Talk:SS Californian

Notes

I've removed the following apparent notes that were placed directly in the article proper. These look like they were pulled from a primary source:

Transports Carrying the New Zealand and Australian Division from Alexandria to Gallipoli, April :1915.nzetc

Name of Transport. "Californian"

O.C. Troops. Major I. T. Standish

Adjutant R.N.Z.A. Lieut. C. Carrington

Units on Board

N.Z.F.A. 3rd Battery New Zealand Field Artillery

Ammunition Column. New Zealand Field Artillery Brigade

4th Australian Field Ambulance

I'm not sure what to make of this stuff, so I removed it from the article. --Bletch 00:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Weight?

I was wondering if anybody knew whether the 'weight' of the ship was displacement or deadweight? I assumed displacement in the infobox, but I may be wrong. Xtrememachineuk (talk) 06:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Ocean liners don't usually use deadweight as a measurement, so I would assume it means displacement. SchuminWeb (Talk) 01:18, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Ocean liners, and other merchant ships, don't usually use displacement either. For older ships like the Californian it would have been Gross Registered Tonnage (GRT) which is actually a measure of the VOLUME of the ship (100ft3 is 1 GRT - see section). That is why we can have iron ore freighters which are rated at 350,000 metric tons in deadweight (and obviously more than that in displacement when fully loaded) and larger oil tankers of around 250,000 gross tons. The measures are not the same. It is normally naval ships which are measured by displacement - the actual weight of the vessel itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.39.162.130 (talk) 15:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The "displacement' field has been removed entirely, and the grt and nrt figures, taken from the two British inquiries, are now in the "tonnage" field. Kablammo (talk) 20:28, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Date Ordered

1973 can't be right. 213.48.150.168 (talk) 14:42, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

You're right - that isn't right. Removed. SchuminWeb (Talk) 01:17, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Dubious

Too much speculative, unsourced, material of questionable accuracy.

The latter part of the article, which deals with the involvement of S.S. Californian in the "Titanic" incident, contains a number of assertions which are uncited and which also conflict with some of the evidence given by witnesses at the 1912 Titanic Inquiries. Captain Stanley Lord may - or may not - have been culpable of something. It's impossible to say with certainty, because the information published by those in authority has never been of sufficient detail to make a proper assessment. One thing which can be said with certainty is that Stanley Lord was never publicly charged with any offense - despite the many demands for this to be undertaken by the authorities. After the Inquiries were published, even Stanley Lord publicly challenged the authorities to investigate and charge him. This was never done. Norloch (talk) 13:53, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

In addition to the above, the times of events noted in the article fail to make it clear that the ships mentioned were all operating on different apparent times. In other words, the actual clock times on each of the ships was different from the others. Neither is there any mention, in the article, that there was a thirteen mile difference in position between the 1912 distress position transmitted by Titanic and the actual position of the Titanic wreck which was located in 1985. Norloch (talk) 19:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I would like to add, they did not have GPS in 1912, when you gave your coordinates they were taken as approximations it could vary up to 7 miles or so from what I have read. Also as this is not an article about the Titanic was found, but about the Californian, which it is the consensus via primary sources that it was close enough to see the rockets. Also most of what was stated in the article is congruent with Daniel Allen Butler's Unsinkable. Lord was not found culpable of anything because there were very few laws about ships coming to the aid of other ships at the time; this is also from Butler's Unsinkable, now he would be called in for negligence but there was no such thing in 1912. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.216.79.203 (talk) 16:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

