ss californian was the ship that was close to titanic when it sank.
what ship was close to titanic when it sank?
ss californian
stanley phillip lord (13 september 1877 – 24 january 1962) was captain of the ss "californian", the nearest ship to the "titanic" on the night it sank on 15 april 1912, and, depending on which sources are believed, likely the only ship to see the titanic, or at least its rockets, during the sinking. lord, and the californian more generally, have been criticized for the fact that the californian did not render timely assistance to the titanic. two official inquiries were critical of lord, but did not recommend criminal charges. subsequent authors have offered differing opinions on lord's actions, with some defending, and others criticizing him. the passion among the two factions has resulted in the labels of lordites and anti-lordites being applied to the two camps. central points of debate typically include the appropriateness of lord's response to the rockets, whether the californian and titanic were in fact visible to one another (and additionally the visibility of the rockets), the possible presence of one or more "mystery ships" that may have the ships seen by either the titanic or californian (assuming they did not in fact see each-other), and whether or not the californian could have saved any additional lives had it attempted to render assistance more quickly.
stanley lord
the white star line never envisaged that all of the crew and passengers would have to be evacuated at once, as "titanic" was considered almost unsinkable. the lifeboats were instead intended to be used to transfer passengers off the ship and onto a nearby vessel providing assistance. while "titanic" was under construction, an incident involving the white star liner appeared to confirm this approach. "republic" was involved in a collision with the lloyd italiano liner in january 1909 and sank. even though she did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers, they were all saved because the ship was able to stay afloat long enough for them to be ferried to ships coming to assist. this fact is what led to the harsh condemnation of captain stanley lord of , who both american and british inquiries into the disaster felt could have saved many if not all of the passengers and crew had she heeded the "titanic"s distress calls. in this scenario, "titanic"s lifeboats would have been adequate to ferry the passengers to safety as planned. however, it is worth noting that the ferrying of passengers between two ships would have been a long, arduous process even under the best conditions. it took "carpathia" well over four hours to pick up and account for all of "titanic"s lifeboats in the morning after the disaster. during the sinking of the aforementioned "republic" in 1909, it took nearly half a day to ferry all of her passengers to rescue ships, and during the sinking of the italian liner in 1956 it took nearly eight hours to ferry all her passengers to safety. both liners sank at a much slower rate, roughly half a day, in contrast to "titanic", which sank slightly shy of three hours after her collision with the iceberg.
lifeboats of the rms titanic