Professional Mariner

[David G. Brown]

Noel-- Your skepticism is valid, but rooted in a more modern view of things. Murdoch, Titanic, and the iceberg were all of a different time with different mindsets. There is a sailor's saying that "different splices for different ships." The same is true for human experience over the ages.

The purpose of my article was to show the effects of loss of situational awareness, and in particular how the design of Titanic's bridge contributed to this condition. One of the cruel irony's of loss of situational awareness is that the victim (or victims) is for practical purposes "transfixed doing sod-all" even though from his (or their) perspective he (or they) are properly performing the task at hand. I've included the plural here because it was not just Murdoch who was the victim of loss of situational awareness. It affected the whole bridge team including Murdoch and Boxhall, but also Captain Smith who was on the bridge doing chartwork at the time.

Situational awareness slammed into the world of forensic investigation in December, 1972 when an Eastern Airlines jumbo jet flew into the muck of the Everglades west of Miami, Florida. At the moment of impact the aircraft was 100% functional save for an indicator light on the nose landing gear. The whole flight crew had become so fixated on a burned out bulb in the light that nobody notice the aircraft had gone below the glide slope. The last words on the cockpit voice recorder were, "Hey, what's happening here?"

If there had been a thought recorder on Titanic, might we not have Murdoch thinking the same thing in the seconds before impact?

-- David G. Brown

 

[Noel F. Jones]

Yes David, but you’re not telling us if Scarrat’s “five or eight minutes” was corroborated.

If I may go off at a tangent for a while:

“At the foot of the foremast, seaman Joseph Scarrott nursed a cigarette in the forecastle as he waited to go off duty at the midnight change of watch.”

Did Scarrott offer this in evidence? What was the company policy on smoking while on duty? (I am assuming he was the fo’c’sle-head lookout and was therefore ON the structure, not ‘in’ it.) Given a ban on smoking and a foredeck blackout, how did he 'light up' without coming to the notice of the bridge? And is it feasible to smoke a cigarette at 21 knots?

Returning to the main topic:

I’m intrigued. If the steering compass was in an enclosed wheelhouse and there was no binnacle on the monkey island, how did the officer of the watch manage to take a bearing? Not by scurrying between the bridge and that midship compass platform surely!

Might I also conjecture that the subsequent alterations to the Olympic in 1913 were consequent to the installation of a gyrocompass, with the midship compass platform being prudently retained as a fall-back device.

I understand the first merchant ship to be fitted with a gyrocompass was the Imperator in 1913. This arose from Dr Hermann Anschutz’s patent of 1908. He himself was already supplying gyrocompasses to the Kriegsmarine and was apparently content to pass the commercial market into the hands of his agent Theodor Christian Plath. The interests of Plath and the American Elmer Sperry, who was apparently on a similar research path, subsequently converged in the form of (variously) the Sperry Gyroscope Company incorporated in the United States.

Noel

 

[David G. Brown]

Noel -- There was no "money island" on Titanic as built. However, there was a space provided for such a structure even though it was not there.

The standard compass was amidships. There were two steering compasses on the bridge, one in the wheelhouse and the other on the forebridge at the wheel used when docking or maneuvering in crowded waters. Neither steering compass was fitted for taking bearings.

Bearings were taken using one of two peloruses mounted port and starboard of the forebridge. Quite obviously, a relative bearing was taken with the appropriate instrument and this was then converted to a magnetic/true bearing as necessary for navigation.

The standard compass was fitted with an azimuth ring capable of celestial bearings used to check the instrument's accuracy. Given the placement of the standard instrument (230 feet from the forebridge with forward/aft views blocked by funnels) it is improbable that this instrument was used to take navigational bearings--although it certainly could have been employed in this manner provided the object being sighted was abeam and not ahead or behind the ship.

The H&W drawing office notebook says nothing about a gyrocompas in 1913. Rather it shows that a new standard compass was installed on the wheelhouse roof (as can be seen in photos). The old standard compass was fully retained. This can be confirmed by photos, but also by the drawing office notebook. In that notebook, items removed from the ship were lined out with a single line. There are many such notations, especially including the reduced bunkerage due to the double sides. However, the original standard compass is not lined out because it was not removed.