That entire section looks like novel synthesis. There are lots of opinions & weasel words in it. Much of the section is written in the form of an argument beginning with the assumption that Captain Lord and his officers were negligent, not a neutral description of what's known. Serious need for a major re-write. Dcs002 (talk) 07:57, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts on the matter. If only a 'news article' from a newspaper at the time was pointed out as resource, we would have something to support these allegations. My opinion on the matter is that the Captain of the Californian did all he needed to do to protect his ship, and his crew. Rockets at sea, at the time, were not "distress calls". Third, the wireless operator did what everyone used to do at the time, when the ship stopped due to rough ice conditions; he went to bed. The crew members who stood watch overnight were probably (just barely) to blame when they didn't press the matter enough to wake the wireless operator. But, to assume "distress call" over rockets fired, from a ship that was supposed to be "unsinkable" was probably the last thing on their minds. The article claims the Californian captain was told, again I imagine them thinking it couldn't be a reason for concern; what if, the Titanic was celebrating something and made the exception to fire rockets? Like for example; a wedding party from one of the rich folks at the Titanic (there was plenty of rich folks who would have requested such thing and nobody would have said "no" to their request). I admit if I had been the captain of the Californian I would have woken the wireless operator to ask just in case. But it is hardly something you will do in the middle of the night when you're sleepy.

The allegations about the Californian captain when questioned are also very much questionable in many levels. Of course, the Captain of the Californian was going to be bashed, they were close enough, were unaware of the incident event though people at the time thought they "should have" been aware. Everyone was looking to blame somebody and it was feasible to blame the ones that should've come to the rescue. They seem to be ignoring one little detail:

*The Californian WAS surrounded by ice!

*The Carpathian wasn't!

So, had the Californian gotten the distress signals properly it is feasible to say, Californian crew should have rushed to the scene of the wreck at utmost speed? I think, not before they made sure that they could indeed make it there safely. Do you imagine the commotion and mayhem if the Californian had an accident on their way to the Titanic? Would have the Carpathian come to the aid of the Californian first if they had reached them first, delaying rescue efforts to the original Titanic distress signal? It would have been a disaster (at a much higher scale).

And to finish this off, of course the Californian Captain's story could/would differ, it was the middle of the night. Thoughts are not very clear when you are awakened and there are things that are not apparent right away when you wake up the next morning. Secondly, he did not know what was happening at the time with Titanic. It is hard to go back to try to figure out "what time", "was it before or after" or exactly "what he saw" if he saw anything at all... while the Carpathian's crew story would have been more direct, whoever took the signal was wide awake and knew exactly what was happening! (they were also the heroes of the story, how could heroes make any mistake!). Whether the Californian captain took the right route to arrive at the location of Titanic; I am sure he wanted to be safe. Something Captain Smith of the Titanic failed on; although to me he's a hero for doing the best he could; when it was apparent Titanic was going to sink. --Molokaicreeper (talk) 16:10, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

All of this is speculative. What should be stated is the result of the inquiries at the time, and what can and has since been substantiated in reliable sources. No other ship other than the Californian was in the vicinity, and so statements relative to this are not dubious, though they are indeed only statements of likelihood -- they could surely be sourced. What we have here is a case of WP:NOR in the negative -- let all view be stated, but stated as such. Clevelander96 (talk) 02:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Clevelander96 highlights the key point - the Californian story always has been speculative. Much of the problem stems from deficiencies in the standards of investigation and examination at the 1912 British Inquiry. The evidence chain is weak. There are too many details that were apparently never verified - numerous questions that were never asked. The list of unknowns is lengthy. -We don't have a clear understanding of the timekeeping aboard Californian because the questions were never asked. It's pretty certain there would've been a plan to retard the ship's clocks during the night of April 14th/15th. but we don't know when (or if) it was done. We know the apprentice was engaged in preparing a new logline for the distance register (mileometer) - but we don't know why. Was it because the original logline had failed and, if so, when had it failed ? We don't know if the compasses, or sextants, were routinely checked for errors. What type of binoculars were used on the bridge ? Were they in good condition - or were lenses old and worn ? Was the voicepipe between the bridge and the Captain's quarters adequate for clear communications ? ( Voicepipes were seldom perfect. On some ships they were okay - on others they could be worse than useless.) - Those are just a few examples of details which would have been useful to corroborate what witnesses said ! Norloch (talk) 21:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

