Superior mirage and the Californian

[T Maltin]

View attachment 43148

Tim, above is the screenshot from Marengo's log for 15 and 16. She was 50°29' on 15 (noon). She was 44°29' on April 16 (noon).
The Titanic sank at 49° 56'. How Marengo could have been there on April 14, if she has not even reached that point on April 15? And below is her log for 14. She was at 56°17'. So i've no idea where you take your numbers from.
View attachment 43147

Hi Mila, the numbers you are misreading in my post above are air and water temperatures (labelled as such in the top line) in Fahrenheit, not Lat and Long positions!

 

[Julian Atkins]

Hi Mila,

Always read your posts with considerable interest!

Do you have a view as to the current (and it's direction) that might have affected The Californian as it approached the ice field that evening or day of the 14th April? Captain Lord's recorded temperatures of the water at various times are available and can be provided, as he provided these to the USA Inquiry subsequently after giving evidence. They indicate a very sharp lowering of temperature after 4pm on the 14th April.

And whether when stopped at 10.21pm, The Californian (drifting) was further affected by a current?

The Californian had 1 hour 20 minutes drift before Titanic struck the berg, and after a bit of a 'hoo ha', would also drift similarly?

The Californian's message to The Antillian (and also IMHO) Titanic of 3 bergs seen earlier that evening would suggest to me that The Californian was already affected by the unusually southerly Labrador Current (hope I have got this correct!). Captain Lord thought he was affected by a northerly current, but in fact it would appear at some stage the opposite was the case pushing The Californian southwards which he made no correction for; in fact he did the opposite as per his 1959 affidavit.

Cheers,

Julian

 

[Mila]

Hi Mila, the numbers you are misreading in my post above are air and water temperatures (labelled as such in the top line) in Fahrenheit, not Lat and Long positions!

Tim,
I asked you how you concluded that on the night of the sinking Marengo was 46 miles south from the wreck site.
It is a very simple question.
Could you please answer it?

 

[T Maltin]

[

It is sad, Jim.
In his last post about Marengo Tim claimed she was at 49 something, but in his first post he actually provided the correct coordinates
still claiming she was only one degree south from the wreck site on the night of the sinking.

I said it was sad because Dr. Young spent lots of time trying to help Tim with the mirage theory, and Dr. Young told me that Marengo “evidence” was the strongest one in his opinion.

Hi Mila, you simply did not realise that I had labelled those readings as Air and Water temperatures. I never claimed they were positions. Please see my full grid here, with both air and water temperatures AND Lat and Long positions. I have marked these in red to highlight them:

As you can see, Marengo was directly south of Titanic's crash site at 4pm on the day of the sinking (and only 46 miles south of it), and she observed the refraction on the horizon. Professor Young and I have not wasted any of our time. I remind you that I have plotted every ship's position and track and air and sea temperature reading in the area of Titanic's crash site for two weeks before and two weeks after Titanic's sinking, from original log books which I sought and found all over the world. And I have also read hundreds of first hand accounts, as well as all the known affidavits and court cases surrounding this tragedy. Where there are positions in my work which you cannot find in the log books, it is because these have been plotted by me using an average speed between the noon positions given. I had to do this in order to locate as accurately as possible every air and sea temperature reading. I did this in order to create the first thermal map from log books of April 1912 of Titanic's crash site. And I did this to see if abnormal refraction was likely to be present in those conditions. Not only did I find that it was, but that many eye witnesses described it (even though many did not know what it was) and that several ships in the area mentioned it in their logs. Thank you, Tim

 

[Mila]

Hi Mila,

Always read your posts with considerable interest!

Do you have a view as to the current (and it's direction) that might have affected The Californian as it approached the ice field that evening or day of the 14th April? Captain Lord's recorded temperatures of the water at various times are available and can be provided, as he provided these to the USA Inquiry subsequently after giving evidence. They indicate a very sharp lowering of temperature after 4pm on the 14th April.

And whether when stopped at 10.21pm, The Californian (drifting) was further affected by a current?

The Californian had 1 hour 20 minutes drift before Titanic struck the berg, and after a bit of a 'hoo ha', would also drift similarly?

The Californian's message to The Antillian (and also IMHO) Titanic of 3 bergs seen earlier that evening would suggest to me that The Californian was already affected by the unusually southerly Labrador Current (hope I have got this correct!). Captain Lord thought he was affected by a northerly current, but in fact it would appear at some stage the opposite was the case pushing The Californian southwards which he made no correction for; in fact he did the opposite as per his 1959 affidavit.

