Yes they did

[Svetlana Strezeva]

Unbeknownst to them, they did see each other, according to these two sources:

The Californian: A Manufactured Mystery

"...At 11:40 p.m., however, the big liner stopped half a dozen miles south-southeast of the Californian and seemed to put out her lights. The darkened newcomer lay there quietly, pointed almost directly toward the Californian and showing the latter vessel her red port sidelight and a greatly foreshortened view of her port side....
As time went on the nearby vessel seemed to move laterally along the Californian's horizon (undoubtedly caused by Californian's slow, drifting rotation to starboard), and Second Officer Stone came to the mistaken conclusion that the nearby vessel had begun steaming away from the Californian. Apprentice Gibson doubted this, however, testifying later that the vessel had never showed her stern light to the Californian; besides, even though Stone (later) speculated that the observed rockets might actually have come from a ship situated BEYOND the nearby vessel, he admitted that the rockets always stayed directly over the nearby ship - the one he mistakenly believed was steaming away.

At around 2:20 a.m. the rocket-firing ship disappeared from the Californian's view, and Second Officer Stone believed she had steamed out of sight..."

The second source is Beesley's "Loss of S.S.Titanic"

...Almost immediately after leaving the Titanic we saw what we all said was a ship's lights down on the horizon on the Titanic's port side: two lights, one above the other, and plainly not one of our boats; we even rowed in that direction for some time, but the lights drew away and disappeared below the horizon.

What seemed to them as her "disappearing" is what the first source explains as Californian slowly drifting to starboard.
I think that this is proof that they actually did see each other.

 

[Jesse D O'Neill]

Svetlana

The Californian was 19 to 26 miles from Titanic, it would therefore be impossible for anyone on the Californian to see the Titanic or Vice Versa. The Ship obeserved by the Captain Lord, Stone, Gibson, and Groves was a Tramp Steamer.

Refer to:

The Senate Investigation
The British Inquiry
MAIB Report
Titanic: Sinking The Myths by Diana Bristow
The Titanic and the Californian by Peter Padfield
A Titanic Myth By Leslie Harrison
Titanic and The Mystery Ship by Senan Molony
Titanic and Mount Temple by Senan Molony
The Ship That Stood Still by Leslie Reade

 

[Timothy Trower]

I would pay even more attention to the series of articles currently being published in the "Titanic Commutator" that deal with the Titanic and its close proximity to the Californian that night. Sam Halpern has done an amazing job of going to straight to the source material and using it in explaining why the pro-Lordite position of the two ships being 19 to 26 miles apart just cannot be so.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

One of the most objective sources on positions on the 'net can be viewed at All at Sea with Dave Gittins

The 19 to 21 miles claim doesn't really hold up well under close inspection. All else aside, there is still the perpetually embarrassing matter of the socket signals which the Californian visually observed being fired, and the Titanic being the only ship in the area firing such signals.

No matter how one cuts this, it doesn't go away.

 

[Dave Gittins]

Svetlana, in 2005 I published my e-book, Titanic : Monument and Warning.

In it, I demonstrate that Californian was about 11 - 12 miles from Titanic during the sinking. I also show how she got there. Best of all, I do it from Captain Lord's own sworn testimony.

I believe Sam Halpern will have come to much the same conclusion, though he probably differs from me on the matter of bearing between the ships. The question of bearings is confusing because it's not always clear whether witnesses are using True or Compass bearings. Sometimes they use general terms, so that 'north' may only mean 'in the northerly quadrant'. I don't consider the bearings to be of great importance. It's the distance that counts and those pesky signals.

 

[Paul Lee]

I agree that the two ships were in sight of each other, but I would put it slightly further apart, at about 15 miles. Have a look at

The Titanic and the Californian

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

Svetlana - if you haven't gotten it, Dave Gittin's e-book mentioned above is well worth getting.

Both Dave and Sam Halpern are coming up with similar numbers - in the 11 to 12 mile range, as I recall. Within visual range of the Titanic.

And, as Mike says, there's those damn rockets. Californian saw them, and Titanic was the only one known to be firing them.

Hmmm. Did Leslie Reade's book actually say 19 to 26 miles? My copy is in storage at the moment, so I can't check it myself.

 

[Paul Lee]

He only uses the 5-10 miles value AFAIR. But even Reade wasn't above changing his mind on certain things. In a 1955 TV play, he portrays Lord as friendly and companionable. He certainly altered his outlook a few years later!

Heres another important point: the Californian officers certainly saw the Carpathia's rockets, at about 3.15am. These were fired from further away than the Titanic. How can the Californian see the Carpathia's rockets but not the Titanic's?

