water would be very small. But if he achieved even that by some miracle, where could he go next? Already wet and shivering, Lars would not have been able to paddle effectively with his hands to take his makeshift raft where he wanted to go and by himself in the melee around him, would almost certainly not be noticed by other lifeboats. Remember that it took quite a while for the fairly crowded and drifting Collapsibles B and A to be found and assisted; a lone man perched on a table would have stood far less a chance.

So, someone in Lars' position would have stood a much better chance if he tried to swim to one of the lifeboats before they got too far away, rather than try to find a piece of debris to support him.

 

[Wilf]

We don't have to speculate on how hard it would be. We know that approximately 1500 people entered the sea that night (we will never know how many died during the sinking event, the break up, being trapped beneath decks, etc), and we know of somewhere in the region of about 40+ can verifiably be known to have being saved from the water- the majority of whom were associated with the collapsible boats. That's a pretty grim statistic which I think demonstrates how any almost any scenario that involved contact with the water was not survivable.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Also, swimming towards a boat and then hauling oneself onto it, even with help from the others on board (which was not always forthcoming that night) would have been considerably more difficult than one can imagine under those bone-numbing conditions. A lifeboat might have seemed close enough to a potential survivor from the ship's deck, but once in the sea and swimming towards it, he/she would have quickly realized that the time and effort needed would be a lot more than they had thought. If the occupants of the boat had not noticed (or ignored) the swimmer and were rowing away, it would be next to impossible to get to it. Exhaustion would soon set in and with it, potentially fatal hypothermia.

 

[Wilf]

What sort of freeboard did a lifeboat have? Couple of feet? That would be almost impossible for many to climb up unassisted even on a good day, yet alone exhausted and fuly clothed. I've done clothed lifesaving drills before- it's amazing how much weight even fairly lightweight clothes add. Factor in people in those days would likely be wearing wool and cotton- It would not be an easy thing to do for either the person trying to climb in, or the people trying to haul them in. I wouldn't want to attempt it today and I'm a relatively fit 38 year old. Which is why there's plenty of evidence of many victims successfully reaching the collapsibles, but not being able to do much more than hang on to the gunnels or life-lines until they succumbed. Even getting into- or in the case of the collapsibles- onto a boat was no guarantee of survival. Many of those who succeeded in getting to the collapsibles subsequently perished from exposure- as testified to by the grim discovery one month after the disaster of three bodies in the abandoned collapsible B. All of which is probably why of the 712 people who survived the disaster, only about 5 percent had been in contact with the water, even momentarily.

 

[Mike Spooner]

I think the ET: How to Survive the Sinking is a bit of an odd one. After all there were more than 400 empty seats.
More the case: How to Survive the freezing cold water. Do we know how many died when fighting for their lives in the freezing cold water?

 

[Wilf]

I think the ET: How to Survive the Sinking is a bit of an odd one. After all there were more than 400 empty seats.
More the case: How to Survive the freezing cold water. Do we know how many died when fighting for their lives in the freezing cold water?

There were about 80 survivors who claimed immediately after the disaster, or in subsequent years and decades to have come in to contact with the water that night. Some 40-50 of those are credible, the remainder remain either ambiguous or have been demonstrably disproved. It cannot be calculated even approximately how many people survived Titanic's sinking event and entered the water in an uninjured state. Surely many must have been injured or killed during the sinking event, the break up, or by being trapped below decks. But doing the maths it seems fairly inescapable that only approx 5 percent of survivors, at best, had made contact with the water. The flip side of that is amongst the (presumed) 1496 that entered the water, less than 3 percent of them survived.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

It cannot be calculated even approximately how many people survived Titanic's sinking event and entered the water in an uninjured state.

That's true. Also, we must be clear about what "contact with water" meant under those chaotic freezing conditions. When the Titanic lost its longitudinal stability around 02:16am, it gave a sudden forward and downward 'lurch' that started what we now call the "Final Plunge". In the time (probably 20 to 30 seconds, but that's just my guess) that this initial process took, several people, sensing the end, might have jumped into the water. It is likely that this included people like Richard Williams & his father Charles, Jack Thayer, Milton Long, Sam Hemming, Thomas Dillon etc, who then managed to swim to lifeboats that were still close by and be hauled on board. Others like August Wennerstrom, Edward Brown, Carl Fitzpatrick, Colonel Gracie, William Mellors, John Collins, Olaus Abelseth etc were swept overboard by the "wave" that was generated by that lurch and somehow managed to find their way to lifeboats nearby. Still others like Carl Jansson, George Rheims, Rhoda Abbott, Peter Daly etc went overboard somewhere in between.....difficult to say.

