Steaming through the wreckage

[Alex Rosser]

My grandparents sailing from England to New York in 1912. Family legend has it that they were to sail on the Titanic but missed out and went on the following ship. My aunt thinks "it was The Carpathia or Lusitania and says they saw a lot of the wreckage of the Titanic and picked up some of the survivors."

The first statement is probably true. The second is mostly fiction as the Carpathia was sailing East out of New York, and no other ship picked up survivors.

However my questions are
a) What other passenger ships sailed close enough in time and place to see identifiable wreckage or flotsam?
b) Did any pick up bodies, or take transfers from the Carpathia?

Alex Rosser (PS their name was Charter)

 

[Alex Rosser]

This is a copy of my post under "Sailing through the wreckage" but fits here as well.
My grandparents (He was W.E.E.Charter) sailed from England to New York in 1912. Family legend has it that they were to sail on the Titanic but missed out and went on the following ship. My aunt thinks "it was The Carpathia or Lusitania and says they saw a lot of the wreckage of the Titanic and picked up some of the survivors."
The first statement is probably true. The second is mostly fiction as the Carpathia was sailing East out of New York, and no other ship picked up survivors.
However my questions are
a) What other passenger ships sailed close enough in time and place to see identifiable wreckage or flotsam?
b) Did any pick up bodies, or take transfers from the Carpathia?
Alex Rosser

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Several ships sailed through the area, notably the Breman. None that passed through the area at the time picked up any bodies, and the Carpathia didn't transfer anybody to another ship. In point of fact, the Carpathia was the only ship to pick up any survivors.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Alex, I've offered a reply in the other folder where you asked this and I'm sure more will come along with more detailed information. For future reference, you need not post the same question in different folders as the members have access to all of them.

 

[PRR5406]

1500 bodies floating on the icy surface immediately after the ship went under. That's a lot of remains as current markers. Considering "McKay-Bennett" brought back ~300 bodies for burial, how many could they have sunk at sea? Either the passengers went into the ocean without life vests, lost buoyancy and sank on their own, or the life jackets failed in a short span of time, or the bodies were lost from view in the chop of waves, or they were ignored and allowed to follow the North Atlantic drift, along with woodwork. One wonders how much of this flotsam wound up in the Arctic, off Norway?

 

[Jim Currie]

If the weather had remained calm and if there had not been a navigation cover-up, it is quite possible that bodies would have been found. The SS Californian conducted a 10 mile,down-wind sweep of the area and did not find anything (Although in my book they did).
If you have a look at the McKay Bennett search, you'll find that the weather deteriorated and There was a big swell and rough seas in the area. That was and still is normal for April in that part of the world. Bodies and light debris tend to be carried with wind generated surface currents, This means they are slaves to wind direction. Additionally; flourescent orange had not been invented in 1912. If you've ever tried to find a needle or even a pack of needled in a haystack you'll know what I mean.
Unfortunately, as an additional damnation factor, that area is the junction of at least two major surface currents and large swirling loops thereof.. These take items in a myriad of unpredictable direction.

It's not easy!

 

[Doug Criner]

I understand that the life vests/belts used cork for flotation. I suspect that before bodies reached Norway or such distant places, the cork would have become waterlogged or disintegrated.