THE TITANIC-50 YEARS LATER 



bridge, he informed the Captain that the ship would sink. Upon 

 learning the facts, the Captain ordered the radio operator to request 

 help from nearby ships. Fifty-eight miles away the CARPATHIA 

 heard, turned, and proceeded at full speed through the ice strewn 

 waters to the rescue. Soon the VIRGINIAN, the BALTIC, the 

 OLYMPIC, and Cape Race heard — then the whole world knew that 

 the TITANIC, with 2,224 persons aboard, was sinking. However, 

 salvation of the doomed passengers was only a few miles away — 

 aboard the CALIFORNIA, but her radio was silent and she did not 

 hear of the disaster so near at hand. 



In the meantime, the Captain ordered the senior officers to clear 

 away the boats and prepare to abandon ship, while the junior officers 

 fired distress rockets from the flying bridge and attempted to raise an 

 unknown ship, possibly the CALIFORNIA, only a few miles away, 

 by blinker light. The stewards awakened the sleeping passengers, 

 assisted them into their lifejackets, and shepherded them to the 

 waiting boats. Meanwhile, several decks below, the immigrants, 

 closer to the rising water, fearfully realized the urgency of the situa- 

 tion. However, when the first lifeboat pulled away from the ship, 

 one hour after the collision, it was only partially filled. The first 

 class passengers on the boat deck, far above the water, were reluctant 

 to leave the warmth and security of the great unsinkable bastion of 

 strength for the flimsy protection of a small frail lifeboat tossing pre- 

 cariously on the icy seas far below. 



Few realized there were only enough lifeboats to accommodate 

 about one-half the people on board. All the distress rockets were gone 

 and the attempt to contact the vessel so near, yet so far away, had 

 failed. At 0205 the last boat was lowered and shortly afterwards a 

 great wave swept over the boat deck. The tremendous screws were 

 now entirely out of the water and rising higher as the vessel settled 

 faster by the head. The forward funnel sheared off and tumbled into 

 the sea— the stern rose even higher. A great thunderous rattling 

 rent the air as the heavy engines, tearing away from their beds, 

 lurched forward and crashed downward through bulkhead after bulk- 

 head by the sheer force of their great weight. The seconds ticked 

 into minutes, and the minutes into an eternity, as the after 150 feet 

 of the stern hung vertically, then slipped beneath the cold desolate 

 waters of the North Atlantic. 



Nature in the guise of a small iceberg had met man's challenge 

 to flout her in 41°46' north latitude, 50°14' west longitude and in 

 only two and one-half hours defeated him at the cost of 1,517 lives 

 with the sinking of the TITANIC at 0222 on 15 April 1912. 



THE GENESIS OF THE TRACKS 



Ironic as it may be, the White Star Line, owners of the TITANIC, 

 was one of the first steamship companies to advocate lane traffic 

 across the North Atlantic Ocean as a safety measure for their pas- 

 senger vessels. Separate east- and westbound lanes were first pro- 

 posed after the disastrous ARCTIC-VESTA collision, during thick 

 fog off Cape Race in 1854. The following year, Matthew Fontaine 

 Maury, known as the "Path Finder of Seas", then in charge of the 

 U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office, devoted a section of the 1855 edition 

 of his "Sailing Direction" to the proposal, specification, and justifica- 

 tion of separate lanes for east- and westbound passenger traffic. 



Yearly, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, the 

 rising tide of immigrants created new demands on an abeady flour- 

 ishing trade route. Simultaneously, the advent of steam permitted 

 vessels to operate without benefit of the wind. Therefore, schedules 

 could be maintained, but the inefficiency of the early boilers, con- 

 suming enormous quantities of coal, required vessels to follow the 

 shortest distance between ports. Vessels sailed a great circle track 

 from Europe to a position southward of Cape Race, then rhumb-lined 

 to the various North American ports. This congested the bulk of the 

 North Atlantic traffic in the foggy and often ice-laden waters of the 

 Grand Banks. 



At this time it was believed the paramount danger was from 

 collisions between vessels, not icebergs. However, early safety advo- 

 cates, in proposing a system of separate east-west lane routes clear 

 of major fog areas, minimized the iceberg threat. Maury's westbound 

 or northern, route was about 100 miles southward of Cape Race, 

 cutting through the southern limits of the fog and ice area; although 

 slightly longer it offered far less fog, thus passages should be quicker. 

