Ever since the discovery of the Titanic wreck in 1985, there is little doubt that the rockets seen from the bridge of the SS Californian during the Middle Watch back in April 1912 came from Titanic. These signals, actually distress socket signals, reached heights of about 600 feet or more before they exploded into white stars. Even if Californian had been as far away from Titanic as the 19 or so nautical miles that was later claimed by her captain Stanley Lord, these socket signals went high enough and were bright enough to be seen at that distance. But not only were Titanic’s distress signals seen that night from Californian, rockets sent up from the rescue ship Carpathia to “reassure Titanic” that she was on the way were also seen from Californian while Carpathia was still a good 10 miles beyond from where Titanic sank.
There are very few things that can be absolutely proved when it comes to Titanic because most accounts come from eyewitnesses, and many of those accounts lack clarification, are contradictory, are unsupported or are somewhat questionable. Clear exceptions of course do exist. For example, we now know that Titanic sank about 13 nautical miles eastward of the SOS position that was sent out by wireless, and we also now know that she did indeed split apart before she sank. These are all known now with certainty because of the discovery of the wreck in 1985. But there are other facts that we can now be very sure about because of that discovery when coupled with supporting eyewitness evidence that was presented back in 1912, some of which was documented even before any official enquiry began.
What this article will prove is that the SS Californian could not have been at the position given by her captain Stanley Lord at the 1912 enquiries.
Although both Titanic and Californian remained stopped with respect to each other while drifting slowly southward with the local current in the area, they were not totally stationary throughout that time. Particularly in the case of Californian, eyewitness evidence indicates that she was swinging slowly around for the most part to starboard in the “light airs and calms” that prevailed that night. Although that swinging may have led to some confusion later on as to what was really happening, it has no bearing as to what we can prove regarding Californian’s stopped position relative to the stopped and sinking Titanic.
The key to proving that Californian was nowhere near the position given by Captain Lord comes from the mutually supporting observations of Californian’s second officer Herbert Stone, her third officer Charles Groves, and her apprentice officer James Gibson that took place about a quarter past midnight on the upper bridge of Californian.2
When Herbert Stone took over the watch from Charles Groves at 12:08am, Groves informed Stone that an unidentified steamer was stopped off their starboard beam and that Californian, which had been swinging very slowly around to starboard, was then pointing East-Northeast (ENE) by standard compass. Stone himself then went to the compass and confirmed what Groves just told him. He also noticed that this stopped steamer was dead abeam on their starboard side bearing South-Southeast (SSE) by compass. [See Figure 1.] In Stone’s own words:3
“I went on the bridge about 8 minutes past 12, and took over the Watch from the Third Officer, Mr. Groves, who also pointed out ice and steamer and said our head was E.N.E. and we were swinging. On looking at the compass I saw this was correct and observed the other steamer S.S.E dead abeam…”
The relative bearing to this steamer was also observed by Apprentice James Gibson who arrived on the bridge with some coffee just a few minutes later. Gibson confirmed that this steamer was “right on the starboard beam” when Stone pointed it out to him.4
The steamer that Stone was referring to was the same steamer that later fired a series of what looked like 8 white rockets over a period of about an hour. We also know that the only steamer in the region that fired distress rockets over that same period of time that night was Titanic. In addition, we also have evidence from Captain Lord that the magnetic variation in the vicinity where Californian stopped that night was 24° West, and that the deviation of Californian’s standard compass when his ship was pointing northeastward was about 2° East.5 This means that the total compass correction was 22° West relative to true North as shown in Figure 1 above. To find the true bearing from the compass bearing one simply has to subtract 22° from the observed compass bearing, which is about 2 compass points. Therefore, a bearing SSE by compass would correspond to a bearing of Southeast (SE) true, or 135° true by modern notation. As seen from Titanic, the SS Californian would have to be on the reciprocal bearing angle of 315° true, or to the Northwest (NW) true as seen from Titanic.
Navigationally speaking, this is a very significant result. We know that Titanic and Californian were both stopped; Californian having stopped about 10:20pm (Californian time) after encountering a large field of pack ice in her path, and Titanic having stopped a few minutes after 11:40pm (her time) after striking an iceberg. Besides some swinging around in the light airs and calms as described by Second Officer Stone in a report he wrote to Captain Lord on April 18th while Californian was still at sea, the only movement of these vessels relative to the surface of the earth would have been by the movement of the body of water that they were both floating upon. In other words, relative to the water, the two vessels would not have changed their relative positions by much, if at all, as they drifted together with the local area current that prevailed in the region.
