Stanley Lord guilty as charged

[Jim Currie]

It does not seem that holding a Master Mariner gives you instant leadership. One asleep is going full blast into a known ice field whereas the other one, does not want to wake up to investigate what the hell is going on.

Very dramatic, George but way off base. You should read the evidence carefully.

Smith did not go "full blast into a known ice field". He, did as Captain Lord did that night...went full blast into an area where his previous experience and the ice intelligence he had, told him that historically there had been ice to the north of his track but that "all things being equal" it would be long-gone by the time he got there.
Captain Lord also kept going "full blast" but since he was running westward to the north of the 42nd parallel, he was a little more cautious in that he took over the bridge watch after dark and doubled his lookouts.

Unfortunately for the Titanic, "all things" were anything but "equal". Smith had the misfortune to encounter, an isolated, almost invisible, small iceberg. His ship did not enter an ice field as you claim. In fact, no one on Titanic had any idea that the ice field existed until day light next day.
Fortunately for Lord, his ship was not as fast as Titanic and he had time to avoid the heavier ice, but he still entered the loose stuff.

As fore tiredness?

Again...read the evidence.

There is absolutely no evidence to show that Captain Smith was asleep at the moment of impact. Without concrete proof; to say that he was is a gross injustice to the man.

Lord did not lie down until his ship had been stopped in the ice for more than 2 hours. Even then, he lay down fully clothed on top of the Chart Room settee... did not go to his cabin. He had three communications with the OOW, all by speaking tube. The first before he lay down and the second Less than 40 minutes later to be told that the other vessel was altering a her bearings and the last, 2 hours after the first, to be told that the other ship had sailed away.
It was claimed that the Apprentice tried to awaken him. If he did, then he must have used a feather. Lord was not exhausted...he was tired. As anyone who has ever stood on-and-stay-on Watches will tell you, you "doze" under such circumstances as Lord was experiencing. You do not sleep in the same way as did Titanic's 5th Officer Lowe who stated "When we sleep, we die".

 

[Georges Guay]

«Simply falling asleep», tiredness, fatigue, overworking, that leads to bad decision making or poor judgement is a very important cause of maritime incidents, if it’s not the foremost one! Why owners did installed Dead Man Alarm on the navigation bridge, if it’s not to prevent an OWW to sleep while on watch? Like anybody else, a captain needs to sleep hopefully for 2 hours between 02h00 and 06h00. That’s why the navigation watch are arranged from 00h00/04h00 and 04h00/08h00. The most dangerous time to fall asleep while on watch is from 04h00 to 06h00.

That said, a captain must expect to be called at Any Time if needed and when the telephone is ringing after office hours, it is usually not for good news. A responsible captain will wake up and investigate the matter, no matter what. You better wake up twelve times for nothing than stay asleep only once, as your presence may not seem required, but urgent in reality. As an OWW, if you are scared to tell your captain that «a ship doesn't fire rockets for nothing», you have no place in the maritime world.

«This inevitably points to weakness on the part of Mr Stone. Again, I think we need look no further than human fallibility for the cause. There is a natural tendency to reject the signals of disaster and to hope that all is well despite the evidence of one's own eyes and senses, Of course, Mr Stone should have gone down himself to the Master when there was no proper response from him, but the impression one gets of Captain Lord is that, far from being slack as has sometimes been suggested, he was in fact something of a martinet, and the young officer may have feared to leave the Bridge (normally a grave dereliction of duty) even though under the circumstances it would have been safe and right to do so. One can readily imagine Mr Stone on the Bridge, knowing in his heart what ought to be done (he is recorded as saying to Mr Gibson that «a ship doesn't fire rockets for nothing») but trying to persuade himself that there was no real cause for alarm - and desperately wishing it was four o'clock and the Mate was there. I sympathise with Mr Stone, but it must be said that he was seriously at fault.»

 

[Harland Duzen]

The idea of Lord experiencing exhaustion or fatigue was just a theory and I simply though it could be a possibility. However it still more likely Lord was simply in the chart room doing whatever he was doing and again, his strict and angry behaviour made the officers afraid to question his judgement or take action on the light in the distance on the off-chance it was sinking despite he thinking not.

