All the historical accounts I had read before suggested that Capt. Lord dismissed the rockets as 'company signals' which was a not uncommon practice of ships from the same line firing off a rocket in salute in passing. The color issue I hadn't heard before or that idea that they were 'party rockets' before I came here. I did a little research at Wikipeadia and Encyclopedia Titanica and it seems the confusion arises out of that Captian Lord presented several reasons to the different inquires as to why he didn't respond. It seems none of them really excuse him since it also seems that the maritime regulations state that distress rockets are rockets of "any type or color" fired in short order and require that any ship seeing rockets of any color or number must investigate. It appears that company signals and party rockets are both illegal under the regulations but that does not mean they weren't used that way.