A standard compass is the "authority" for navigation. No ship can have two standards simply because of the nature of magnetic compasses. They would never agree, so there would be no way to know which "standard" to apply. There is really no navigational purpose whatsoever for retaining the original standard compass. The only logical reason was "eyewash" so as not to draw attention to its role in the Titanic affair. This "eyewash" concept is given credence by the installation of a compass platform amidships on Britannic, even though the standard compass was always located above the wheelhouse on a "flying bridge" which sailors also called a "monkey island."

Scarrott was protected from the weather and wind beneath the forecastle in the crew's mess area. It was Sunday, the one day of light duty. Ordinarily, he would have been doing some bit of maintenance or other work, but on Sunday things were a bit more relaxed. So, he was waiting to go off duty. The details are in his testimony.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Noel F. Jones]

Peloruses: quite.

Otherwise, your case hinges upon the illogicality of the extended - into the 1920s - presence of two mutually exclusive navigational devices.

That and the uncorroborated pronouncement of a crew member who was below and virtually off-watch and which is compromised by the multiple countervailing pronouncements of other personnel directly involved in the developing circumstances of the casualty.

On a flight of fancy I could imagine a latter-day conversation between two WSL mates, on the lines of: “Why do you still have that midship compass platform when you’ve got the one on the monkey island? “Shush…. we’re not supposed to mention that.” Improbable would you not agree?

As to subsequent photographs, while the portative platform may be in evidence can we discern that the actual device was still in situ and functioning? In any case I would be inclined to attribute this structural anomaly to more prosaic origins such as the characteristic inertia of the superintendentcy.

While I appreciate your undoubted detective work, in the absence of further evidence, such as a concomitant revising of the company rulebook or a specific direction to the shipwrights (or evidence of a suppression of such further evidence), I for one must remain sceptical as to the conclusions drawn.

Noel

 

[David G. Brown]

Noel-- I think you are being illogical about the whole issue. What happened and what was are facts. The original standard compass of Olympic was not moved, but left in position. A new standard compass was installed above the wheelhouse. That's what happened. Any failure of logic in this series of events lies in the office of White Star lines and not in my argument regarding the misplacement of the standard compass on Titanic and the resulting tragic results.

If you talk to those few sailors remaining from those ships that were equipped only with magnetic compasses, they will affirm the almost reverent care given these instruments. This was true up through World War II. Many ships continued their magnetic compass routines even after being equipped with new-fangled gyrocompasses simply because of the natural reluctance of sailors to abandon what they know has worked for centuries.

As to what the crew had to say about Olympic's two compasses, I don't know. However, I doubt that it was of any more concern than the hitching posts still standing curbside of city streets after people started driving automobiles. If anything, I rather suspect the conversation was of how less cumbersome things were aboard Olympic with its new bridge layout.

And, I'm not sure who you are speaking of when you mention the pronouncements of someone "virtually off watch." There is no such condition at sea. I believe you are speaking of Scarrott's testimony. Again, it is what it is. And, it does not necessarily contravene what anyone else said. Scarrott contravenes only what what special interests not on board Titanic wanted us to believe was said in the testimonies. A more careful analysis of the testimonies when combined with full and complete knowledge of the English language (in particular the exact meaning of the word "immediate") as well as the practices and procedures of 1912 and the whole viewed in the context of the real time maneuvers of a large vessel yields the conclusion that Scarrott was mostly correct in his assessment of the time between the first warning and impact.

This is not to say your skepticism is not valid. Even I join you in being skeptical of my proposals, even as I am skeptical of the conventional story. What I do not understand is your wholesale acceptance of the conventional version without requiring it to pass the same test of validity.

The conventional story requires that something the size of a large building was unnoticed by at least three professional mariners until the situation had gone beyond extremis. The conventional story requires that Murdoch turned left to avoid an object on his port side, a logical improbability. The original story requires a wild maneuver first left, then right which would have produced motions in the ship that were unreported by anyone. The conventional story has a key officer wandering away from his duty station while on watch for no particular reason just when an accident occurs.

My version puts the events into the context of 1912 shiphandling and bridge management procedures. It fully explains the actions of each and every person involved and shows how those people were forced to interact with their physical surroundings and equipment. In my proposal no one, officer or rating, wandered away from duty and everyone was fully involved in routine management of the voyage. There was no sudden appearance of a solitary iceberg. In fact, ice was seen and reported at the distance expected by mariners. My proposal even explains the logical need for both an alarm bell and a later telephone call.