Cheers,

Julian

Julian,
I am talking about the currents in the first and the fourth parts of my series. The currents are unpredictable. However I could tell that the ice field was probably located in the middle of a cold-core eddy. It means that the currents on the right-hand site of it were going north and maybe a little bit east. I know it makes it harder to explain how the Californian drifted south after they took their coordinates. However, all ships involved could have been affected by any numbers of small-scale features that IIP mentions. In addition Californian could have been caught in an eddy in a frontal area between the ocean and the ice field. She could have drifted in a filament, and then get to an eddy. Anything is possible. I believe that these unpredictable currents might help to account for the discrepancies in the SOS position and in the navigation of Carpathia.

 

[T Maltin]

Hello Tim.
I suspect the evidence you base your NW heading comes from following:

1: QM Olliver.
2. QM Rowe.
3. 3rd officer Lowe.
4. Passenger Major Peuchin.

QM Olliver said the second helm order was given some time after impact and when the berg was "way down stern". Any helm applied then or after that time would be totally ineffectual unless the engines were given a burst ahead

QM Rowe and 5th Officer Lowe did not consult a compass but based their beliefs on the fact that the relative bearing of the light on the port bow was changing. That is not the sole indication that the bow was swinging. It can also mean that the vessel showing the light was moving. Boxhall perfectly described a moving ship. Californian was stopped.
Major Peuchen said he saw the Northern Lights from his lifeboat as he rowed it directly out from the port side. he was facing the stern of the boat at that time, which means that the stopped Titanic was heading a little south of due west at that time.

The lookouts and QM Hichens, described an almost uninterrupted flow of events.. 3 bell warning, back up call to the bridge, hard over helm order impact. The known speed of the ship at that time and the first point of contact being less than 50 feet from Titanic's very fine bow, tells me that the iceberg was only a few hundred feet ahead of the ship when she started her turn. It also tells me that they were almost on top of the iceberg before they saw it and that it was sighted by the lookouts and 1st Officer Murdoch at much the same time.

You remarked earlier that you are coming to believe that Californian was nearer to 10 miles away from Titanic. If you or anyone else believes that, then you must reject the evidence of Stone and Gibson indicating that they saw Carpathia's "comfort" rockets at 3-30 am that morning. Because if they did see them right on the horizon at that time, then Carpathia was a little over 7 miles from Boxhall and his green flares and Boxhall was close to 22 miles away from the stopped Californian. The physics cannot be faulted.

Hi Jim,

The headings and relative bearings of Californian and Titanic in my diagram posted earlier are taken from all the known eye witness accounts on both ships. For example, we know Titanic is heading towards Californian when people on Titanic's bridge can see her ahead of the ship. So you can piece the swinging motion of each ship together from that. The results for both ships are shown in the compass rose I posted above. From that you can see how Titanic and Californian each swung around that night:

Californian was about 10 miles from Titanic that night. In the thermal inversion, Carpathia’s high rockets 20 miles away appeared the same height as Boxhall’s low, hand-held flares, 10 miles away:

 

[Mila]

Hi Mila, you simply did not realise that I had labelled those readings as Air and Water temperatures. I never claimed they were positions. Please see my full grid here, with both air and water temperatures AND Lat and Long positions. I have marked these in red to highlight them:

View attachment 43171

As you can see, Marengo was directly south of Titanic's crash site at 4pm on the day of the sinking (and only 46 miles south of it), and she observed the refraction on the horizon. Professor Young and I have not wasted any of our time. I remind you that I have plotted every ship's position and track and air and sea temperature reading in the area of Titanic's crash site for two weeks before and two weeks after Titanic's sinking, from original log books which I sought and found all over the world. And I have also read hundreds of first hand accounts, as well as all the known affidavits and court cases surrounding this tragedy. Where there are positions in my work which you cannot find in the log books, it is because these have been plotted by me using an average speed between the noon positions given. I had to do this in order to locate as accurately as possible every air and sea temperature reading. I did this in order to create the first thermal map from log books of April 1912 of Titanic's crash site. And I did this to see if abnormal refraction was likely to be present in those conditions. Not only did I find that it was, but that many eye witnesses described it (even though many did not know what it was) and that several ships in the area mentioned it in their logs. Thanks and best, Tim

Tim, I realised everything. I am not interested in the temperatures right now. Let's forget it please.
In your book and your website you wrote:

On the night of the collision and sinking of the Titanic on the 14/15th April 1912 she was in the same longitude as
the Titanic and only one degree south

Iin this documentary

you state that Marengo was at the right place on the right time. Do you believe that 163 miles west and 46 miles east is the right place?
I mean, Tim, Marengo was on the site of the tragedy many hours after the Titanic sank. Don't you think it is not excatly honest to claim she was there at the night of the sinking?