According to the "Changes in Safety Practices After the Sinking of the RMS Titanic" article, the firing of rockets at sea was a common occurrence, used by liners to identify themselves to each other. It was not until after the sinking of the Titanic that it was agreed (by the Radio Act of 1912) that rockets at sea would denote distress only. I don't think that Lord's failure of the rockets, therefore, should be named an "incontrovertible conclusion", as it is in near the end of the 'aftermath' section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.210.14.105 (talk) 15:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes... it would be a more accurate portrayal of the situation to note that 'rockets' were (and still are) used at sea for purposes which aren't actual distress situations. It's apparent that several authors and others dealing with the subject are quite confused about the realities of this. The regulations don't actually state that 'rockets' must only be used exclusively for distress situations. What the regulations really say is that mariners must not use any kind of pyrotechnics, at sea, which could be mistaken for a distress signal. Pyrotechnics ( rockets, flares, star-shells etc.) are used at sea for a variety of purposes. On occasions, they are used for identification purposes - or as an alerting signal, to warn other ships to keep clear. ( sometimes, nowadays, rockets are also used to ignite the flare booms on deep sea drilling rigs during well testing.) Unfortunately, individuals using pyrotechnics for those purposes are just ordinary folk, with ordinary failings. They can sometimes be careless or casual or ignorant in the way that they use their pyrotechnics. That's the reality. That's how it was in 1912 and the situation is quite similar nowadays. Norloch (talk) 07:37, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the Californian gets an unfair rap. at least in terms of expectations. While rocket signals were considered possible distress signals, they were supposed to be spaced one minute apart. The Titanic's weren't. Also, the Titanic waited around an hour before initiating the rockets in the first place, making any response by the Californian problematic in terms of saving lives. The Titanic's bow was pointed toward the California and the ships may have actually been beyond each other's horizon, the fact that they could see each other being a product of refractive atmospheric conditions. The combination of these facts, well mainly the former one, produced a distorted view of the Titanic from the Californian's perspective such that it appeared to be a small freighter or some such...certainy not a gigantic ocean liner. If the Titanic had immediately upon sideswiping the iceberg simply turned broadside toward the Californian and used its unparalleled quantity of lights to issue an SOS signal, blinking them on and off, well, the Californian would have a front seat view of a tremendously sized passenger steamer both in the process of floundering and shouting to the world that fact. One would think from the Titanic's perspective the whole objective should have been getting the attention of the only ship in sight, given priority over accessing damage even. A finding that the ship has 1 to 2 hours of life left requiring 20 minutes of that time is an irrational luxury. They should have acted on the assumption of worse case scenario. Without sufficient lifeboats, the only hope was the off-chance of a nearby ship, which, as it happens, they were in luck - they could SEE one. If this had been done, there would have been no question, and the Californian would have taken immediate rescue operations pursuant to not endangering itself. Say give it a whole hour and half to cover the say 13-17 miles max? Case closed. No tragedy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.82.174 (talk) 23:27, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, some of the preceding remarks are even worse in terms of being speculative and unsourced. A Wikipedia article is not the place to debate our opionions! I am afraid the preceding comment by 75.139.82.174 is a particularly bad example. It is almost entirely speculation about what else Smith could have done to save his ship. It is also mostly irrelevant to the question of whether or not Lord should have responded to the rockets.

I would like to say, however, that many of these commenters have simply not read the main primary sources (the two enquiries), which answer a lot of your objections. Specifically:

1. The officers who fired rockets from RMS Titanic's bridge differentiate between the several types of signal available to them. They say they had two types of coloured pyrotechnics for signalling, but that they were only firing another type of signals that was specifically for distress. I do not know enough about the early history of marine distress signals to know how likely it is that another British Merchant officer would realise that these rockets were distress signals. However the men firing them evidently thought there would be no doubt that they were signs of distress.
2. The regulations actually specify "frequent intervals", not 1 minute (do we ignore drowning men if they have no stopwatch!?) At one point, the rockets were fired at approximately one minute intervals. The testimony does not quite spell this out, so you need to read it carefully; but there were three men firing rockets, and between them the spacing was somewhere around 1 minute. At one point -- but not the whole time -- Captain Smith personally co-ordinated this timing. Later, they slowed down to about 5 minutes.
3. Similarly if you do not notice that several men were firing rockets, it is easy to falsely conclude (as Lord Mersey did) that only a few rockets were fired. In fact the actual total seems to be between 18 and three dozen. This is much more reasonable sum when you realise the large number of distress rockets carried by Titanic, and the fact that after firing had proceeded for some time, at least two more boxes of them had to be fetched from stores.
4. Rocket firing commenced much less than an hour after the collision. That is about the time that Rowe started firing them, but Boxhall had begun long before then and already depleted the first locker. He started whilst the covers were being taken off the lifeboats, which was about 12:30.

Now a final remark, which in WP is considered OR, but is based on personal experience. Rockets can be seen much, much further than a ship's lights. However, at very long range you can't distinguish the colours. -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 13:00, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

As an observation on the above, - there was no evidence from Titanic survivors that 'rockets' were actually used to make any of the distress signals. ( They may well have used rockets, at some point, but Lord Mersey and the Inquiry barristers were surprisingly negligent in their efforts to establish precise details for the events - so we don't really know.) The term 'rocket' was used quite casually during the Inquiry and elsewhere, but what witnesses appear to have said was that signals were made using star-shells with detonators, fired from gun-metal tubes. ( In effect, it was a kind of mortar rather than a 'rocket' ). There were two of those tubes - one positioned on each bridge wing. The star shells served a combined purpose in that they gave a visual signal ( the typical star-burst flaring at altitude ) and also the regulation sound signal for distress ( i.e. a loud detonation from a gun, or other device, at intervals of one minute.) The firing times have some importance in that context. If they did employ star-shells to make distress signals then the correct procedure was to fire them at about one-minute intervals to comply with the sound signal requirements. Lord Mersey failed to clarify exactly what was done. There's nothing in the evidence to indicate that clearly recognizable distress signals were made in an orderly manner. (As an example - indicating distress by detonating a sequence of perhaps four or five star-shells at one minute intervals, then maybe pausing for about five minutes and thereafter repeating the distress signal - using the same sequence of star shells and time intervals.) Distant observers would have no difficulty identifying that as a series of distress signals. Anything else would have been a recipe for confusion. Norloch (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Reference note regarding "logbooks"

The article lacks clarity on the subject of British merchant ship log books and the type of information which is entered therein. On a British registered vessel of that period there would have been an Official Log Book (O.L.B.) which was entirely in the care of the ship's Master (i.e. Captain). The "Official Log Book" was part of the documentation supplied by the British Board of Trade, along with the crew Articles of Agreement and several other forms which dealt mainly with administrative and statutory matters aboard ship. The logbook and "scrap" log referred to during the British Inquiry was a different logbook which was often referred to as the "Mate's log" - or "Deck logbook" - or occasionally "Bridge Logbook " or "Company" logbook. This document was provided by shipping companies to make a detailed record of events during the ship's voyage and would normally include detailed navigational records, weather records, cargo information, ballast details, tank soundings and various other information according to the requirements of each shipping company. The "scrap log" was merely some form of rough notes which were jotted down as an 'aide memoire' as each watch progressed. It was intended to assist with the writing-up of the fair copy of the Company logbook. Following a 19th. century maritime court case, in which scrap log notes were used in evidence, it became the practice with many shipping companies to require their officers, aboard ship, to ensure that those rough notes were "scrapped" (i.e destroyed) as soon as the fair copy of the company logbook had been written. In 1912 that was the company policy of Leyland Line - the owners of SS Californian. 188.223.5.128 (talk) 19:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Feedback

Whilst appreciating that no article of this size can completely investigate the arguments surrounding Lord and his crew's actions either side of the Titanic sinking, I do think the article is fairly selective in its quotes and points. For example:

1) There is no mention of all about what a dubious witness Gill was. His remarks are simply repeated without examination or comment.