If you base your acceptance of any argument on logic, I think the case in favor of my proposal that bad bridge design helped create loss of situational awareness and prevented communications among the bridge team is clear. My theory stands the test of logic far better than the conventional argument. Am I 100% correct? Probably not. I don't have a retro-crystal ball to see clearly into the past. All I can say is that my argument is a closer fit to the known events and the known methods and procedures of 1912. Beyond that I cannot go.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Samuel Halpern]

"A more careful analysis of the testimonies when combined with full and complete knowledge of the English language (in particular the exact meaning of the word "immediate") as well as the practices and procedures of 1912 and the whole viewed in the context of the real time maneuvers of a large vessel yields the conclusion that Scarrott was mostly correct in his assessment of the time between the first warning and impact."

Not at all I'm afraid. Unless someone was looking at a watch, time intervals are very subjective. However, we can get a better feel of time intervals if we consider things like how long should it take to go a certain known distance between two events. Olliver said he heard 3 bells while on the compass platform, looked up and saw nothing, and then left the platform to go onto the bridge. The impact happened when as he got there. There is no way that would take 5-8 minutes to do that. More like 50-60 seconds even allowing for reaction time and walking time at the average of 5 ft/sec to cover 230 feet. Both Hichens and Fleet said that the call from the nest was about ½ minute. Both consistent on that point. We know from Wilding that it takes only 37 sec to turn 2 points. Add them up. It still doesn’t take 5-8 minutes. Lee said he thought they spotted the berg when it was about ½ mile away, give or take. That’s about 90 secs travel at 22.5 knots. Scarrott said he was not paying much attention and really did not know much about the time. Given all of this, I don’t know how you can say he was mostly correct in this matter?


"The conventional story requires that something the size of a large building was unnoticed by at least three professional mariners until the situation had gone beyond extremis."

On a clear moonless night you have to get within less than about 1/2 mile to see an iceberg. Where on a clear moonlit night you could see them about 2 miles distant. This comes from Leo Shubow who on the U.S. Coast Guard ship Tampa in the late 1950s, part of the Ice Patrol. Also Rostron’s experience on the Carpathia seems to back this up.

"The conventional story requires that Murdoch turned left to avoid an object on his port side, a logical improbability."

Where did an object on the port side come from? Fleet and Lee both said it was right ahead. Fleet's drawing shows it slightly off the starboard bow when first seen. A turn to port (left) is exactly what is expected if one was trying to avoid what was reported as being seen.

"The original story requires a wild maneuver first left, then right which would have produced motions in the ship that were unreported by anyone."

I've been on a navy assault ship doing 21 knots under hard left rudder. You really don't notice it unless you are looking at what the ship is doing.

"The conventional story has a key officer wandering away from his duty station while on watch for no particular reason just when an accident occurs."

If you are talking about Boxhall, he was not wandering away from anything. The regulations I believe don't say that a QM and J/O has to be on the platform for the course check every 1/2 hour. Lightoller only talks about a J/O having to be on the platform and another in the wheelhouse at night during this type of check. Could be that Boxhall came back from the course check at 11:30 and told Olliver to go out to the platform to trim the lamps because they were either too bright or too dim. He then could have ask Murdoch if it were OK for him to go to his cabin for a few minutes. This could easily explain why Olliver was were he said he was, and why Boxhall was where he said he was at 11:40.

Having the standard compass on that platform was not too good for bridge management, and that I must agree with. But there is no evidence that it had anything to do the accident at all. A second "standard" compass was fitting on top of the wheelhouse on both Olympic and Britannic. They both had two “standard compasses” installed. The platform on Britannic was not there for “eyewash.” From Simon Mills: “The compass outfit on the Britannic was as follows: 2 Chetwynd Spirit Compasses, Navy pattern, by Kelvin, Bottomley & Baird, 1 for top of Wheelhouse and 1 for Compass Platform. Inside the Wheelhouse there was a Ritchie spirit compass (10" card), on the Captain's Bridge there was a 10" Kelvin steering compass (standard pattern), and on the Docking Bridge there was a Light Card 10" steering compass on a teak wood stand.”