 

[Georges Guay]

Way off base but the results spot on!

Sorry Jim, but your evidences and facts are not any better than any others because if it was the case, we would not be here to speculate over and over again. We will «never» know exactly what happened that fateful night except that received messages reported ice in the way of the vessel, that the vessel was proceeding at close her full power capacities and that the captain was not on the bridge during the occurrence as the perilous task was delegated to a subaltern officer and bits and pieces. As for testimonies, one contradicts the latter.

«He made a mistake, a very grievous mistake, but one in which, in face of the practice and of past experience, negligence cannot he said to have had any part; and in the absence of negligence it is, in my opinion, impossible to fix Captain Smith with blame. It is, however, to be hoped that the last has been heard of the practice and that for the future it will be abandoned for what we now know to be more prudent and wiser measures. What was a mistake in the case of the "Titanic" would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future.»

 

[Georges Guay]

Once again … the captain is not standing a watch and when the day is over, he goes to bed without having to give any reason to anyone. The watch is delegated to his officers. He «can» take over the watch at any time he feels to, needs to or required to do. If the OOW requires the presence of the captain on the bridge, he has to call him with no hesitation whatsoever. But he will have to give him some objectives reasons to convince him that his presence on the bridge is required. If you tell him that everything is alright, you will not improve your case. But if you report that a vessel is sending distress signals as «a ship doesn't fire rockets for nothing» and you really do not feel comfortable with the situation, the captain will come up. If he doesn’t, you will have to go down to shake him up yourself, as there was no danger in that circumstance to do so. If he still not showing up, you call the Chief Mate. If you lose your job, you lose your job. All junior officers want to have a command, manoeuvring ships, but few are aware that they will have to put their head on the block. That’s the difference between holding a master ticket and being the actual commander of a vessel.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Since the officers and crew were scared of Lord,

Now just where did this piece of information come from?

 

[Jim Currie]

«Simply falling asleep», tiredness, fatigue, overworking, that leads to bad decision making or poor judgement is a very important cause of maritime incidents, if it’s not the foremost one! Why owners did installed Dead Man Alarm on the navigation bridge, if it’s not to prevent an OWW to sleep while on watch? Like anybody else, a captain needs to sleep hopefully for 2 hours between 02h00 and 06h00. That’s why the navigation watch are arranged from 00h00/04h00 and 04h00/08h00. The most dangerous time to fall asleep while on watch is from 04h00 to 06h00.

That said, a captain must expect to be called at Any Time if needed and when the telephone is ringing after office hours, it is usually not for good news. A responsible captain will wake up and investigate the matter, no matter what. You better wake up twelve times for nothing than stay asleep only once, as your presence may not seem required, but urgent in reality. As an OWW, if you are scared to tell your captain that «a ship doesn't fire rockets for nothing», you have no place in the maritime world.

«This inevitably points to weakness on the part of Mr Stone. Again, I think we need look no further than human fallibility for the cause. There is a natural tendency to reject the signals of disaster and to hope that all is well despite the evidence of one's own eyes and senses, Of course, Mr Stone should have gone down himself to the Master when there was no proper response from him, but the impression one gets of Captain Lord is that, far from being slack as has sometimes been suggested, he was in fact something of a martinet, and the young officer may have feared to leave the Bridge (normally a grave dereliction of duty) even though under the circumstances it would have been safe and right to do so. One can readily imagine Mr Stone on the Bridge, knowing in his heart what ought to be done (he is recorded as saying to Mr Gibson that «a ship doesn't fire rockets for nothing») but trying to persuade himself that there was no real cause for alarm - and desperately wishing it was four o'clock and the Mate was there. I sympathise with Mr Stone, but it must be said that he was seriously at fault.»

Georges, the dead man alarm is fine on a ship which has a one man bridge team. It has absolutely no bearing on the Titanic story and is only of use in a completely automated bridge where the owners are saving money by reducing crew requirements to a minimum allowed by International Regulations. That in itself, encourages slackness. I have actually investigated an incident where such an alarm failed and the result was collision with an anchored oil rig. In 25 years as a Marine Accident Investigator, I can assure you, I am very much aware of the causes of accidents at sea. Incidentally: if you care to look at the statistics by vessel numbers, not tonnage, I think you will find that the number of marine accidents before bridge and engine room automation compared to those after, were proportionally less.