 The eastbound, or southern, route passed about 300 miles southward 



of Cape Race, well out of danger, but was considerably longer than 

 great circle route. However, this route afforded the advantage of 

 following the easterly drift of the Gulf Stream and the improved 

 weather conditions usually prevalent in that area. A representative 

 of the White Star Line stated in Liverpool on 1 January 1876, at the 

 "North Atlantic Steam Traffic Conference," that ships of his com- 

 pany had been complying with Maury's trans-Atlantic lane recom- 

 mendations since 1874. He also strongly urged other steamship 

 companies to do the same as a measure of safety for the increasing 

 number of passengers carried across the North Atlantic each year. 



The U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office launched a new service for 

 the mariner in December of 1883, with the inauguration of the 

 Pilot Chart series. These charts depicted in a nautical manner, 

 hydrographic, meteorological, and early oceanographic information 

 pertaining to the North Atlantic Ocean. Commencing with the May 

 1884 issue, the appro.ximate calculated limits of ice for the month 

 and a safe track from New York to Northern Europe, skirting the 

 ice menace, were charted. The ice sighted during the previous month 

 was also shown. The Pilot Charts were the first to publicize the 

 seriousness of the ice menace in attempting to locate, identify, and 

 disseminate ice and weather information relative to shipping along 

 the critical routes adjacent to the Grand Banks. At once ship- 

 masters realized the value of this information. The increasing 

 demand to provide mariners with more up - to - date navigational 

 data created a new service from the fledgling Branch Hydrographic 

 Offices in Boston and New York. These offices collected daily ice 

 information from all possible sources and maintained a master ice 

 plot available to mariners prior to their sailings. The information 

 was also forwarded to interested steamship companies along the 

 eastern seaboard. 



Meanwhile, delegates from 26 maritime nations met in Wash- 

 ington for the "International Marine Conference" of 1889 and pro- 

 posed that trans-Atlantic lanes be adopted on a voluntary basis by 

 the steamship operators. Representatives of the five principal trans- 

 Atlantic steamship companies met in 1891 and formally adopted 

 seasonal tracks to be followed by their vessels. During the ice season 

 these routes were considerably longer, but it was believed if a steam- 

 ship obeyed the Rules of the Road through the ice and fog areas of 

 the Grand Banks, the utilization of the proposed tracks would be 

 safer and more economical. 



STUDY OF THE ICE 



In the interest of gaining more scientific knowledge of the ice 

 menace of the North Atlantic, the Hydrographic Office dispatched 

 a team to the Newfoundland area to study the origin and drift of 

 icebergs. Lighthouse keepers, fishermen, and whalers were engaged 

 as voluntary observers to report regularly ice conditions to the Hydro- 

 graphic Office. The results of this study were published in 1890 as 

 H.O. Pub. 93, "Ice and Ice Movements in the North Atlantic Ocean." 



Today more thorough research has revealed that most of the 

 icebergs menacing the trans-Atlantic shipping lanes are products of 

 the Greenland Ice Cap. A stupendous mass of compacted ice and 

 snow covers the interior of Greenland, varying in thickness from several 

 hundred to several thousand feet. Although at an imperceptibly 

 slow rate, ice under great pressure attempts to flow outward and 

 downward to the sea level following paths of least resistance. Giant 

 rivers of ice called glaciers extend from the ice cap through the 

 coastal mountain passes and into the fjords. The flowing ice grad- 

 ually pushes the toe of the glacier farther and farther into the waters 

 of the fjord until the outer extremity of the ice becomes buoyant. 

 The internal stresses created by wave and tidal action causes the 

 buoyant portion to break off, or calf, and drift down the fjord into 

 the sea as an iceberg. Newly-calfed bergs may vary in size from 

 a few tons to hundreds of thousands of tons. 



Each year a few bergs are spawned along the east coast of 

 Greenland; they usually drift with the East Greenland Current 

 toward Kap Farvel, and thence are carried by the West Greenland 

 Current along the eastern portion of Davis Strait and into Baffin Bay. 

 However, it is in this area along the west coast of Greenland above 

 68°30' N. that the bulk of the icebergs sighted in the North Atlantic 

 are produced. Here about 100 tidewater glaciers spawn approxi- 

 mately 15,000 bergs each year. Glaciers may calf at any time but 

 most of the icebergs are produced in the warm summer months. 



36 