Both of those compasses were called "standard compasses" as opposed to steering compasses. They were equipped with azimuth mirrors and rings for taking magnetic bearings. For one thing, it would allow magnetic bearings to be taken ahead without those funnels blocking the view. It also would allow those 1/2 hour course checks to be performed with having to send a J/O to the platform amidships. My guess is the platform compass was the one used to check the deviation of all other compasses, including the one on top of the wheeelhouse once per watch section as required. It was considered to be less affected by the steel and iron in the hull of the vessel because of its location. But by installing a 2nd "standard compass" on top the wheelhouse, it made the trip to the midship platform every 1/2 hour unnecessary. After the Titanic disaster many changes were made in that refit of the Olympic. But there is no evidence that the midship compass location was in any way contributory to the accident.

 

[Noel F. Jones]

Quite.

In the absence of express evidence to the contrary (and I see none) the subsequent and apparent duplication of a navigational device is too tenuous a peg upon which to hang a revisionist conspiracy theory.

Noel

 

[David G. Brown]

Sam--

We have agreed to disagree so often that I'm not going to mention it again.

As to the motions of the ship, perhaps the required sashay of the purported "port around" maneuver might not have knocked drinks off the bar. It would, however, have been noticed by the more experienced members of the crew. No such maneuver was mentioned. Your experience on a navy ship is immaterial as the GM and other factors are quite different. A military vessel must meet weapons platform requirements while Titanic was intended to have a rather low initial stability to increase passenger comfort. One of the great overlooked reasons for those massive funnels was to create weight aloft to reduce the ship's stability. This isn't the place for a technical discussion of GZ, GM, etc. However, Titanic was not comparable to a modern warship in this regard.

I have based my theory upon what was said in sworn testimony during the hearings and upon the written instructions to the officers in charge of the ship. I stand 100% behind what I have written both here and in the magazine.

There are very few measured time durations within the testimonies. And, human beings are woefully inadequate in estimating the passage of time. So, the testimonies have to be examined with an understanding that one man's "immediate" was another's "few minutes." As I read Olliver's statements, nothing in them contravenes my theories. Indeed, I once argued from your point of view--in my book. However, the sequence of events with Boxhall just on his way out of the officers quarters...and with a compass check due...supports that the duration Olliver spent on the platform was longer than you suggest. Six to 8 minutes is not unreasonable within the context of his testimony.

Nobody can say the exact distance that any object can be seen at sea without being there. We all know of the various aberrations caused by air density, etc. which can make things appear where they are not or to be farther away than they are. And, it is true that icebergs may...note that is a permissive word and not a mandatory statement...icebergs may not be visible even at a half mile. However, the statements of a Coast Guard officer trying to keep people away from icebergs a half century after Titanic are not necessarily germane to the 1912 accident.

The facts sworn into testimony by men of 1912 and familiar with the route set the 2 to 3 mile expectation of seeing icebergs. Note this was an expectation, which does happen to fit quite nicely into the order of events as I see them. But, I did not create the order to fit the testimony. Rather, the order in my theory came from Scarrott and others. Scarrott's time reference closely matches the time it would have taken Titanic to cover the 2 to 3 mile range at which the 1912 experts predicted icebergs to be seen. I did not invent that correlation. It existed within the testimonies before any of us were born.

Your supposition about Boxhall and Olliver is wonderfully imaginative. However, what we know as sworn testimony fact is that both men were gone from the forebridge simultaneously. Please create a supposition which fits that situation and which also fits the IMM/White Star Rulebook and the ordinary practice of seamen. My theory places those two men exactly where they should have been at the time of night of the accident. No other theory that I have seen does this. I submit that if we were starting fresh on this investigation, no on would accept any other version except that the two men were doing their duties as assigned. All other suppositions are insulting to the two men involved and seamen in general.

As to compasses and compass platforms. Any ship can have only one standard compass. No more, no less. It is the "standard" against which all others are checked. Therefore, putting a second standard compass did not eliminate making checks of the standard compass in the platform. If the compass above the wheelhouse was used as the standard, then the platform compass could only have been there for purely decorative purposes. It had no other possible use with regard to steering in the standard practice of navigation.

(I do see how it might have been used to take certain magnetic bearings, but doing so would have required additional work. It would have been necessary to apply a correction to the platform compass reading to obtain the reading per standard compass. Then, the PSC bearing could have been corrected to true using the known errors of the standard compass.)