But for every one of those above who managed to survive after coming into contact with the freezing water, around 8 to 10 might have died due to injuries and/or hypothermia. Those included accomplices of a few above like Charles Williams (Richard's father), Milton Long, Eugene & Rossmore Williams, Josef Loring, Sigurd Moen, the unnamed steward who was with Collins etc but also huge numbers men, women and even children whom we cannot even identify and who sadly died miserably under those hellish conditions. But one thing is certain; absolutely none of the several surviving men who claimed to have swum "for hours" to reach lifeboats actually did so. Either they were making it up due to survivors' guilt or were themselves victims of embellishment by yellow journalists.

 

[Steven Christian]

That's true. Also, we must be clear about what "contact with water" meant under those chaotic freezing conditions. When the Titanic lost its longitudinal stability around 02:16am, it gave a sudden forward and downward 'lurch' that started what we now call the "Final Plunge". In the time (probably 20 to 30 seconds, but that's just my guess) that this initial process took, several people, sensing the end, might have jumped into the water. It is likely that this included people like Richard Williams & his father Charles, Jack Thayer, Milton Long, Sam Hemming, Thomas Dillon etc, who then managed to swim to lifeboats that were still close by and be hauled on board. Others like August Wennerstrom, Edward Brown, Carl Fitzpatrick, Colonel Gracie, William Mellors, John Collins, Olaus Abelseth etc were swept overboard by the "wave" that was generated by that lurch and somehow managed to find their way to lifeboats nearby. Still others like Carl Jansson, George Rheims, Rhoda Abbott, Peter Daly etc went overboard somewhere in between.....difficult to say.

But for every one of those above who managed to survive after coming into contact with the freezing water, around 8 to 10 might have died due to injuries and/or hypothermia. Those included accomplices of a few above like Charles Williams (Richard's father), Milton Long, Eugene & Rossmore Williams, Josef Loring, Sigurd Moen, the unnamed steward who was with Collins etc but also huge numbers men, women and even children whom we cannot even identify and who sadly died miserably under those hellish conditions. But one thing is certain; absolutely none of the several surviving men who claimed to have swum "for hours" to reach lifeboats actually did so. Either they were making it up due to survivors' guilt or were themselves victims of embellishment by yellow journalists.

That's a good point. I can't remember now but somewhere on here I read where one of the survivors demanded a retraction of a story written about them where the journalist added stuff he didn't say. Maybe I'll run across it again. I think I read that on this site.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I can't remember now but somewhere on here I read where one of the survivors demanded a retraction of a story written about them where the journalist added stuff he didn't say.

I think it was about Paul Chevre in Lifeboat #7 that Thomas Krom mentioned in Post #63 of the "Survivors who Spread Lies" thread. Here it is:

It is more likely a journalist changed her words or made it up that she said it. It sadly happened to Paul Romaine Marie Léonce Chevré (1866-1914) as well (who was in lifeboat number 7, the first lifeboat lowered), it was claimed he stated the following (which was published in various newspapers:

"Captain Smith got band back to the big dining room to play when Titanic struck. They had finished their evening program some time before. Mr Chevré saw that the lowering of the boats which took along the people on the ship appeared not to be appreciating the danger they were in. Chevré said an officer asked him to get into a lifeboat to set an example. This he did, and was followed by five or six other girls, two of whom he believed to be the Missess Fortunes of Winnipeg. Mr Chevré stated that a few minutes before the ship sank Captain Smith cried out, "my luck has turned," and then shot himself. I saw him fall against the canvas railing on the bridge and disappear."

Mr. Chevré got so angry about the fabricated claims that he stormed into the French language daily, named La Presse, upon his arrival in Montreal to set the record straight since everything that had been written about him in English was false. He complained and stated it was "a tissue of lies and denied ever having stated that Captain Smith had shot himself. The Herald, which printed the original story insisted it certainly did not intentionally faked Chevré's account, but allowed that since its reporter didn't speak French very well, "he might have misunderstood Mr Chevré's rapid fire narrative."

That shows the level to which newspapers and their reporters could stoop to in those days. While magnates like Randolph Hearst were well known, there must have been similar men and probably some women all over the Western world who would do anything short of killing someone to get a good story. Remember, in 1912 there was no radio news, TV etc and people relied entirely on papers for news; this gave reporters almost unlimited incentive to embellish, sensationalize and even falsify information in order to sell their rag better than the one next door. Yes, I know that unscrupulous journalism exists even today, but at least there are some measures to verify and, where appropriate, dismiss a story.

I remember reading about newspaper sensationalism during the infamous Lizzie Borden case of 1892-3, including excerpts of some reports. It was ridiculously comical.

 

[Steven Christian]

Yes. Thanks. That was the article/post I was referring too. I wonder if they did in those days like they do today...put the retraction/correction on page 10 of the newspaper.