Titanic Rescued by the RMS Californian

[redlightning]

What if instead of turning off all its communications for the night and being unaware of the distress signals of the RMS Titanic sinking, the Californian (the closest ship nearby) comes to the aid of the sinking ship and manages to save more lives... What changes?

 

[Vice President Mike]

The movie isnt made since most if not all the lives are saved. I doubt we would even remeber or care today.

 

[Mike Stearns]

What if instead of turning off all its communications for the night and being unaware of the distress signals of the RMS Titanic sinking, the Californian (the closest ship nearby) comes to the aid of the sinking ship and manages to save more lives... What changes?

The Californian was a 6,000 ton tramp steamer. Her ability to assist the Titanic would have been very limited. The death toll would have been reduced, but not by very much.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

We'd also have more first hand accounts of the tragedy.

 

[King of the Uzbeks]

The movie isnt made since most if not all the lives are saved. I doubt we would even remeber or care today.

The Titanic is not famous because of the Movie. Also a few points/questions

1; What happened to the Iceberg? Did it float away? If its too close a ship would be wary of it and might not come too close.

2; Lifeboat safety rules are still changed since the ship was already sinking when the SOS is issued so the problem of lifeboats still arises

3; White Star Line only had 1 poster calling the Titanic unsinkable (or very few), they did however heavily advertise its safety features, which to be fair were OK (it had more life boats than was required by law at the time). The "unsinkable" idea came from an Incedent where the Titanics sister ship The Olympic was accidentally rammed by a navy boat, suffered huge damage but still stated afloat.

As mentioned above the Californian wouldn't be as much help. Maybe a few less dates from hypothermia in the water?

 

[Mike Stearns]

White Star Line only had 1 poster calling the Titanic unsinkable

Sort of. White Star called the Titanic virtually unsinkable, virtually being the operative word, implying that in theory the Titanic could sink, but that it was highly unlikely. It it was press who flat out stated that the Titanic was totally unsinkable.

 

[King of the Uzbeks]

Sort of. White Star called the Titanic virtually unsinkable, virtually being the operative word, implying that in theory the Titanic could sink, but that it was highly unlikely. It it was press who flat out stated that the Titanic was totally unsinkable.

OK. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[zert]

Well if they had jammed packed the Californian then more lives could have been saved. There would still be a lot of deaths but at least more would have lived.

 

[Trotsky]

The Californian did not carry the RMS prefix.

 

[Blurgle]

What if instead of turning off all its communications for the night and being unaware of the distress signals of the RMS Titanic sinking, the Californian (the closest ship nearby) comes to the aid of the sinking ship and manages to save more lives... What changes?

Not much. It wouldn't have got there before the sinking, and even if it had been right beside the Titanic at the moment of the accident it's not clear whether everyone on board would have fit on the Californian, or whether they could have been transferred in time.

From what I've read, the absolute best the Californian could have done was to save a half dozen lives, and there's pushing every possibility to the max. Most likely, the main difference would have been in the reputation of the ship's captain.

 

[fscott]

Not much. It wouldn't have got there before the sinking, and even if it had been right beside the Titanic at the moment of the accident it's not clear whether everyone on board would have fit on the Californian, or whether they could have been transferred in time.

From what I've read, the absolute best the Californian could have done was to save a half dozen lives, and there's pushing every possibility to the max. Most likely, the main difference would have been in the reputation of the ship's captain.

I have to agree with you while the Californian was a smaller ship it could have been overloaded for a few hours if it stayed still and the water was calm. Had they started launching life boats earlier they could have saved about 473 more people by filling them to capacity. One life boat was launched with 12 people. Had the Californian been close they may have been able to empty some boats and send them back to pull people from the water. Since the last several boats floated off the ship it was unlikely. If the Titanic had the 64 lifeboats that the builder wanted they would have saved very few extra people.