I don't know where you served, but your idea of how things were run on a British merchantman are way off.
There is no "dangerous time" to fall asleep. To fall asleep on Watch is a criminal act.
Except when leaving or arriving and under certain circumstances concerned with special duties, officers in charge of a Watch in 1912 and for very many years after that..right up to the 70s and 80s had a minimum of 8 hours off duty before going on Watch.
In a British, 3 Mate ship, the 4 to 8 was the Mate's Watch, the 8 to 12 was the Captain's Watch and the 12 to 4 was the 2nd Mate's Watch. All Watch Officers were Certificated at least one rank above the duty they performed. The 3rd Officer actually looked after the 8 to 12 Watch for the Captain.

That quote from is the final report of the MCA investigation which in itself is seriously flawed in certain places It neglects to point out that 2nd Officer Stone spoke directly to his captain on three separate occasions. It neglects the character reports given by Government Examiners into the conduct and psychology of Captain Lord. I quote:

"Captain J. D. MacNab, Board of Trade examiner at Liverpool, later recalled that Lord had passed all his examinations most brilliantly. His testimonials for good conduct and ability at sea being invariably of the highest order.
I have ever heard him spoken of as a humane and clever officer and commander."

I have to say, Georges, the picture you paint of how an officer should behave bears no similarity to any young officer I ever knew. Have you ever spent any serious time at sea in a merchant ship on a long voyage?
99% of any ship I ever served on was my home and the men on it were my family...we all relied on each other. Everyone had a job to do and all the jobs were linked to form a happy ship. Sure! There was the very odd unhappy ship in over 50 years I can only clearly remember one.

 

[Michael Kestner]

What! David G. Brown isn't that overdoing it? we don't need to know each other jobs and backstories, that just optional. We are all the same people anyway since we all have a keen interest in the backstory of the RMS Titanic and her passengers.

privatedad1334 don't feel the need to tell us your job / previous jobs or history. Your just the same as us and you just have a different opinion to us on Captain Lord being negligent or not.

It used to be (and I have no idea why it isn't still) a rule here that you had to use your real name instead of a nickname here. A lot of the older users here still expect it. Things tend to be a bit more civil when a person's real name and reputation are on the line.

I don't see it as unreasonable to ask about a person's qualifications, either. While it would be wrong to dismiss a person based on their qualifications, it can sometimes be helpful to know whether a person has any training in the area they're speaking about when engaging in a discussion with them.

 

[Harland Duzen]

It used to be (and I have no idea why it isn't still) a rule here that you had to use your real name instead of a nickname here. A lot of the older users here still expect it. Things tend to be a bit more civil when a person's real name and reputation are on the line.

I don't see it as unreasonable to ask about a person's qualifications, either. While it would be wrong to dismiss a person based on their qualifications, it can sometimes be helpful to know whether a person has any training in the area they're speaking about when engaging in a discussion with them.

Off topic here but do I need to change my username then? Not to shock anyone but Martin Tyne isn't my real name. I gave a fake name due to internet security and all that, my name was meant to be a pun of the word ''Maritime''. Maritime - Marit Time = ''Martin Tyne''

Now just where did this piece of information come from?

Is every thing we know about Lord a complete lie?!? there has to be some truth in someone's testimony aboard the Californian.

 

[Michael Kestner]

Off topic here but do I need to change my username then? Not to shock anyone but Martin Tyne isn't my real name. I gave a fake name due to internet security and all that, my name was meant to be a pun of the word ''Maritime''. Maritime - Marit Time = ''Martin Tyne''



Is every thing we know about Lord a complete lie?!? there has to be some truth in someone's testimony aboard the Californian.

No, I don't think that's a rule here anymore, but it was for many years.

Of course there has to be truth in someone's testimony aboard Californian, what we're debating is where the truth is. Right? Eyewitness testimony is frustratingly unreliable, and reconciling conflicting testimony even more so.

