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“I Thought It Was a Narrow Shave”

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“I Thought It Was a Narrow Shave” 1 “I Thought it Was a Narrow Shave” A Revised Analysis of the Iceberg Encounter by Samuel Halpern At 10:00pm, ship’s time, Sunday night, April 14th 1912, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee took their watch up in the crow’s nest, replacing lookouts George Symons and Archie Jewell. Before Symons and Jewell left the nest, they told Fleet and Lee to keep a sharp lookout for ice and growlers in particular, repeating the orders they received from the bridge earlier that night. According to Reginald Lee, it was about “nine or ten minutes” after seven bells were struck that a dark mass was spotted out on the water ahead of the ship.1 When asked how far ahead of the vessel was the iceberg, Lee responded by saying, “It might have been half a mile or more; it might have been less; I could not give you the distance in that peculiar light.” When that dark mass was finally identified, Frederick Fleet was quick to react. He said to Lee, “There is ice ahead,” and immediately reached up and grabbed the lanyard of the lookout bell above his head and struck it three times to signal the officer on the bridge below that an object was sighted ahead. He then left his place on the port side of the nest and went behind Lee on the starboard side of the nest to get to the loud- speaking telephone that connected the crow’s nest with a loud-speaking phone in the wheelhouse. As Fleet would later recall, “I asked them were they there, and they said yes.” They then asked, “What did you see?” to which Fleet replied, “Iceberg right ahead.” They then followed with, “Thank you.” The person that answered the phone in the wheelhouse was Sixth Officer James Moody. According to Quartermaster Robert Hichens, who was at the wheel at the time, after Moody replied “thank you” on the phone, he went and called out to First Officer William Murdoch, the Officer of the Watch at the time, “Iceberg right ahead,” which was followed by Murdoch giving the order “Hard-astarboard” to Hichens who then responded by turning the wheel all the way over to the left. This action caused the steam-driven steering engine in the ship’s stern to swing the ship’s tiller all the way over to starboard. As a result, Titanic’s rudder was shifted a full 40° to the left causing the ship’s stern to swing out to starboard as the ship’s head veered over to port. When asked how long it was before receiving the helm order did he hear those 3 bells from the crow’s nest, Robert Hichens replied, “Well, as near as I can tell you, about half a minute.” Like Hichens, Fredrick Fleet was asked how long did he think he was at the phone calling down to the bridge. Fleet’s response was, “I suppose half a minute.” The two estimates, though highly subjective, were mutually supporting. According to Hichens, Titanic was heading N71°W (289°) by the steering compass before the helm order was received from Murdoch. He also claimed that the vessel had veered about two compass points (22.5°) to port before striking the iceberg, “she went to the southward of west” as seen on the compass. Of course, being in an 1 Bells were struck every 30 minutes during a four-hour watch period. During the 8pm to midnight watch, seven bells were struck at 11:30pm. 2 enclosed and shuttered wheelhouse at night, Hichens could not see the iceberg, but he could see the ship’s heading on the compass directly in front of him. Up in the crow’s nest, lookouts Fleet and Lee both saw the vessel turn to port before striking the iceberg. Fleet estimated that that ship changed her course from a direct line by “a little over a point, or two points.” Before that, he said that they “were making straight for it.” So once again we have mutually supporting evidence that the ship turned a very noticeable amount (between 1 and 2 compass points) to port before it struck the iceberg. According to Fleet, when the ship struck there was no jar or anything that was sufficient to disturb the two lookout men in the crow’s nest. There was just this “slight grinding noise” as he put it. Neither he nor Lee were alarmed. Fleet said, “I thought it was a narrow shave.” According to Lee, the ship “seemed to heel slightly over to port as she struck the berg.” Up in the nest it was hard for them to tell if the ship struck above or below the waterline, but they could hear a rending of metal right away. “It seemed to be running right along the starboard side.” As the berg passed by them, some ice was seen to fall onto the