The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Mayerling]

Are you thinking of the Oceanus? The captain and crew abandoned ship leaving the entertainers to organize the passengers in escaping. Sank off South Africa about 10 years ago.

Hi Errata and Louis,

I think it was the Oceanus, which was also one of the few major ship disasters that was taped going down. However, if my memory is correct, the demoralized Captain was one of the last crew people to leave the ship - but he still did not do much to assist the passengers from leaving.

An even worse case was the 1965 burning of the cruise ship Yarmouth Castle in the Carribean, which had an extensive fatality list of passengers and crew (though nothing like the Titanic or Lusitania or Empress of Ireland or General Slocum or Eastland). In that case the Captain did abandon ship very early. He has never agreed to any interviews since that disaster.

Jeff

[louisa]

Errata - Yes I think that was the one. I'll Google it to make sure.

Thanks!

[Errata]

I've been trying to think of the name of the cruise liner that collided with something and the passengers on board became extremely worried when they noticed the captain and crew in a lifeboat busily rowing away from the disaster.

It was in fairly recent times.

Are you thinking of the Oceanus? The captain and crew abandoned ship leaving the entertainers to organize the passengers in escaping. Sank off South Africa about 10 years ago.

[jason_c]

I've been trying to think of the name of the cruise liner that collided with something and the passengers on board became extremely worried when they noticed the captain and crew in a lifeboat busily rowing away from the disaster.

It was in fairly recent times.

I vaguely remember hearing about this.

[jason_c]

Hey all,

Jason:

It's quite possible that the lady passenger was mistaken in what she heard, or that she lied outright, but it just has a certain ring of truth to it I think....Smith wouldn't have been overly hard to sway, he had been known to state in the months leading up to the Titanic's maiden voyage that: "I cannot conceive a situation which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." Furthermore, it was his last voyage, the first voyage of Titanic, the jewel in the crown of White Star Line, the icing on the cake would have been a record arrival time in New York City and a challenge for the coveted Blue Riband....

I don't think that they deliberately sailed too fast without considering the safety of those on board, just that they allowed themselves to believe that the threat of a bit of ice was nothing to a mammoth ship like Titanic with all of her safety features.

Phil:

Yes, as others have outlined, Smith could be seen as being accident prone. But he was also known as the "Millionaire's Captain" and was incredibly popular with those sorts of passengers, the big names who the WSL were trying to lure with their fame and big dollars.

And it worked too - the list of first class passengers is a roll call of everybody who was somebody in Edwardian society.

As for the story of Smith swimming to a lifeboat with a child, it's plausible but perhaps not that likely - Smith went down with the ship but it's possible he was thwarted by a sudden lurch or something similar which threw him off the bridge, which is what happened to William Turner, Captain of the Lusitania a few years later....except he survived.

Cheers,
Adam.

Adam,

The Titanic could not challenge for the Blue Riband. It was a slower ship than the Lusitania and other liners. It was no match in terms of speed. Thats why her size and grandeur were her selling points. Other companies had faster ships than the White Star line.

Smith may have been overly-confident in his ship. The entire industry was overconfident in modernity. It had been decades since a modern liner had sunk.

[louisa]

I've been trying to think of the name of the cruise liner that collided with something and the passengers on board became extremely worried when they noticed the captain and crew in a lifeboat busily rowing away from the disaster.

It was in fairly recent times.

[kensei]

How plausible does anyone think Smith's end as depicted in Cameron's "Titanic" was? Goes into a daze, walks into the bridge, shuts the door behind him, stands there at the helm until the water pours in and kills him.

I just had the captain of the Andrea Doria- Piermo Calamai- occur to me in comparison. In that sinking over 40 years later, which took many hours before the ship went under, I remember hearing that Calamai felt so terrible about what had happened that he was determined to go down with his ship. But there was so much time for people to evacuate that he found himself one of the very last people on the ship with people in rescue boats imploring him to come with them, so he finally caved and just kind of went, "Oh, very well then."