2) There's a reference to Groves sighting a large liner, but no reference is made to the fact that the other officers on Californian (notably Stone who at one point when asked if he thought this ship might have been Titanic said "not by any means") who observed this ship referred to it generally as a small steamer, or considered it to be about the same size as the Californian (which was nowhere near the size of a large liner!).

3) Quite where the idea that Stewart was acting on his own initiative when he went to wake up Evans comes from is a mystery to me, since Lord gave testimony at the British Inquiry that stated that it he told Stewart to do so.

4) There's several sentences (between "Also during the inquiries" and "might have been saved") which leave the impression that the Californian was closer than Lord claimed and potentially close enough to save lives. This ignores several salient points, such as the fact that Titanic was not actually at the spot she was broadcasting in her SOS messages, that several independent sources, not to mention the distances traveled and times given all but confirms Californian's stop position, not to mention the rough distance of 30 miles between where Titanic actually sank and where Lord said Californian stopped.

5) As far as I can recollect, Lord testified at the inquiries to knowing during the night that a rocket had been fired, not that multiple rockets had been fired. Its also somewhat unsupportable to claim that "rockets being fired in sequence, no matter their color, were to be interpreted as a distress signal". First of all the rules in place stated only that they had to be fired "one at a time in short intervals", and then usually in lieu of another method such as guns (with that in mind distress rockets usually made a very loud noise, which is another reason btw that the crew of Californian did not believe them to be distress rockets). Leaving aside the point that Titanic was probably firing two at a time, the plain fact is that rockets were often used for other reasons such as company signals. Cunard's for example were Roman Candles fired in quick succession, which can't have helped other ships trying to work out if they were in distress or not.

7) The concluding point about waking the wireless operator smacks of hindsight and doesn't take into account a proper discussion about whether the Californian's officers had good cause to suspect they had witnessed a ship in distress during the night. It also doesn't take into account the fact that wireless wasn't a universal thing on board ships at this time, Californian for example had only had one for a short time I think. It wasn't unknown for a ship of Californian's size to not have a set, or for that matter not use morse lamps.

That's just to name a few points, to be frank I'm rather surprised that the article cites Seanan Molony's excellent book as a source, since Molony does a pretty thorough job of demolishing the case against Lord and the Californian in general. It has some pretty in depth discussions on what lights where seen and when, and what rockets where seen by whom, and why they wouldn't necessarily have been taken to be distress rockets. Virtually no evidence in favour of Lord is offered by this article, despite there being some fairly convincing (if somewhat long winded) arguments in Molony's book. As it stands I think the article is too one sided to be a fair appraisal of the ship's role in the Titanic's sinking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Privatehudson (talk • contribs) 01:13, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

- Although you are right to note that the article does not quite cover all points of view. I would like to address some of your specific points here, by way of discussion:

1-3) in any article such as this, there are issues about which testimony is selected for quotation. If you think you need to add that Stone (when observing the vessel at a later point in the evening) was convinced the vessel was not Titanic, feel free to add some quotations (e.g., Q7863 from the British Enquiry). In any case, whether Stone thought he was seeing the Titanic or not, he and other crew on SS Californian saw a vessel firing several rockets.

4) The distance you claim between the California's stop position and the Titanic ('30 miles') is flat-out wrong and directly contradicted by Lord's own claimed stop position in the ship's logbook - I suspect this figure comes from a mistake made some years ago by Senan Molony. Even if we pretend that SS Californian had not drifted at all from it's stop position (which was in fact slightly S of that in the logbook, though the longitude was correctly calculated), the distance to the point where RMS Titanic hit the berg (which we can deduce from the location of the wreck, coupled with reasonable assumptions about current and drift) is about 17 nautical miles, and the distance to the point where Titanic foundered 21NM. In fact these distances would have been smaller, because Californian and the pack ice around it would have been also gradually drifting southwards.