So, I stand by my statement that a second standard compass being--by definition--an impossibility, the one in the platform had no other logical purpose outside of "eyewash." It was a sort of disguise for matters which had grave implications for White Star lines.

Your statement that there is no "proof" that the standard compass was involved in the accident is beneath the high level of our previous discussions. I have laid out the proof such as it exists. You are free to disagree, but not to claim there is no proof.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Yes, we disagree. I am sorry that you feel the way you do about this, but I stand by what I said above. You have laid out a theory, and that is fine. Now others can decide on its merits.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Noel, if I may, what "revisionist" conspiracy theory, and why does that somehow invalidate David's theory? I don't think there's a lot of room to doubt that the conventional wisdom of the port around scenerio has holes in it big enough to toss a Tyrannasaurus Rex through, and if there were any conspiracies, they were of the usual sort of "Cover Your A**" sort of thing that always come with such events. Lightoller didn't call the Mersey Court's deliberations a whitewash for nothing. If pointing that out is revisionist, I would submit that Charles Lightoller was the first one to attempt it and more with an eye to setting the record strieght. That much is what historians attempt to do every day.

The issue from where I stand is not whether there were conspiracies/cover ups, but what the conspiracies/cover ups were and what the parties involved were conspiring to cover up.

Was it as simple as an ill thought out location for the standard compass and a general loss of situational awareness? I can't say as I know that as an irrfutable non-debatable fact, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Accidents caused from a loss of situational awareness....said loss happening among very well trained, highly professional and experienced crews...are documented fact. David cited that example from the Eastern Airlines L-1011 that crashed in the Everglades. There's no reason it can't happen on a ship, and I think it can be demonstrated that it has. Whether or not the compass platform can be pointed to as the quintessential villain in this affair is certainly debatable, but can somebody offer a better theory that explains the facts as they're known? If so, I'm more then willing to consider it.

 

[Noel F. Jones]

Perhaps I have been less than evident in readily acknowledging that David G. Brown has, by dint of original research, advanced the sum total of knowledge on the principal subject of this web site. A commendable aim of itself. As I see it, he has done this by putting forward what amounts to a conspiracy theory.

As we can see, others are better placed to delve into the minutiae of the matter; my succinct choice has been between — if I may lapse into the vernacular of others — ‘conspiracy or cock-up’. In the light of my experiences elsewhere I have opted for the latter. Others are free to do otherwise.

As for David himself, rest assured I neither adduce nor perceive any discredit in either holding on to or retreating from a plausibly advanced argument in the light of the critiques of others. For my own part I do believe we have now taken this as far as is practicable.

Noel

 

[Samuel Halpern]

I think the only thing we can be certain of is that there are relatively few certainties in all of this. A theory is only as good as it stands up against the test of collective evidence and analysis. Unfortunately, there is enough variations in time and distance estimates, as well as what people saw or thought they saw, that the number of variations is probably infinite.

The best theory is the one that can take the most number of pieces and fit them together. In this particular case, I do believe there was something that the WSL did not want people to know about concerning the accident. I don't think it had anything to do with compass placement. We have debated the time the iceberg was first spotted and reported by the lookouts. And I think therein lies the answer. The majority of evidence points to a time frame on the order of 1 minute, give or take a bit. My guess, and say guess, is that it was recognized that enough warning time was given to have prevented the accident from happening despite the speed of the vessel. Why it wasn't avoided successfully is speculative, but I believe the answer has to do with misjudgment of the initial situation before definitive action was finally taken. I don't think it was caused by a loss of situational awareness. By time action was taken, it was too late.

Now to turn this into a theory that can stand up requires a lot more than speculation.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>As I see it, he has done this by putting forward what amounts to a conspiracy theory. <<

Fair enough. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that he could be mistaken and I'm sure David is as well. Question is: What if he's right?

What he's proposed here is not one of those silly Grand Conspiracy Theories vis a vis ship switches that have one reaching for the tinfoil hats, but something a lot more subtle, by way of both the Government and White Star being in cahoots to cover up some embarrasing mistakes and thereby protect any number of vested interests. Hardly unusual when business and government are in bed with each other.