 

[Kung Fucious]

Hard to say. On the one hand the Californian wasn't nearly large enough to rescue everyone, and in fact having her arrive in the middle of the sinking could potentially cause the crew of the Titanic to take their time (since there would be less perceived rush due to there being another ship present). You could wind up with MORE dead in the water, due to them not reaching life boats in time (admittedly that's a worst case scenario).

Most likely it's a six-of-one, half-dozen-of-another type situation. More people are pulled from the water, but due to the Californian's limited capacity for taking on survivors you've still got a lot of deaths. However, you'd have an almost exact location of the sinking, and eye-witness accounts of the ship breaking in two, so I doubt the wreck would gain the mythical status it did in OTL.

 

[Binky the Clown]

White Star Line only had 1 poster calling the Titanic unsinkable (or very few), they did however heavily advertise its safety features, which to be fair were OK (it had more life boats than was required by law at the time).

I believe it was Shipbuilder magazine that called the Olympic-class "practically unsinkable," not White Star itself.

 

[Apollo 20]

The Californian was a 6,000 ton tramp steamer. Her ability to assist the Titanic would have been very limited. The death toll would have been reduced, but not by very much.

There were approximately 2250 aboard Titanic; their combined weight assuming 150 pounds average apiece would have been 168.75 tons. If you think of Californian as a very large, albeit uncomfortable, lifeboat, there exists at least a theoretical possibility of temporarily accommodating the entire complement of passengers and crew aboard Titanic until additional help could arrive. Whether such a transfer could have occurred with the time between the arrival of the Californian and the sinking is doubtful, but in my mind, there is little doubt that her arrival on scene before the sinking would have saved some lives and perhaps a significant number of them.

Given the prominence of some of Titanic's passengers -- and the unknown impact some of the lesser-known passengers might have had on future events, this could have had a significant effect on the future course of history.

 

[sharlin]

The Titanic took 2 hours 45 minutes to sink from the moment of impact. Assuming that the Californian is contacted and responds she's going to take 45 minutes ish to arrive, she was about 12 - 18 miles away iirc so even at a slow ish speed its going to take time.

So assuming you have 2 hours to transfer passengers you'd be using all of the Titanics lifeboats and Californians. Send the boats over from the Titanic, winch them up unload passengers, whilst this is going on, the Californians boats would be over at the Titanic getting winched up and loaded, they come over, Titanics boats go back, repeat, rinse as many times as necessary. The big problem is that the Californian don't have as many lifeboat winches as the Titanic so loading would be slower but you'd still get many off. Sure it would be cramped and uncomfortable up on her decks but you'd have more help on the way. Both ships would probably be sending CQD/SOS's and Carpathia would be on her way to lessen the load.

 

[MattII]

Might not even need the winches, if harnesses could be fashioned out of ropes, you could pull them up the sides of the ship itself. Okay, they'd be a bit bruised, but better that than dead.

 

[sharlin]

Might not even need the winches, if harnesses could be fashioned out of ropes, you could pull them up the sides of the ship itself. Okay, they'd be a bit bruised, but better that than dead.

Interesting idea but not really practical outside of anything but a low hulled vessel, as its sliding up the boat could well catch on the rivets or parts of the hull and risk tipping and throwing folks into the drink. And you've also got to consider the size of the ship. Lifeboats are pritty darn long so there's not going to be that much space save maybe the extreme bow and stern to pull them up, they would also be bastard heavy, probably too heavy for a crew to haul manually many times, even if you got the stoakers (probably the strongest men aboard) to do it you'd exhaust them.

 

[DrakonFin]

What if instead of turning off all its communications for the night and being unaware of the distress signals of the RMS Titanic sinking, the Californian (the closest ship nearby) comes to the aid of the sinking ship and manages to save more lives... What changes?

This article seems to shed some light on the issue. The conclusion seems to be that because of very limited time available to the captain and the crew of the Californian until the sinking of Titanic, only a comparatively small number of passengers could have been saved even in the most positive scenario.

 

[Vexacus]

If Titanic's passengers had been saved, then Cameron's DAS Titanic movie would not have been made

 

[sharlin]

DAS? And interesting article DrakonFin, a good find