 

[T Maltin]

Well, continue to do one thing in a time.
No, Tim, I did not ignore Bisset. I quoted him in another articles. I am sure he did not mean a mirage.

I think that it is most likely that the confused horizon described by Bisset is probably the Aurora Borealis seen together with the refracting horizon.

 

[T Maltin]

Tim, I realised everything. I am not interested in the temperatures right now. Let's forget it please.
In your book and your website you wrote:

Iin this documentary

you state that Marengo was at the right place on the right time. Do you believe that 163 miles west and 46 miles east is the right place?
I mean, Tim, Marengo was on the site of the tragedy many hours after the Titanic sank. Don't you think it is not excatly honest to claim she was there at the night of the sinking?

Hi Mila, what I said in my book is that "On the night of the collision and sinking of the Titanic on the 14/15th April 1912 she was in the same longitude as the Titanic and only one degree south." She truly was in the right place at the right time, because during Marengo's whole trip across the atlantic (of many days and many thousands of miles), the only place and time she recorded abnormal refraction in her log was when she was going through the area where the Titanic sank (only 46 miles south of it and from 283 miles west of it to 40 miles east of it) , at the same time as Titanic sank (from 4am on April 14th 1912 to 8pm on April 15th 1912):

You should not try and say that this is not relevant because she was closest to Titanic's crash site at 4pm on the 15th. That would be not seeing the wood for the trees.

 

[Mila]

at the same time as Titanic sank (from 4am on April 14th 1912 to 8pm on April 15th 1912):
.

Tim, Titanic sank from 4am on April 14th 1912 to 8pm on April 15th 1912?

 

[T Maltin]

Aaron as I have said many times Titanic sank in ever-changing but ever-present cold water tongue of the Labrador Current. That tongue has many eddies, and the temperature is changing drastically in a very short time. See for example figure 7 of this IIP report .https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/iip/2014_IIP_Annual_Report.pdf and notice also this description

These small-scale features are always there, and probably were even more complex during 1912.
Of course there could have been an abnormal refraction, except there was probably none. There was cold front that passed over the area a few hours prior. The air temperature dropped significantly and became the same or even lower than the water temperature. So forming a thermal inversion on the surface level was probably impossibility.
And if you are to read some old IIP reports you will see that the currents situation on the night of the tragedy was not unique.

Hi Mila, the conditions you describe are perfect for abnormal refraction, so why do you think there was none?:

 

[T Maltin]

Tim,
I asked you how you concluded that on the night of the sinking Marengo was 46 miles south from the wreck site.
It is a very simple question.
Could you please answer it?

Hi Mila, what I said in my book is that "On the night of the collision and sinking of the Titanic on the 14/15th April 1912 she was in the same longitude as the Titanic and only one degree south." She truly was in the right place at the right time, because during Marengo's whole trip across the atlantic (of many days and many thousands of miles), the only place and time she recorded abnormal refraction in her log was when she was going through the area where the Titanic sank (only 46 miles south of it and from 283 miles west of it to 40 miles east of it) , at the same time as Titanic sank (from 4am on April 14th 1912 to 8pm on April 15th 1912):

You should not try and say that this is not relevant because she was closest to Titanic's crash site at 4pm on the 15th. That would be not seeing the wood for the trees.

 

[T Maltin]

Julian,
I am talking about the currents in the first and the fourth parts of my series. The currents are unpredictable. However I could tell that the ice field was probably located in the middle of a cold-core eddy. It means that the currents on the right-hand site of it were going north and maybe a little bit east. I know it makes it harder to explain how the Californian drifted south after they took their coordinates. However, all ships involved could have been affected by any numbers of small-scale features that IIP mentions. In addition Californian could have been caught in an eddy in a frontal area between the ocean and the ice field. She could have drifted in a filament, and then get to an eddy. Anything is possible. I believe that these unpredictable currents might help to account for the discrepancies in the SOS position and in the navigation of Carpathia.

Hi Julian and Mila, the current situation is in practice much simpler than Mila states, at least in terms of its effects on the navigation of ships. The main current in the area was the Labrador current, which was running in a Southerly direction at the rate of about 1knot.

Captain Lord’s actual position was further south than he thought, because he had entered the south-going Labrador current just after his noon observation was taken, when Californian was in the same longitude as the Titanic was by 7pm, when she also entered the freezing water and Lightoller noticed the dramatic drop in temperature, when Titanic was in longitude 47.38W. Californian had therefore been set south by this current for almost 10.5 hours, before she came to a stop at 10.21pm, and for a further hour before Titanic’s collision and stop at about 11.40pm [about 11.30pm on Californian], when the two ships then drifted south together in the Labrador current.