>>Why it wasn't avoided successfully is speculative, but I believe the answer has to do with misjudgment of the initial situation before definitive action was finally taken. I don't think it was caused by a loss of situational awareness. By time action was taken, it was too late. <<

Only why was it too late? The only possibilty I can offer is that these people misjudged their ability to see and avoid ice, but I've been of that opinion for years. Putting some meat on to the bones of that one...well...that *is* the problem.

 

[Erik Wood]

I read through this series of posts three times and I still don't what anybody is talking about.

In my opinion this all subjective. Nobody has any real understanding of what occured because nobody was there to see it. All we have left is our opinions and theories. ALL theories have some merit, because every theory that I have read has some truth in it. Some actually inject common sense seamanship, others inject testimony, some inject both (those are the dangerous ones).

Whatever your thought process is, I think it important to remeber that this is a forum of debate. Not having spoke with David in relation to his theory (other then the situational awareness part) I can say with some confidence that he knows he isn't right. But what he has come up with is what he thinks best fits the situation, tesetimony and other stuff.

As to the loss of situational awareness. If (this is dangerous) you use today's standard one of two things had to have occured that night in order for the ship to have hit the iceberg. Either Murdoch was grossly negligent, or something was keeping his attention. Meaning that he had some other considerations to worry about. I would prefer to think that the latter is what occured.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

May I add a third choice? How about an unexpected change to the initial situation which results in the need for evasive action be taken to avoid a possible collision. No distractions for the OOW involved. Flying airplanes this happens more often than I would like. You are flying in a given direction, another plane at same altitude up ahead and well off to the side is flying a parallel course but at a slower speed. The relative bearing between the two is initially opening up. You never take your eyes off the target. Then you start to notice the relative bearing is no longer opening.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>May I add a third choice? How about an unexpected change to the initial situation which results in the need for evasive action be taken to avoid a possible collision.<<

It can't be discounted and in this regard, the culprit may well be the iceberg itself. If a section calved off just prior to the accident, then it's not impossible for them to have missed one only to end up having a close encounter with another. Anyone else care to throw something into this mix?

 

[Steven Hall]

Sir James Bisset I believe sums it up (page 300 — Tramps and Ladies), “The fact that the Titanic had struck a berg in calm weather on a clear night meant one of three things — insufficient lookout; responses too slow from her bridge; or that the big vessel at her full speed had not quickly enough answered her helm to avoid a collision.”

I would go with the 2nd.

I believe the lookout (1) was not an issue — they had received direction to keep a keen eye that night.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I believe the lookout (1) was not an issue — they had received direction to keep a keen eye that night.<<

Indeed they did and they did report what they saw. Thing is, I don't think Fleet and Lee were the first ones to see the berg. If my read of the testimony is correct, the ship was already turning when they went onto the ice and befor they even made their report. My own opinion was that the first one to see it was Will Murdoch.

 

[Steven Hall]

Bisset,
“On all sides we could see lifeboats making laboriously toward us, some dangerously overcrowded some half empty. A mile away was a mass of wreckage, like an island, marking the spot where the Titanic had gone down.”
“It’s interesting what Sir James observed (or hinted) of the wreckage; “…..white lifejackets would have an appearance similar to that of the thousands of floating ice or white-painted wreckage.”
At the same time he observed; “ dozens of icebergs within our horizon. Among them were four or five big bergs, towering up two hundred feet above water level. One of these was the one that the Titanic had struck.”
So Bisset has identified at least 4, possibly 5 icebergs that could have been the culprit.

 

[David G. Brown]

I have just spent an afternoon with a man who sailed in the days before electronic navigation on ships that did not have gyrocompass. As near as memory allows, here are his comments.

"We treated the standard compass with extreme respect. You would even have to empty your pockets when you got near it. It was crazy to put it (Titanic's standard compass) amidships. It belonged on top of the wheelhouse. And, I can't imagine how they used it without two-way communications. In those days, the standard compass was everything. You checked it all the time."

Those words come from Richard Orgel. He spent most of his life in tugs and tankers coastwise United States. However, he made a few deep water passages. Orgel was a relief 3rd Mate on the Edmund Fitzgerald during October and November of the year before that ship sank.

Orgel contacted me after reading the article about Titanic's standard compass in Professional Mariner. During a 5-decade career at sea he had to abandon ship twice in lifeboats. His opinion of them is even lower than that of Captain Erik.

--David G. Brown