5) At the British enquiry, Lord stated that he had only been informed of one distress signal ('rocket'), but he admitted at the US enquiry to being told first of a single rocket and then later being told of multiple rockets, when he was informed that the ship disappeared from view (Question/Answers 729 in the transcript). Stone and the other officers confirm that Lord was informed of multiple rockets. The business about rockets being used as company signals is often deployed in Lord's defence, and in fairness we can say that the officers on watch were uncertain as to their sugnificance, though they suspected these could be distress signals (Stone admitted as much, though he stated that the thought only occurred to him in the morning after he heard that the Titanic had foundered).

7) The point about wireless is fair.

As for the closing comments - 'Molony does a pretty thorough job of demolishing the case against Lord and the Californian in general' - he does nothing of the sort, and most of his claims were shown to be incorrect a long time ago. For a more balanced assessment, the recent 'Report into the SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal' by S. Halpern et al. can be consulted. There is no question that the Californian saw the Titanic (and sworn testimony from Californian deck crew shows that they saw around 8 of Titanic's rockets); however, due to a lack of proper communication of the information to Lord (and 2nd officer Stone is found to be particularly at fault here), action was delayed until the morning. The fact that Lord started as soon as he heard the news about Titanic, and crossed the pack ice twice, shows his character in the matter. That action was not taken sooner was down to inadequate communication and what might be called a lack of resource management - for these, Lord and Stone are culpable. The book also notes that even if SS Californian had started relatively quickly after Titanic started sending rockets (or wireless distress signals), she would certainly have not been in a position to save all those lost; perhaps an extra few hundred at most, due to the lack of crew on board Californian to man additional boats, the impossibility of Californian coming right alongside a sinking Titanic, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.54.38 (talk) 10:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

It's interesting to note all the points of detail for, or against, the culpability of Stanley Lord. However, I think his actual culpability is something which could almost be said to rest in the domain of that idiosyncratic Scots' verdict... i.e. the verdict of “ Not Proven ” .

Stanley Lord did give some credible reasons for his inaction. Whether the reasons he gave were true or false was a matter which needed to be tested in accordance with the law and that was never done. As noted, near to the beginning of this thread, Lord Mersey's investigation of the circumstances seems to have been less than competent. The 1992 MAIB report gave a brief opinion that the wording of Lord Mersey's conclusions would have made it difficult for the authorities to charge Stanley Lord and ensure that he received a fair trial. (It might also be said that any novice defense lawyer would have easily ripped the prosecution case to shreds - if that case was based on the meagre evidence gathered by Lord Mersey and his team.) So far as the article is concerned it's certainly worth stating that there are strongly polarised opinions about Stanley Lord but it's also worth considering that the blame for that is due to the omissions and failures of others. Regards Norloch (talk) 15:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

If Lord had known or suspected a ship was in distress he would have quickly raised steam and rendered assistance. He did not know or suspect. That's the point.

There was no reason for him not to render assistance. The signals were ambiguous and not recognisable for what they were. The most that can be said against Lord is that he was not curious or suspicious enough to find out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.9 (talk) 10:05, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Sources Please

While interesting, most of the above back and forth ignores the problem here. Much of this article does not meet Wikipedia standards with respect to sourcing. This has been noted for at least two years. There are several possible correctives. 1. Provide appropriate in line citations with generally accepted sources. 2. Substantially rewrite the text eliminating unsourced material. 3. Delete in their entirety those sections that are substantively unsourced.

