I have this Titanic CD that says at 12:15am, after the first signal sent...ships La Provence, Mount Temple and Ypiranga all heard the Titanic's CQD. However, it's made mainly for younger adolescents or children.

That being said, I have heard the only ships to respond to the Titanic's distress calls were The Olympic, The Frankfurt, and The Carpathia. So that means other would have to of heard second hand from other wireless operators.

I also have heard ships like The Cornia, Asian, Virginian heard Titanic's signaling but either were faint, unrecognizable, or didn't respond back.

I think the California was totally to blame captain Lord could have saved the Titanic passangers.

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Ummm......Buff Egan. Care to explain or support your statement? I'd love to hear it. I think we all would.....

TSstudios....your signature quote is awesome btw! haha

Captain Lord made No attemt to wake his wirelsess operator Cyrill Evans. Lord was awakened several times and asked about the rockets to which he replied that they may be "company rockets", to help ships identify themselves to liners of the same company. What is unclear is why Lord simply assumed this as there were no other ships in sight that night. He knew that Titanic was in the area. Had he awoken Evans they could have contacted Phillips and Bride. I mean look at the effort Captain Rostron made and the Carpathia was 58 miles away. there is No doubt in my mind that Captain Lord could have saved many of the Titanic's crew.

Aparently from Articles i read on this Topic IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO REACH TITANIC ANYWAYS!!! The ship was smaller, it was on the other side of the Ice field, It wouldn't get there in time, and... yeah thats really it...

I have always heard that the Californian could not reach the Titanic if she did decide to go racing towards the scene.

But at what distance is this calculation made upon?

The reason I ask is that I have heard from different sources over the years (and some may not be correct) that the Californian was anywhere from 10 to 20 miles away. But is anyone for certain? Could the Californian have been closer than ten miles away?

I guess you could take into consideration the time it took Californian to reach Carpathia, assuming that the lifeboats did not drift enough from the scene to matter. Any thoughts on this anyone?

Buff, TSstudios and MGY Friend....The Californian was probably at most 12 miles away. I do believe in my research that twelve is the most probable number. Captain Lord claims that his ship was 19 miles away from the sinking and stood by that. We know that his coordinates are fairly accurate. The Titanic's however were not right....in fact they were 7 miles off of the 41 46 N, 50 14 W degrees. That makes 12 miles between the two. Also, both moved in the current at the same pace, so any movement of the ships positions would also alter the same. I have said many times, I do believe that they failed to respond properly to the distress calls. But think about this way, the Californian had no idea what was going on 12 miles away. When they heard, they did whatever they could to assist the Carpathia and search for survivors. I doubt it would have mattered anyways.


Now lets say that the Californian responded after the first CQD. That would have been at 12:15am. It took them about 2 1/2 to 3 hours in the daylight to reach the Carpathia. Although they traveled through the ice field first, and took a longer way. With the ice so thick and pack, in the dark would make it even harder to steer through the ice that surrounded them. Also keep in mind, the Californian was a single screw, 13 knot ship. Even if they did everything in their power, it would have still been too late. They perhaps could have arrived just has the vessel was plunging to the bottom(2:15am...if we go by the 2 hour rescue, which is unlikely).

Here's a quote from an author who has done some research on the rescue by The Californian:

"In reality, if Californian had raced to the site of the disaster, it would only have rescued Captain Lord's reputation and robbed Arthur Henry Rostron of his moment in fame. At top speed, Californian would have arrived just at the time of Titanic's stern pointed into the sky like a black finger of death. A few nearly frozen survivors might have been plucked from the water-but only a few. Survivors bobbing in the lifeboats might have still been waiting in the first light of dawn for rescue, because retrieving lifeboats in the darkness would have been dangerous."

-The Last Log of the Titanic" written by David Brown.

Also check out this website: http://home.earthlink.net/~dnitzer/Frameset.html

If you scroll down the left side toolbar, you'll see a Bold "Updates."
Click on "Maps of the Area" to get an idea where the two lay that night.

Hope this helps!

MGY--To answer your question about drifting. It would be possible that the lifeboats were moving around pending on if they were moving or not. The Labrador current was moving both the Californian and the Titanic. So I do believe the boats could have drifted from the sinking position. When the Carpathia arrived and spotted the lifeboats, many of course took a bit to row up to her. I believe the last rescue was at 8:30am. They began taking passengers on at 6:10am.

I doubt that the Californian was more than 12-15 miles away based on you wouldn't be able to see the Titanic based on the curvature of the Earth. The Californian had a very powerful Morse lamp that could be seen from 10 miles away as Lord stated. That could explain why both were signaling like crazy and getting no responses. If you check that link I posted above, it will give you a good idea on plotting where the ships were. The man who constructs the website went to Harvard I believe. He's very knowledgeable on the issue of the Titanic and the Californian. Enjoy.