Hi Jim,
As to your original post on here it is all covered comprehensively in appendix M of Sam's book 'Strangers on the horizon'. It is undoubtedly a mistake by Rostron (one of many he made as to timings) of events that night.
Cheers,
Julian
Not sure what you mean, Julian; nor will any of the rest of the members who have not read Sam's book.
However, if you can suffer an alternative opinion?
As far as I am concerned: if
Carpathia was at 49-13'West when she turned. and a clock showed a time greater than 12-12am, then the time showing on that particular clock had been fully adjusted at Midnight
The reason for this is that bridge protocol dictated that any clock alteration was to be shared between the 8 to Midnight, and Midnight to 4 am Watches.
When a clock advance was planned, the first alteration took place at a time which was at least half the planned total before Midnight The second and final alteration would then be made when the clock read Midnight . Thus each Watch benefitted from a share in the off duty time.
Normal practice was that the first advance was made at 10 pm or 11 pm (usually at 10 pm) and the second when the clock reached Midnight.
Consequently, Rostron's 12-35 am was fully adjusted time, and
Carpathia had been running at full speed for 12 hours 35 minutes MINUS the total clock change. from Noon the previous day.
There is another aspect to this problem , and that is the difference between New York Time and Greenwich Mean Time as understood by on-shore people and ship navigating staff. Sam already knows about this.
The former use the 5 hour difference, but navigators uses 4 hours 55 minutes. The latter never think in terms of difference between New York - Eastern Standard Time and ship time - only ship to GMT.
When asked to do so, they would subtract the equivalent GMT ship time from 4 hours 55 minutes - not 5 hours. Now apply that to Rostron's answer.
If Rostron had a time difference of 1 hour 50 minutes, then he expected that to be the time difference Between a New York Time at Noon April 15. But what New York time?
If he use Navigator's time difference, of 4 hours 55 minutes, then he expected Noon on April 15 to be 3-05 GMT, which, in turn, means he expected to be at 46-15 West at that time.
However if he used the 5 hour difference between GMT and New York, he would have expected to be at 47-30 West at Noon on April 15. Obviously, another proof that he did not use the 5 hours difference.
The distance between his 12-35 position and the first of the foregoing April 15 Noon positions is: 134.3 miles. Obviously he used navigators difference, but the figures indicate that at from Noon, April 14, he had been under the influence of a strong easterly set because
Carpathia only needed to average 12 knots to reach that April 15 Noon position from where she was at 12-35 am.
That fits with him entering the Gulf Stream some time around Noon April 14.. Obviously Rostron did not account for that when he estimated where he would be at Noon on April 15. This fits with his failure to account for it when heading for
Titanic. The above figures can only be approximate. However they indicate that there was nothing wrong with Rostron's reply...he simply was using different criteria.
If you care to look at the other evidence, you will see that on two occasions the difference in times given between navigator and Marconi man was exactly 5 minutes.
Captain Lord
: "That would be 9.05 or 9.10. There is an hour and fifty minutes time between New York and my noon position on the 14th." Lord's Wireless Operator Evans: "
8935. What is the difference between New York time and ship's time at the place where you stopped?
- One hour and fifty-five minutes." Then we have Boxhall's estimate of the difference:
"At 11.46 p.m., ship's time, it was 10.13 Washington time, or New York time." If there had been a partial set back of the clocks 11-46 pm would have been+ 3-22 GMT. Now subtract that from 5 hours and from 4 hours 55 minutes and you'll get a 5 minute difference between your answers