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Message: [QUOTE="Julian Atkins, post: 404137, member: 162506"] Hi Tim, I am most grateful for your contributions the last few days, which are of considerable significance and importance. I wonder if you might be prepared to engage in some further debate on all of this, to help those non marine experts interested in The Californian Incident? The generally accepted reason why Groves on The Californian stated he saw 2 masthead lights, was not due to some mirage effect, but because the British Inquiry assumed Titanic had 2 masthead lights. Captain Lord saw one masthead light, as did later Stone and Gibson. So the obvious question is why only Groves saw 2 masthead lights? Stone's estimation of the height of some of the rockets he saw makes no sense whatsoever, when we compare what Gibson saw of the last 3 rockets seen by both. Gibson never stated the rockets seen were low lying. My apologies in advance, as I have only read your above quoted article, and I assume a fuller work is available which I have not read and considered. What Stone and Gibson saw later on of the 3 rockets fired from the Carpathia also needs considering. What we need is the reason why Captain Lord did not come to the flying bridge from his chart room immediately below despite various attempts by Stone and Gibson to get him there during that night. Your above article suggesting Captain Lord thought there was a vessel some 4-5 miles away was exactly why Captain Lord had ordered steam to be maintained in case his vessel had to be moved at a moment's notice to avoid another ship coming too close to his stopped vessel and endangering The Californian. I have never seen a 'mirage' at sea, but appreciate it is a well known phenomena these days, and I would like to know how well known it was and accepted in 1912. I think one should tread very carefully with Groves' description of a passenger ship coming up obliquely and showing sidelights that could never have been Titanic, and later on Stone's ship steaming away to the southwards of The Californian steaming westwards towards/into the icefield showing it's red port light so in effect steaming in reverse/backwards. Gibson stated it was not Titanic he saw (and apparently was what he told his wife till he died), yet what he described in 1912 was clearly Titanic. Groves described a passenger ship that could have been Titanic but a vast part of his British Inquiry evidence of what he saw 'obliquely' plus the 2 masthead lights makes no sense whatsoever I suggest. Yet he always maintained till the day he died he had seen Titanic that night. Subsequent to the British Inquiry, Stone told many people including his wife and eldest son, that it was Titanic he had seen. Captain Lord described pretty accurately (with a few provisos) a ship southwards of The Californian approaching from the east showing its green starboard light and one masthead light, and some of his timings implicate Titanic clearly. There is also the order to Evans after their conversation to call up Titanic around 11pm on the 14th April. Any consideration of the 'mirage' theory must be considered in respect of the totality of The Californian evidence, which is not just confined to the USA and British Inquiry evidence, but also a vast body of evidence including both Stone and Gibson's statements of 18th April 1912, the Boston Newspaper reports, Ship's Carpenter McGregor's evidence via his cousin and the letter that got to London, plus Captain Lord's later letters that year, and much else besides. What is quite clear is that in the late 1950s correspondence between Charles Groves and Walter Lord, no consideration was given to any mirage. Neither was this given any consideration by Captain Stanley Lord in his taped recorded interviews with Leslie Harrison in 1961, or his 1959 Affidavit. Neither did Boxhall or Lightoller ever consider it either. Cheers, Julian [/QUOTE]

Verification: I which year did the Titanic sail?

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