>>Others like Sam Halpern disagree.<<
Damn right I disagree! And for very good reasons.
I'll leave the issue of clock changes out of the picture in this discussion since the only times being questioned here is what was ship's time when the berg was spotted by the lookouts, and what was ship's time when it struck.
David said:
>>For now...it's only important to note that the historical record contains only one estimate of the time between warning bell and impact. That's Scarrott's five to eight minutes. There is no evidence in the historical record to contradict him.<<
He also said,
>> Establishing the time of the accident says nothing about how long in advance the iceberg was first spotted. Curiously enough the ship's lookouts also said nothing about that duration.<<
Actually there is plenty of evidence to contradict him.
First of all, by his own admission, Scarrott was not very sure about the time. As he said, "As I did not take much notice of the three strikes on the gong, I could hardly recollect the time." This does not seem to me to be someone on whose uncertain memory any firm conclusion about this time interval could be trusted. Perhaps what Scarrott subjectively recalled was the interval between 7 bells and when the ship struck.
Second of all, we have lookout Reginald Lee who was up in the nest with Fleet. Although Fleet was very reluctant to answer any questions which may then be turned around to put the blame on the lookouts for failure to spot the berg in time to avoid, his lookout mate Lee was much more candid about those things.
Lee gave two pieces of information which is very relevant to the questions being asked here: The first concerns the time the berg was spotted, and the second concerns the distance to the berg when it was first spotted.
Regarding the time the berg was spotted, Lee said: "The first thing that was reported was after seven bells struck; it was some minutes,
it might have been nine or ten minutes afterwards. Three bells were struck by Fleet, warning 'Right ahead,' and immediately he rung the telephone up to the bridge, 'Iceberg right ahead.' The reply came back from the bridge, 'Thank you.'" This puts the time according to his estimate at 11:39-11:40. Take your pick.
Regarding the distance, Lee said that it might have been about a half a mile, more or less. He was honest enough to say he could not be too sure of the distance in the dim starlight. At 22 knots, a ½ mile is covered in a minute and 20 seconds, more or less.
But we have other evidence to confirm that the berg was only about a minute away, maybe less, when first sighted; certainly not 5 to 8 minutes if we blindly consider only what Scarrott said. This comes from standby QM Olliver who was trimming the lights on the standard compass platform located amidships. When he heard the 3-bell warning, he immediately knew what that meant and instinctively looked up. He of course could not see anything with the ship’s 2nd funnel directly in front of him, but he said that he left the platform and went forward to the bridge. As he was entering the bridge, the ship struck ice. Given the 250 feet or so distance he had to walk to get there, and including some reaction time and time to get down from the platform from what he was doing, we are talking about an interval of perhaps 50–55 seconds, give or take.
More available evidence comes from QM Hichens at the wheel and also from Fleet and Lee. This has to do with what transpired once the 3-bell warning was given. What we have is that after striking the bell 3 times, Fleet went to the loud-speaking phone located on the aft starboard side of the nest behind where Lee was standing and called the wheelhouse and reported to 6/O Moody “iceberg right ahead,” to which Moody replied “thank you.” Then, according to Hichens, Moody relayed that information to 1/O Murdoch who immediately called out “hard-astarboard” and then went to work the engine telegraphs. According to Fleet he was at the phone no more than about ½ minute when he was asked about it. According to Hichens, it was about ½ minute between the 3-bell warning and when he received the order “hard-astarboard” which he executed immediately. Also, according to Hichens the ship veered to port about 2 points before she struck. He saw her head go south of west on the steering compass in front of him; a turn to port of more than 19° from the previous held N71W compass courseline. According to Fleet, from his vantage point up in the nest, the ship veered between 1 and 2 points before she struck. It takes an Olympic class vessel somewhere between 23 and 37 seconds for her head to turn those amounts from the time the order is given. Add that to a ½ minute estimate for when the 3 bells were struck, and again we see somewhere close to a minute of time for the ship to come up to the iceberg after being sighted by the lookouts.
Lastly, a medium sized iceberg such as the one that
Titanic struck cannot be seen on a dark, clear, moonless night at a distance much further than about ½ mile. This is based on measurements done by Lt. Commander Fred Zeusler of the USCG in 1925. This 1/2 mile distance was also mentioned by Cunard Commander Sir James Bisset in his book
Tramps & Ladies. Recall also that Rostron on
Carpathia had to port around a 30 foot high berg when it was first seen only about ¼ mile ahead of him before picking up the first lifeboat.
I think it safe to say that the berg
Titanic struck was nowhere close to being 2.2 nautical miles away when first spotted David. Let’s not add that to a growing mythology created by historical revisionists.