Since we now know exactly the location where Titanic sank, we can draw what is called a line-of-position (LOP) starting from the location of the now-known wreck site running 315° true to the northwest. The SS Californian had to have been somewhere on that line at the time Titanic foundered.6 This LOP is shown in red in Figure 2. In addition to this LOP from the wreck site, the diagram in Figure 02 also shows Captain Lord’s claimed overnight position for Californian (42° 05’N, 50° 07’W), as well as the famous SOS position (41° 46’N, 50° 14’W) that was worked out by Titanic Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall that was sent out by wireless and picked up by the rescue vessel Carpathia and others.
Californian had to be somewhere on that line.
What is absolutely certain, as proved by the chart in Figure 2, and derived from the mutually supported observational evidence of her own officers, is that Californian could not have been at the position reported by Captain Stanley Lord. Californian’s position at the time Titanic sank had to have been somewhere on that line-of-position shown in red if the reported compass bearing to that stopped steamer, over which eight white rockets were later seen that night, was anywhere close to being accurate.
According to Californian Apprentice James Gibson:7
“He [Second Officer Stone] remarked to me that a ship was not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing...We were talking about it all the time, Sir, till five minutes past two, when she disappeared.”
Titanic foundered Monday morning at 2:20am Titanic time, or 5:18am GMT. Californian time was 3 hours 10 minutes behind GMT, which means that it was 2:08am Monday morning on Californian when Titanic’s remaining stern section sank beneath the Atlantic.8 About three minutes prior to that, at 2:05am Californian time, according to James Gibson, the lights of the ship they were observing disappeared out of sight.9
From his vantage point in lifeboat No. 1, Titanic Lookout George Symons observed the following:10
“she took a heavy cant and her bow went down clear… Head down, and that is the time when I saw her lights go out, all her lights. The next thing I saw was her poop. As she went down like that so her poop righted itself and I thought to myself, ‘The poop is going to float.’ It could not have been more than two or three minutes after that that her poop went up as straight as anything; there was a sound like steady thunder as you hear on an ordinary night at a distance, and soon she disappeared from view.”
Titanic’s lights went out two to three minutes before her stern section sank beneath the surface. This would put the time that her lights went out at about 2:17am Titanic time, which corresponded to 2:05am Californian time. This is the exact same time that Gibson said the steamer, whose lights they were observing, had disappeared.
Although we have proved that Californian had to be somewhere near, if not directly on, that line-of-position we worked out at the time Titanic foundered, we have not said or proved anything as to where on the line she had to be, thus establishing her likely distance from Titanic. Nevertheless, there are analytic techniques that can be used to estimate approximately where she was on that line-of-position, and to explain how she likely got there in the first place. For those interested, the answers to those questions, as well as answers to a number of questions regarding what was reportedly seen from both vessels that night, are extensively covered in my book, Strangers on the Horizon: Titanic and Californian – A Forensic Approach, 2019.
Notes
- As explained by the manufacturer, the Cotton Powder Company, Ltd., "Socket distress signals are fired from a socket, ascend to a height of 600 to 800 feet, and then burst with the report of a gun and the stars of a rocket.”
- Groves, BI 8475; Stone, BI 7820, 8063-8064; Gibson, BI 7437-7439.
- Herbert Stone’s written report to Captain Lord, 18 April 1912, while Californian was still at sea.
- Gibson, BI 7438.
- Lord, BI 6782. Magnetic variation is the difference in degrees between magnetic north and true north at a certain location and date on Earth. Magnetic deviation is the error in a magnetic compass from magnetic north caused by the distribution of steel and iron in a ship when pointing in a certain direction. A variation of 24°W for that region in April 1912 can easily be confirmed by other means, and a deviation error of just 2° is quite reasonable for a compensated marine magnetic compass used at the time.
- A line-of-position (LOP) is widely used in marine navigation to establish one's position at sea.
- Gibson, BI 7529-7533.
- The difference between Titanic apparent time and GMT was 2 hours and 58 minutes. The difference between Californian apparent time and GMT was 3 hours 10 minutes. What this means is that Titanic’s clocks were running 12 minutes ahead of Californian’s. Ship’s clocks were set to show 12:00 when the sun reached the highest point in the sky at local apparent noon.
- It should be noted that only the lights of these vessels were seen. They were always too far apart to see anything of their hull, funnels or superstructure, even when viewed through binoculars.
- Symons, BI 11511-11512.