This southerly set would not affect Lord’s dead reckoning longitude, which was therefore correct at 50.7W and we know that Californian was on a bearing of northeast from Titanic, which is 315 degrees true, and that the relative bearings of the two ships would not change appreciably whilst they drifted together, in the same current between Titanic’s collision at 11.40pm and sinking at 2.20am, which we now know was at exactly 41.43N 49.56W. A line northwest from this position, towards Californian, cuts the longitude 50.7W at 41.51N, 10 miles NW of Titanic and about 10 miles south of Lord’s 10.21pm real dead reckoning latitude of 42.2N. This 10miles difference in latitude from Lord’s Dead Reckoning latitude is not surprising, as Californian had been under the influence of the south-running Labrador Current for just over 14 hours by the time Titanic sank at 2.20am.

 

[Mila]

Hi Julian and Mila, the current situation is in practice much simpler than Mila states, at least in terms of its effects on the navigation of ships. .

No, not like Mila states, like IIP states.

 

[T Maltin]

Tim, Titanic sank from 4am on April 14th 1912 to 8pm on April 15th 1912?

No Mila, Marengo reported abnormal refraction in her log from 4am on April 14th to 8pm on April 15th 1912. During this time (which includes when the Titanic sank), she was running along the Eastbound steamer track which runs parallel with and only 40 miles south of the the Westbound steamer track which Titanic was following. She was therefore effectively a probe sent to sample air and sea temperatures and record atmospheric observations only 40 miles south of where Titanic sank, and at the same time as Titanic was sinking. During this exact period and in this small area of the North Atlantic she recorded both continuous and visible abnormal refraction, and very bright stars on the night of the sinking.

 

[T Maltin]

No, not like Mila states, like IIP states.

I am not saying that you or IIP are wrong about the eddies (as you know I went to see them as part of my research); I am merely saying that the currents (however complex they in fact are) did not have a navigational effect on the ships passing through that area which was any more complex than reflecting a 1knot southerly current in the area of the Labrador current.

 

[Mila]

No Mila, Marengo reported abnormal refraction in her log from 4am on April 14th to 8pm on April 15th 1912. During this time (which includes when the Titanic sank), she was running along the Eastbound steamer track which runs parallel with and only 40 miles south of the the Westbound steamer track which Titanic was following. She was therefore effectively a probe sent to sample air and sea temperatures and record atmospheric observations only 40 miles south of where Titanic sank, and at the same time as Titanic was sinking. During this exact period and in this small area of the North Atlantic she recorded both continuous and visible abnormal refraction, and very bright stars on the night of the sinking.

You cannot say that at the night of the sinking she was only 40 miles south without saying she was also 270 miles west. In addition according to your temperatures table in most cases Marengo recorded refraction the water was much warmer than the air. As you know superior mirages occur when the opposite is true.

 

[T Maltin]

On your first point. I did and she was! I am talking in the book about the refracting conditions in that area of the North Atlantic at that time. And remember that she was 40 miles south and zero miles west and still recording the same abnormal refraction conditions. On your second point, I was fascinated to learn that miraging could be seen even when air and sea temperatures had equalised near the sea. This is because the warmer air (10-15 degrees warmer) was only about 200ft up (about the height of the tallest icebergs).

 

[Mila]

On your first point. I did and she was! I am talking in the book about the refracting conditions in that area of the North Atlantic at that time. And remember that she was 40 miles south and zero miles west and still recording the same abnormal refraction conditions. On your second point, I was fascinated to learn that miraging could be seen even when air and sea temperatures had equalised near the sea. This is because the warmer air (10-15 degrees warmer) was only about 200ft up (about the height of the tallest icebergs).

Tim, why could you not just say that Marengo was more than 300 miles away during Titanic’s sinking, that Marengo recorded refraction with the air temperature much warmer than the water, while for Tianic and Californian the temperatures of the air and the water were about the same? Anyway, if you do not see what is wrong with the quotes from your book and the documentary I give up.

 

[Mila]

Hi Julian and Mila, the current situation is in practice much simpler than Mila states, at least in terms of its effects on the navigation of ships. The main current in the area was the Labrador current, which was running in a Southerly direction at the rate of about 1knot.

Julian,
Here are only 2 quotes from IlP observations

On our westward trip we drifted well to the southward for some unaccountable reason.

[...] the effects of the currents were most irregular, being, at times, diametrically opposite in directions with no apparent reasons.