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graham 01 Profile
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Registered: 02-2004
Location: Middlesbrough UK
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Capt Smith


Hi All

How about a discusion on the Captain of the titanic. to start this is a news article to follow on.

Written by Ray Haynes
Monday, January 31, 2005



      When the Titanic sunk, many blamed Captain Edward John Smith for the severe loss of life. He was an able captain with forty three years of experience on the high seas. He had been captain of the Olympic prior to his service on the Titanic, and in that role, had run into a submerged wreck (losing a propeller) and nearly hit another ship. The White Star Line put him in charge of the Titanic anyway, since he’d otherwise had an otherwise long and stellar career (“other than that, how did you like the show, Mrs. Lincoln?”)

           Smith, however, made several mistakes in his handling of the Titanic. He went too fast, a common practice at the time. That speed contributed to the damage. When he tried to avoid the iceberg by turning the ship, he couldn’t move the ship fast enough and actually increased the damage that the iceberg did to the hull of the ship. Had he rammed the iceberg or gone slower, chances are the Titanic would have survived. But Captain Smith chose to follow the common wisdom of the time by going as fast as the ship would go and turning to avoid the iceberg. The rest is history.

source http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=12742


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Feb/6/2005, 10:26 am Link to this post Send Email to graham 01   Send PM to graham 01 Blog
 
Lights Profile
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posticon Re: Capt Smith


Always love discussing our Capt. Smith!

I am firmly of the opinion that unless someone like James Clayton "Foggey" Barr who was famous for his erm, conservative style on the brige, had been master of TITANIC, almost ANY captain of the period would have handled TITANIC in a very similar fashion to Smith.

Remember 25-plus years of experience told him that it was fine to run her at full-ahead. And why was this SOP at the time? Shipping companies wanted their ships to run to schedule and indeed men who were willing to run to said scedules were the men who got promoted to both captaincy and later, to the crack liners of whatever lines they worked for. As you have pointed out Graham, up to the time of the HAWKE-OLYMPIC collision, Smith had had a stellar career and was in fact de fact commodore of WSL. Nothing in his experience said he should do otherwise.

Also at the inquiry held in Britain, a long line of captains, both active and retired, testified that they would have NOT have slowed down that night, either. Maybe not right in retrospect, but there you have it, mates.

As for the collision, it was officially Murdoch at the helm, though of course, Smith bears the ultimate responsibility in this case. I was at a TITANIC exhibition lately and tried the simulator to see if I could do better than Murdoch...NO WAY, JOSE! No matter what I did, the "ship" ended up hitting the berg--and I tried a number of possible alternatives to Murdoch's shiphandling decision that night. I do not believe at the distance at which the berg was sighted that much could have been done to avoid it. Now to the crash into the berg idea: I cannot imagine any sane officer opting to crash into an iceberg head-on, regardless of the experience of a ship such as ARIZONA. A very good discussion of this topic occurs in the book "Last Log of the TITANIC", by David Brown(I recall reading somewhere, years later, Lightoller suggesting an alternative to Murdoch's shiphandling, but it did not include hitting the berg head on-- I believe Lightoller suggested putting the port engine full-astern, leave the starboard engine as it was and put the helm hard-astarboard but cannot swear to it absolutely).

edited by Lights, Feb/6/2005, 9:45 pm


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"What I remember about that night- what I will remember as long as I live- is the people crying out to each other as the stern began to plunge down. I heard people crying, 'I love you.'"
Feb/6/2005, 9:42 pm Link to this post Send Email to Lights   Send PM to Lights AIM Yahoo Blog
 
wills Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


 emoticon this is a subject that is very touchy with me...not sure why..but the thing i would like and feel the need to do ..is point out that we have had nearly a century to pick apart mr murdoch's efforts that night.the point is that he tried the best he could with what he had. this is definately something that has been done and overdone again and again.

there was very little time to react and he reacted the way he thought was best so i would never try to reinact his actions so what is done is done..

 emoticon it is really sad when after nearly a century people still try to put together what should have been done that night.


as for ej..thanks graham for the article. there is another subject that can not be talked about enough either...


wills

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Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........

Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.


http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
Feb/8/2005, 2:05 am Link to this post Send Email to wills   Send PM to wills Blog
 
graham 01 Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


Hi Wills and lights

Lights thank you that was a good post on EJ and I read it with interest and will comment later today I hope.

Wills I agree with what you say and I also find EJ a good topic of conversation. I am more interested in not saying what should of been done that night as in reality we do not know for sure what was done but at what happend according to information. I agree Capt, Smith was a good sea captain but it would seem from a profesional point he had a problem. I do not agree with Lights about mini strokes as I would think a lot of other things would of shown up if it had been but I do not argue with Lights over it as I do not know enough about EJ or his behaviour to dosmiss it fully. By what I have read about EJ and some facts that are know I go a different way and again will post to that effect soon when I manage to find 1/time and second when I get rid of this stupid flu.

Graham

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Feb/8/2005, 2:07 pm Link to this post Send Email to graham 01   Send PM to graham 01 Blog
 
wills Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


thanks graham,

looking forward to a more indepth post on this subject.

perhaps i should start reading my biography book on him .lol.



wills emoticon

---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........

Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.


http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
Feb/8/2005, 6:57 pm Link to this post Send Email to wills   Send PM to wills Blog
 
graham 01 Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


Hi Wills

Sounds good to me, and any help in the evaluation will be apreciated

Graham

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Why dont people do what they say nowadays http://www.freewebs.com/hms-kellington/
http://www.freewebs.com/graham7760/index.htm
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Feb/8/2005, 6:59 pm Link to this post Send Email to graham 01   Send PM to graham 01 Blog
 
wills Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


will do graham.. glad to be of service,

 emoticon


wills

---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........

Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.


http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
Feb/8/2005, 7:06 pm Link to this post Send Email to wills   Send PM to wills Blog
 
graham 01 Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


thanks

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Why dont people do what they say nowadays http://www.freewebs.com/hms-kellington/
http://www.freewebs.com/graham7760/index.htm
http://www.freewebs.com/hmsroyaloak/
Feb/8/2005, 7:07 pm Link to this post Send Email to graham 01   Send PM to graham 01 Blog
 
wills Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


you are welcome..


wills emoticon

---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........

Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.


http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
Feb/8/2005, 7:10 pm Link to this post Send Email to wills   Send PM to wills Blog
 
graham 01 Profile
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Re: Capt Smith


hey wills out of curiosity which book is it

Graham

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Why dont people do what they say nowadays http://www.freewebs.com/hms-kellington/
http://www.freewebs.com/graham7760/index.htm
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Feb/8/2005, 7:13 pm Link to this post Send Email to graham 01   Send PM to graham 01 Blog
 


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