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Jason:

It's quite possible that the lady passenger was mistaken in what she heard, or that she lied outright, but it just has a certain ring of truth to it I think....Smith wouldn't have been overly hard to sway, he had been known to state in the months leading up to the Titanic's maiden voyage that: "I cannot conceive a situation which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." Furthermore, it was his last voyage, the first voyage of Titanic, the jewel in the crown of White Star Line, the icing on the cake would have been a record arrival time in New York City and a challenge for the coveted Blue Riband....

I don't think that they deliberately sailed too fast without considering the safety of those on board, just that they allowed themselves to believe that the threat of a bit of ice was nothing to a mammoth ship like Titanic with all of her safety features.

Phil:

Yes, as others have outlined, Smith could be seen as being accident prone. But he was also known as the "Millionaire's Captain" and was incredibly popular with those sorts of passengers, the big names who the WSL were trying to lure with their fame and big dollars.

And it worked too - the list of first class passengers is a roll call of everybody who was somebody in Edwardian society.

As for the story of Smith swimming to a lifeboat with a child, it's plausible but perhaps not that likely - Smith went down with the ship but it's possible he was thwarted by a sudden lurch or something similar which threw him off the bridge, which is what happened to William Turner, Captain of the Lusitania a few years later....except he survived.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

As for Captain Henry Kendall of the Empress of Ireland, he to remained on board his ship to the end but survived. He was not pilloried for the collision (which sill remains murky), but after all, Captain Kendall did help catch Dr. Crippen and Ethel Le Neve ("Mr. and Master Robinson") on the Montrose only four years earlier, so he was already a public hero of sorts.

Jeff

Also, any mistake he might have made to cause the collision probably paled in comparison the decision of the Captain of the Storstad to try and plug the hole he had just made in the Empress of Ireland with his own boat. I mean, whatever else happened, that's really the shining star of errors.

[louisa]

Here's a rather interesting website. (Apologies to members who already know all about it).

http://www.titanic1.org/articles/titanicmyths.asp

[jason_c]

There was also an account of Captain Smith clinging to the upturned lifeboat for a while before succumbing to exhaustion or hypothermia.

[Mayerling]

Smith's last hours

Hi Phil,

Actually I thought Smith was active trying to get the attention of the ship whose lights he saw on the distant horizon (most likely the Californian) and in making sure the telegraphers kept sending the distress calls out. I might be wrong about both.

He does appear accident prone, especially after the business with the Olympic and the Hawke. The business with the New York at Southampton may be due to Smith still getting used to Titanic's power in pulling "lesser" liners towards her. Oddly enough, had that collission occurred it is possible that the Titanic would have been back in drydock for repairs and the passengers and crew transferred to other ships, and no great disaster would have occurred on 04/14 - 15/ 1912. On the other hand, what would have happened to the New York?

The two legends of Smith's end is his yelling as the sea poured over the top deck, "Be British my men!" to his crew, and the one you alluded to of him swimming to a lifeboat with a child he tried to save. Very gallant to be sure but probably not true.

But he did become a martyr and hero that night to remember. In is instructive to compare his post - disaster reputation (due to his death) with Captain Willie Turner of the Lusitania (who did not leave his sinking liner, but suvived). Turner got pilloried for not zigzagging when he reached the Irish Sea. As for Captain Henry Kendall of the Empress of Ireland, he to remained on board his ship to the end but survived. He was not pilloried for the collision (which sill remains murky), but after all, Captain Kendall did help catch Dr. Crippen and Ethel Le Neve ("Mr. and Master Robinson") on the Montrose only four years earlier, so he was already a public hero of sorts.

Jeff

[louisa]

And then there was the other 'near miss' as the Titanic was pulling out of Southampton.

[louisa]

Actually the career of Captain Smith had not been uneventful.

Without looking it all up, and going from memory, Captain Smith had been involved in at least two collisions and a near miss with other ships (when he was captain of these vessels), before the Titanic.

[Phil H]

Kensei

Given his record, perhaps his view that his career had been "uneventful" confirms a certain complacency.

Phil