Given that some years have elapsed without corrective action I propose to undertake option 3 unless the article is brought into conformity with Wikipedia standards within a reasonable period of time. As a matter of opinion, I think that given the two year time lapse since the problem was noted, "a reasonable period of time" should not be presumed to be more than three months from the current date. I don't want to be a jerk about it, but this article has major problems of long standing. It needs to be fixed.Ad Orientem (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I've had a crack at option 1, with a bit of options 2 and 3. Everything I've found sources for I've cited, which I would say was 80% of the tagged items. I deleted the rest. I'm frankly incredulous at the length of time some of the unsupported statements had stood for. Hands up, there was a paragraph by an anonymous user that was clearly based on a particular book (it was noted in the revision summary), but I don't have access to it and the whole text isn't in Google Books. Given that it had been up for several years, I'm not confident any citation is forthcoming and in my opinion the article doesn't suffer without it, so I deleted it. ElectricalTill (talk) 20:06, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Location of sinking - picture

There is a picture showing where the Californian sank in the Mediterranean. The problem is that this picture's right next to a paragraph that details the events of the night the Titanic sank, which is what the Californian herself is most notable for. Her own sinking is mentioned in the last paragraph of the article, way down the page, and this image is clearly an illustration for that paragraph; the way it's positioned now is misleading, especially with the current caption "Approximate location of sinking, off Cape Matapan (red dot)", which does not specify that this sinking is not the one that the vast majority of the article, and indeed the paragraphs directly next to the image, talk about.

While I'm sure there are a lot of knowledgeable readers who realize that this map cannot show the north Atlantic, it's easy to misinterpret the image, especially if one doesn't read through the whole text.

Sorry that I don't boldly change it myself; I have no idea how to place images, and I don't want to mess it up. 188.6.134.63 (talk) 14:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Now moved. Kablammo (talk) 20:29, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Distances

The conversions for distances appear to be from statute miles, not nautical miles. Is there any support for that in the sources? Kablammo (talk) 20:32, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

"Twenty–nine nations ratified the Radio Act of 1912, which required 24–hour radio watch on all ships in case of an emergency."

That sentence is clearly nonsense. The Radio Act of 1912 is a piece of American legislation; and countries do not "ratify" another country's statutes. I'll remove this. SchnitteUK (talk) 16:34, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

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Merger proposal

Formal request has been received to merge the article Cyril Furmstone Evans into SS Californian#Sinking of Titanic; dated: September 2018. Proposer's Rationale: This man's only notable life event was that he was the wireless operator aboard the Californian when it did nothing the night Titanic sank and unlike the captain, was not heavily criticized afterwards or suffered long-term consequences. His article has hardly any references and most of the content already exists in the ship's article anyway. Discuss here. Richard3120 (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Titanic's corrected position

As the Titanic's position is now known to have been 13 miles away from the one previously quoted, is it still correct to say that the Californian was the nearest vessel? Valetude (talk) 20:58, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Not sure about the context of the question because it has never been 'correct' to say that the “Californian” was the nearest vessel to “Titanic”. As noted in the article, Captain Rostron gave evidence in 1912 that the “Californian” was not the nearest vessel he observed, at daybreak, when his ship was at the rescue zone of “Titanic” survivors.

Rostron was perhaps not an entirely reliable witness in his report, but the 1992 MAIB report (which is also noted in the article) does reach the same conclusion – that “ SS Californian” was not the nearest vessel. Regards Norloch

While the absolute position of the Titanic has been shown to be not where it was originally thought to be, it's position relative to the Californian, the Carpathia and others remains the same. Captain Rostron's report of not sighting the Californian is five hours after the Titanic was struck. Captain Lord said they didn't move within the ice field, but the field itself probably moved, taking the ship with it. It's a shame we will never know for sure.  — Myk Streja ^(beep) 00:07, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Launch date?

Is the launch date given in the article, 26 November 1901, correct?

Just asking because I recently noticed a small item in a newspaper from June, 1899 that says the SS Californian passed Cape Race, Newfoundland on 8 June 1899.

The newspaper is in the Google newspaper archive and here is a link to it: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=M3ejUd6NZC8C&dat=18990609&printsec=frontpage&hl=en The item is on the last page and is just below an article with headline "ALARMING Situation in South Africa". It says (in part) "The S.S. Californian passed west at 3 p.m. yesterday." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.222.123.65 (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes it's correct, this ship was launched on 26 November 1901.There was a previous SS Californian in operation in 1899. Lyndaship (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2022 (UTC)