forecastle head and onto the forward well deck that was just behind them. When Fleet struck the lookout bell three times, Quartermaster Alfred Olliver was completing an errand at the standard compass platform amidships, making sure that the lights were burning properly in the compass binnacle. When he heard the three bells from the lookouts, he instinctively looked up and of course could see nothing ahead but the ship’s second funnel. According to his account, he left the platform and headed straight for the navigating bridge. He arrived there and “was just entering on the bridge” as the ship struck the iceberg, and heard “a long grinding sound” that lasted a few seconds. Olliver, along with others, described the collision as “a glancing blow.” He also was able to get a glimpse of the peak of the iceberg as it quickly passed aft of the starboard bridge wing. He said it was just a little higher than the boat deck. As he entered the bridge he saw First Officer William Murdoch by the control switch that closes the twelve watertight doors down on the tank top in the machinery spaces. Prior to entering the bridge area he did not hear any helm orders, nor did he mention hearing the engine-order telegraphs ring. If such orders were given it was well before he arrived on the bridge. He did however, hear Murdoch issue a hard-aport helm order but only after the iceberg had passed aft of the bridge. The account of Olliver is predominate to unlocking the timing of events that took place that night. Not because of any answers he gave with respect to how long some event took place, which at best would have been very subjective, but because we can use his whereabouts at two key event points to get a fairly good estimate of the duration in time between them. Those two points is his being at the standard compass platform amidships when those three bells were struck, and his entering the navigating bridge as the ship made contact with the iceberg. What does this tell us? From the plans of the ship we know the distance that Olliver had to cover to get from the compass platform to the bridge over the likely path he would have taken. We also have a good idea as to how long in time it would have taken him to cover that distance based on studies of 3 pedestrians crossing busy intersections after allowing for some reaction time as well.2 The likely route that Olliver would have taken that would have allowed him to see the peak of the iceberg pass by as he entered the bridge by simply turning around is shown in Figure 01 below. The distance that he had to cover was close to about 250 feet. Fig. 01 – Likely path of QM Alfred Olliver. Assuming a brisk walking pace between 5 and 6 ft/sec, and allowing for some reaction time, it is estimated that somewhere between 45 to a little over 50 seconds would have transpired from the time that 3-bells were struck up in the nest to when the ship struck the iceberg. Now to get the time that the “Hard-astarboard” order was issued, we need to apply the amount of time it would take for the ship’s head to fall off a certain number of degrees before making contact with the iceberg. Figure 02 shows the change in heading versus time for an Olympic-class vessel steaming initially at 22.5 knots with the helm put hard over to starboard (left full rudder) at T = 0. Fig. 02 – Heading Vs. Time. 2 The 85th percentile of crossing speeds ranged between 1.54 and 1.85 m/s (5.1 to 6.1 ft/sec). Ref.: A. Bansal , T. Goyal, U. Sharma, “Modelling the Pedestrian Speed at Signalised Intersection Crosswalks for Heterogeneous Traffic Conditions,” Promet – Traffic & Transportation, Vol. 31, No. 6., 2019. 4 The above was based on a study of the turning characteristics of these Olympic-class vessels from which the turning circle, advance, transfer, drift angle, and tactical diameter were derived for an initial ship’s speed of 22.5 knots.3 These parameters, and the resulting turning circle, are shown in Figure 03 below. Fig. 03 – Titanic’s turning circle and turning parameters. As previously stated, according to QM Hichens, Titanic had turned about 2 points (22.5°) to port by the time the ship struck the iceberg. According to Lookout Fleet, she turned between 1 and 2 points (11.25° and 22.5°) before the ship struck. If we accept Hichens’ account and then apply that to the turning data for Titanic we get a picture of the ship striking the iceberg about 37 seconds after the helm order in the area of the peak tank on her starboard side with the iceberg located well over on the port side of the ship’s initial extended centerline.
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