Ships that passed the Titanic

[Adam Usher]

I am just wondering, does anybody know of any ships that passed the Titanic between southampton and the collision?

 

[Senan Molony]

Assuming you mean visibly, the only one I know of is the French trawler Alsace, after the White Star Liner had left Cherbourg.

There is a notorious fake photograph in the booklet "Titanic Safety Speed & Sacrifice", supposedly belonging to the "Anthony J. Kasmarek" collection and snapped of the Titanic from the La Touraine, but this is, as I say, a notorious hoax.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

At it again, Molony, hmmmm? So predictable.

If you read the booklet VERY CAREFULLY, you will see that the photo caption SAYS the *Lake Manitoba*, not the La Touraine. And George has said many times, this photo is a computer mockup created to illustrate the sighting of the Lake Manitoba on April 12. No known actual photo of this sighting exists.

If you doubt the accuracy of George's information, he said he would be glad to let you read the original source, on your next trip to Michigan. However, you would not be permitted to make photocopies!

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>...but this is, as I say, a notorious hoax.<<

People who try to perpatrate hoaxs seldom 'fess up to it strieght away. I asked George about this as soon as I recieved my copy and he told me flat out that the photo was not genuine. In my own observation, he's always been candid about that.

Moderators hat on for this: Please keep personal differences with others off the forum. I realize that some personalities may well have good reason to dislike each other but this just isn't the place to hash that out.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

And George 'fessed up to the doctored photo on the ET message board years ago. As I recall, the caption to the photo in the booklet was created by the publisher, and not what George had asked for. George's version admited the photo was doctored to illustrate the sighting.

 

[Trevor Powell]

Another ship that visibly passed the Titanic was the Adriatic in the early hours (6:00 AM) of April 11th. I once read a woman's diary who was onboard the Adriatic and saw the Titanic pass. The Adriatic blew her whistle, but the Titanic did not reply.

 

[Benjamin Donnelly]

The Rappahannock passed the Titanic on Friday, April 12. She had run into pack ice and dented her bow up. The two ships exchanged signals and that was all. To the best of my knowledge, that was the last time the Titanic was seen by another ship--unless you count the Californian, of course. (I believe the Rappahannock was mentioned in "The Night Lives On.")

 

[Dave Gittins]

Sorry, Benjamin, but the Rappahannock tale is a tall one.

See my website at

http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/rappahannock.html

 

[Benjamin Donnelly]

Hmm. Thanks, Dave...I'll take that out of my book ASAP!

Walter Lord usually did a pretty good job on his research, but nobody's perfect, I guess.

 

[Dave Gittins]

Nobody's perfect indeed. See the thread on Almerian that I began and Dr Paul Lee continued with new data. That's how it goes. Things are still turning up.

In 1969, Geoffrey Marcus nearly sank the Rappahannock story in The Maiden Voyage. He found the letter from Furness-Withy that's on my site, but he didn't check the sailing date of Rappahannock. When I dug it up, the story fell apart. C'est la Guerre!

 

[monica e. hall]

For one wild moment there, Dave, when I read your second paragraph, I thought you meant you'd had a website in 1969. Such precocity - I thought for a moment we'd discovered the real architect of the Net.

Then I spotted the "that's".

This 'mystery' ship business is of enduring interest, isn't it? But it seems to me that the problem is one can only track and analyse the more mainstream and organised shipping line data. In 1912, there must have been some ships in the rough vicinity, whose records were either never properly kept at the time, or which have been lost over the years.

And since the Inquiries on both sides of the Atlantic were somewhat less rigorous than we would now be, in tracking down the traffic in the area - being happy with the Californian as the culprit - it is quite a detective task. Personally, I think the latter did see the rockets, but was not the ship seen from the Titanic.

But what do I know?

 

[Dave Gittins]

Not to start an argument in the wrong thread, but the Board of Trade, assisted by Foreign Affairs, conducted a major search for ships that might have been in the area. There are dozens of letters on file on the subject. No ship other than the few we've long known about now was found. All this is not in the inquiry transcripts, except for a few odd references to one or two ships, such as Paula and Trautenfels.

There's a remote chance that a ship from Asia, or perhaps South America could have been around the place. The search was confined to the nations of North America and Europe that commonly used the North Atlantic.

 

[monica e. hall]

I never argue, or very rarely at least.

I'm not sufficiently informed.

But if you can't find the ship in well-kept records, you have to consider that it's a ship which wasn't tracked properly. You well-informed guys are used to "information"; but I know - from totally different sources - that "information" is a comparatively recent event, in terms of certitude.

I think it quite likely that nobody will ever successfully track the ship(s) in that vicinity.

No matter what the Inquiries at the time decided.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I think it quite likely that nobody will ever successfully track the ship(s) in that vicinity. <<

I agree with that to a point. While it's possible to at least affirm or disconfirm candidates from some nations using the extant records, none of this can really speak to any number of nations that weren't all that maticulous about keeping records or whose documents...like logbooks...have been lost over the past century.

There may or may not have been an interloper between the Titanic and the Californian and it may have been enough to add to the confusion or at least give the people on the Californian the sense that what they saw was really no big deal. (From what I've seen, I've the impression that there was more a sense of befuddlement on that ship then any real sense of urgency.)

The fine point that a lot of people on both sides of this divide appear to be missing is that even if the entire U.S. Sixth Fleet had gone back in a time warp to conduct wargames there, it still doesn't really address the issue of the Californian's accountability in how they either read or misread the tea leaves.

In short, even if there was an unknown and unknowable "Mystery Ship" mucking around there, their accountability is seperate from and takes nothing away from the Californian's.

 

[Des Attwell]

The Rappahannock in the ice field photo that Marcus published. Where did he get that? Anybody know? Also anybody know why he ignored the witness reports that the ship broke in two in the 1969 book? (I haven't read a later version,maybe it was revised post 85.) Thanks.