 

[privatedad1334]

I am actually offended to have the value of my opinions questioned and compared to "zeros and ones." That`s actually very hurtful and unnecessary. I`m so sorry that I`m not as awesome a Titanic expert as someone else.

Anyone who dares criticize captain Lord is ignorant? Hardly. That is an ad hoc. By the same token, the points that I or anyone else makes are valid for what they are, so please consider them individually at face value, and respond to the points I raise directly, rather than be talking about ones and zeros.

It`s understandable that the captain would be asleep at a point at which the ship was not moving, and in the middle of the night. Let`s assume so - then I suppose an off chance that people may be dying isn`t as important as not waking somebody up. If to his own crew`s best knowledge captain Lord was most likely not going to think much of aiding a ship that`s potentially in need of assistance - tramp steamer or not - in what kind of a light does that paint him then? If he was awake and aware - then what does that say of his judgement?

The points that I am raising are that every effort has to be made to act on a potential distress signal, if there is no certainty that the situation is not urgent or has been resolved; that if the captain were awake and aware of the anomaly, he should have awoken the Marcony guy to get him to check what if anything was going on. As the Marcony operator was doing his job, the captain could have had the other men ready the lifeboats and blankets just in case. That`s about the limit of my imagination, but a captain of a ship who is interested in investigating an incident (it`s still an incident - whether or not it turns out to be a false flag) might even come up with more ideas on what to do in that situations (that amount to more than just binary).

The Californian was closer to the Titanic than the Carpathia and other ships, and so had it attempted to go to the Titanic`s aid, many people could have been saved. But it did not do that, despite there being causes for concern, that should have been taken seriously by skilled seamen. Someone is responsible that that ship did not do what it had to do, and since the captain is the big boss on a ship - the buck stops with him.

If however it was just the lackluster crew not bothering to wake him up because reasons, then that crew is to blame. But as captain Lord is known to have been a somewhat cruel captain, that would have created an unhealthy work atmosphere on his ship - where the crew are paralyzed with fear to report things to him, on the off chance that he might have woken up on the wrong foot. That`s just one of many things that I blame captain Lord for, if true.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Is every thing we know about Lord a complete lie?!? there has to be some truth in someone's testimony aboard the Californian.

Martin, you said that the officers and crew were scared of Capt. Lord. I was just asking who among the officers or crew said, or indicated, that they were scared of their Captain? I never seen that. I know there have been some authors who claimed all sorts of stuff about Capt. Lord, all of which were completely baseless.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Stanley Lord wrote in a letter to the Board of Trade in August of 1912 in which he stated, “It is a matter of great regret to me that I did not go on deck myself at this time, but I didn’t think it possible for any seaman to mistake a Company’s signal for a distress signal, so I relied on the officer on watch.” His reference to going on deck "at this time" had to do when Stone called down to him by speaking tube and reported seeing a single white rocket.

 

[Georges Guay]

Jim, are you asleep? I was chatting with Martin about Lord that did not seem enthusiastic to the idea of waking up.

Martin Tyne, post: 385633, I just want to repeat this idea, but what if Lord ousted succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep unintentionally. While we don't have any evidence to tell us how long he had been on the bridge or how long he been working. Is it feasible that he was tired, went to rest for 5 minutes and then fell asleep.

For the rest of your habitual critics, I must admit that you have the advantage of having served on ships during an era closer to Titanic than anyone else!

 

[Georges Guay]

Stanley Lord wrote in a letter to the Board of Trade in August of 1912 in which he stated, “It is a matter of great regret to me that I did not go on deck myself at this time, but I didn’t think it possible for any seaman to mistake a Company’s signal for a distress signal, so I relied on the officer on watch.” His reference to going on deck "at this time" had to do when Stone called down to him by speaking tube and reported seeing a single white rocket.

Exactly. As a captain, you better wake up twelve times for nothing and investigate than staying asleep only once, even if your presence may not seem required, but is in reality essential and urgent. When the tube call or the telephone is ringing during the night, it is rarely because things are going fine. Lord regretted of not going on deck himself when called. He probably suffered all his life for that. But «What’s done cannot be undone»