Captain Lord and the Californian

Did Captain Stanley Lord of the "mystery ship"-Californian, disregard the call for assistance from another ship on April 14-15,1912, or was it merely a misunderstanding? That's a question that still remains unanswered today.

The number of rockets fired by the Titanic and the number reported by officers aboard the Californian are the same-8. The rockets fired from the Titanic were all white, also described and reported by the officers aboard the Californian to Captain Lord on three different occasions that night. Quartermaster Rowe was firing the eight rockets from the Titanic's bridge while Officers Stone, Gibson and Groves watched the eight rockets from the Californian's bridge burst high over the unknown ship to the south. Since nobody on the Titanic saw any other ship in the vacinity fire any kind of rockets, Captain Lord's defense of believing that those rockets came from another steamer or fishing vessel lacks credibility. The only possible candidate for this mystery ship firing rockets, due to Lord's belief and theory, is the small Icelandic fishing ship Samson. The Samson theory however was smashed to pieces as dates, times, location and speed fail to place the Samson in the area of the Titanic or the Californian the night of April 14-15,1912. In the log of the customs collector of the port of Reykjavik, Iceland: the harbor fees paid by the Samson on April 12 and 20 make it completely clear that the little 6 knot fishing boat could never have been able to leave Iceland to reach a point anywhere near the Titanic and return again in that span of time.

Lord's second theory was that the Californian was 19-21 miles away from the Titanic and therefore could not have seen distress rockets that the Titanic had fired as they would be too far away. It was this theory that allowed the mystery ship to come in between the Californian and the Titanic, stop at the same time the Titanic struck the iceberg and stopped, remain motionless for 2 1/2 hours, fire eight white rockets for unknown reason, and then steam away at the same time the Titanic sank.

The only thing needed to establish the distance was to compare the Californian's position as noted in her log with the position the Titanic gave when sending out her distress calls. A research team, sponsored by Jack Grimm in 1981, firmly established that the bridge clock that Fourth Officer Boxhall was using to calculate the Titanic's position was not reset at the beginning of the last watch and therefore was running 20 minutes fast. Using this incorrect time, he was able to estimate that the Titanic had traveled 14 miles farther west than she actually had. This meant that instead of being 41 degrees 46 N, 50 degrees 14 W, she was actually 41 degrees 43 N, 49 degrees 56W. That would place the Titanic somewhere to the south and east of where Boxhall had figured.

In the Californian's log, her position was 42 degrees 5 N, 50 degrees 7 W, when she was stopped for the night at 10:20pm on April 14,1912. That would put her 19 miles to the northeast of the position where Boxhall had placed the Titanic. That would have made it conveniently distant enough for the Titanic to be too far away to have seen the ship from the Californian. However, the Californian's position was calculated some four hours earlier. What hadn't been accounted for was the 1 1/2 knot current from the north-northwest that caused the ship to drift from the south-southeast as she was steaming, a drift that continued after she stopped at the edge of the icefield, pushing her nearly 9 miles away from her estimated position. Factoring that drift into the Californian's position leaves her only less than 11 miles from the Titanic, close enough to clearly see the ship from the bridge of the Californian.

There is also a strong doubt about the entries in the Californian's log. A captain is ultimately responsible for the entries in the log and nothing can be added to it without the captain's permission and approval. For this reason, they also keep a 'scrap log' to avoid errors. Entered in there is all the happenings of the watch, everything that occured on board relating to the handling of the ship. It also contains information from sightings of any other vessels. It is then the captain's job to look over the scrap log and approve, correct and amend any entries and then enter them into the ship's formal log. The scrap log is however kept as a back-up and rarely disposed of. During the U.S. Senate and Board of Trade Inquiry, the Californian's scrap log had vanished and the formal log had no entries whatsoever of the ship seen by Lord's three officers, the rockets fired, or Lord's attempt to contact the ship by Morse lamp. Captain Lord never gave an adequate explanation of what had happened to the missing section of the scrap log. During these investigations, Lord had given many discrepancies between the testimonies of himself and his officers. Some of the discrepancies gave the impression that these men couldn't have even been on the same ship, although they were. Little imagination leads us to believe that Capt. Lord dictated the log entries to say what he wanted them to say and nothing else.

Also, when Cyril Evans, the wireless operator for the Californian, relayed an ice warning to the Titanic at 7:30pm, he gave her position as 42 degrees 3 N and 49 degrees 9 W. The Californian was then on a course west-southwest, yet when the Californian stopped 3 hours later, the position recorded in the log put her well to the north of where that position would have taken her had she maintained it. There is also no indication that Lord had changed course. Even if he had done so, it would've taken them to the south since changing course to the north would have only put them into heavier ice.

These statements are not damning evidence however they are able to bring up some question to the intent of Capt. Lord. One bit of damning evidence that can be noted however is that Capt. Lord never once put Cyril Evan's back on the wireless to try to contact the ship that was firing rockets. (They did try to contact the ship by Morse lamp however.) They also watched the ship in the distance sink, although they believed it was merely a ship that had stopped, believing that it must've started back up and sailed away to where they could no longer see it, when in fact, it was the Titanic which had just taken it's final plunge.

Capt. Lord obviously did not want the blame to be put upon him which can be understandable. What is not understandable or forgivable, is that even if it wasn't the Titanic seen from the Californian's bridge that night, there were indeed rockets fired and Capt. Lord did not go to assist a fellow vessel in need. Capt. Lord went to great lengths to make sure he was not found responsible for not responding to Titanic's distress calls and there never would be enough evidence to say he was indeed to blame. The questions raised however would forever leave Lord condemned. Captain Stanley Lord would always be known to the world's memory that he was the captain that did nothing and that the Californian would always be known, in historian Leslie Reade's words, as "the ship that stood still."

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