Posted on 09/22/2010 2:37:37 AM PDT by tlb
The granddaughter of the most senior officer to survive the sinking of the Titanic has revealed a century-old secret that could rewrite history.
UK author Louise Patten says the ship had lots of time to shift course when its crew members spotted an iceberg, but plowed straight into it because of a simple steering error.
Patten, the granddaughter of the Titanics Second Officer Charles Lightoller, told the The Daily Telegraph she has known about the secret since the 1960s.
The Titanic was built at a time when the world was converting from sail to steam ships, which used two different steering systems, Patten said.
Some of the Titanics crew were used to using the old Tiller Orders, where you steer right to go left and left to go right.
Others were more familiar with the modern Rudder Orders, where you steer the way you want to go.
In a moment of panic, the steersman used the wrong orders and turned toward the iceberg. The ship had four minutes to change course but by that time it was too late.
Patten said her grandfather hid the truth about the crash because he was afraid it would bankrupt the Titanics owners and leave his colleagues jobless.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...
Sometimes the old ways are not the best ways.
And all this time I thought it was Leonardo DiCaprio’s fault.
I’m not sure I buy into this. Tillers are common on very small sailboats, but ships had been using the wheel for over a century by then. You’d think that the helmsman would know which way the ship steered.
Time for another movie.
Crewman Gilligan at the helm should have been a tipoff.Anna? She could handle my tiller any day!
They could have easily avoided the iceberg if it wasnt for the blunder.
Sounds like ObamaCare...
There are costs associated with change. When Air Canada went from pounds of fuel to liters, they got the Gimli Glider (even though Boeing manuals anticipated the change). [My Grandmother lost an aunt and uncle on the Titanic, when she was 14. Maybe I'm owed reparations!]
The loss of the Andrea Doria was one of the first radar induced accidents in history. The watch officer on the Stockholm was mistaken about the scale on the radar PPI ("scope"). He thought he was on the ten mile scale when he actually was on the two mile scale. He thought the poor Andrea Doria was five times further away than it actually was. He decided to maneuver to pass the Andrea Doria on the left (port to port) but instead veered directly into her ("her", even thought Andrea Doria was an Italian Admiral and a man).
“Youd think that the helmsman would know which way the ship steered.”
Especially since Titanic had been at sea for 4 days when it hit the iceberg. Of course, the guy allegedly panicked, so who knows what was going through his head at the time? Didn’t they investigate the cause of the accident after it happened? It seems surprising just 1 person on the ship knew the secret and that it went undisclosed for so long.
The British used tiller orders into the 1930s. I don’t see a ship like the Titanic using mixed orders for different crew nor do I see there being an inexperienced crew on the Whitestar’s flagship.
Didn’t make much sense to me either.
Helmsmen get rudder orders or compass bearings by which to steer by. Right rudder or left rudder means turn the wheel left or right.
Besides, even if the helmsman did somehow turn the wheel the wrong direction, ships do not turn on a dime. Unless the watch officers were drunk or sleeping, they should have noticed the mistaken course change in plenty of time to make corrections.
Tillers weren’t used on large sailing vessels, wheels were an old and established feature long before steam power.
Didn’t know that about the Andrea Doria (which does sounds female, despite the gent she was named after). Traditionally, all ships are shes, aren’t they?
Seems as though you’re owed a barnacle or two from the hull, at the very least.
Some people wonder if counter flooding the stern could have saved her. She was designed to remain afloat if five watertight compartments were breached, the iceberged breached six at the bow. The result was that as they filled they lowered the bow and water overtopped and filled the seventh, then the eigth, until she settled by the bow.
If they had counter flooded two or three comparments in the stern, she may have leveled off and remained stable in the extremely calm waters that prevailed on that day. Even if they only bought time, it might have been enough to prevent the high death toll.
So she could not turn on dime if it was 1000 yards in diameter.
I agree. I can buy what they did, but not the reason for it.
The pld school logic was that actually even wheel steered boats had a tiller under the deck, with ropes and pulleys driving it, then later gears. “Hard to starboard” meant swing the wheel hard to port which threw the tiller to starboard and vice versa.
Same as my last sailboat
The Stockholm was north of the normal shipping lanes, headed outbound for, Stockholm. This would have carried her past the Andrea Doria starboard to starboard, which was slightly unconventional, but not particularly dangerous.
One of the passengers on the Andrea Doria was Carl Perkins, who wrote Blue Suede Shoes. On another earlier occassion, he was supposed to perform it on the Sullivan show, but had the flu and another artist with his studio "covered" it for him. Still, the royalities could pay for a first class cabin. Perkins and most of the other passengers survived. Most of the fatalities were the result of the initial collision.
That doesn’t excuse the lack of sufficient life rafts nor the fact that a nearby ship chose to ignore their signals for help because he was unwilling to steer into the iceberg field.
I sail a Cape Dory and will about 10 this morning.
It has a tiller.
Possible the helmsman was a sailor?
Also thanks for your service to our nation.
Looks like you used your time well to travel the world.
You should have written a book as you went along.
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