Answer: Easy. If you're a Lordite. You simply ignore them!

 

[Samuel Halpern]

The first of my 4 part article on this controversial subject that Timothy Trower referred to above appeared in the THS Commutator No. 177. Unlike some previous works cited in Jesse's post above that relied heavily on selective subjective evidence, I decided to take a more comprehensive approach using several independent scientific methods. In the first part I addressed some of the evidence presented regarding the course being followed and the reported stopped position of the Californian. I also addresses some arguments presented in the 1992 MAIB Reappraisal Report and identified several assumptions that were made by the Deputy Chief Inspector that can be disproved, and identified some evidence that may have been unintentionally overlooked when that study was conducted.

Part 2 of the article [yet to be published] deals primarily with the distance issue and features three independent analytical methods used to bracket the problem (1st based on the early sighting of Titanic’s masthead light, 2nd based on the estimated distance to the Mount Temple seen about a half-hour before sunrise by both Captains Lord and Rostron, and the 3rd based on the reported path taken by the Californian to get to the Carpathia and the reported local geometry of the ice field), and one navigational method that takes into account the affect of the dominant Labrador current on the Californian based on data supplied by Capt. Lord and the position of the wreckage seen in the morning. I was able establish, as did Dave Gittins, that the most probable distance between the stopped Californian and the stopped Titanic was about 12 nautical miles. I my case I have the stopped Californian located on a line-of-bearing to the NW true from the stopped Titanic. I also show that a 12 mile separation distance also matches very well with the observation of the disappearance of Titanic’s red sidelight when consideration is given to both the angle of trim and the angle of list that the Titanic had taken a little before the last socket signal was fired from her deck.

Part 3 deals with various issues related to what people saw that night while both ships were stopped as well as what was seen from those in the lifeboats after the Titanic went down. I show that the observations seen by those on the Californian as well as those on the Titanic were entirely consistent with what was happening to both of these two ships as seen from a distance, and that there is no need to conjure up a set of mythical mystery ships that mysteriously arrive on the scene only to mysteriously disappear from the scene to explain what was seen. Nor do I have resort to introducing other unlikely phenomena such as super refraction theory or super intense magnetic disturbances to explain the events of the night.

The final part, Part 4, looks at the events during the middle watch where Californian’s second officer reported seeing 8 white rockets fired at intervals coming from what looked like a tramp steamer that altered her bearings toward the southwest. I also review the movements of the Californian on the morning of April 15 from the time she moved her engines at 5:15 until the time she came nearly alongside the Carpathia at 8:35.

 

[Paul Lee]

How you got this past the pro-Lordite Kamuda beats me Sam. I'd love to see it,
as I've only seen a few bits of it so far.

One question: did you use an extinction coefficient when working out the range
that lights can be seen, in addition to the 1/r^2 law?

 

[Steve Shortman]

A quick question. Any idea why the two vessels couldn't see each others morse signals? Was 12 miles out of range for such communication?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Any idea why the two vessels couldn't see each others morse signals?<<

My understansding is that the lamps were actually fairly low power...about 100 watts. Hardly the sort of light that would be all that impressively bright at that range. If the lamps has a fresnal lens, that might help some but probably not to a signifigant degree.

 

[Tad G. Fitch]

It is likely that the morse signals were seen. Based on the description given, the flashing of the morse lamp at that distance could have been what the witness believed was the masthead light flickering.

 

[Jesse D O'Neill]

Steve

If The Californian was Within 10 Miles of Titanic Than her Officers Should have been able to read the Morse Signals from Titanic and Versa as these lamps were designed so that the signal they sent could be seen at 10-12 miles. therefore the idea that the Californian was 12 or less miles from Titanic is a Myth. Refer to the Publications listed in Sunday, September 9, 2007 - 4:04 am Post

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Signals from Titanic and Versa as these lamps were designed so that the signal they sent could be seen at 10-12 miles.<<

So far so good, although 12 miles is a bit of a stretch.

>>therefore the idea that the Californian was 12 or less miles from Titanic is a Myth.<<

Not necesserily, Jesse. Unfortunately, you're going by what I can only call "The Sliderule" mentality here and forgetting that the 10-12 miles assumes optimal conditions.

Conditions at sea, especially in the North Atlantic, are seldom ever optimal.

There are lot's of factors one has to take into account including temperature variances, reletive humidity, any sort of conditions which could contribute to optical illusions, and finally the most pervasive and most likey random element: Human frailty. In short, that light is only as good as an observer's ability to see it, and above all, understand what it means. In this case, I think it was the last factor that was very much at play.

There's very little here that's all that set in stone.