re: #346 Mich-again

The Carpathia’s Captain was truly awesome that night. When he heard what was going on… I’ll let Wikipedia detail the events.

The Carpathia was on its regular route between New York City and Fiume when early on 15 April 1912 she received a distress signal from the White Star Line ocean liner RMS Titanic, which had struck an iceberg and was sinking. Rostron was asleep when Carpathia’s’ wireless operator, Harold Cottam, contacted Titanic at 12:15am to relay regular private party wireless traffic from Cape Race. The sinking Titanic, which had struck an iceberg approximately an hour before, replied with a distress message and call for help. Cottam ran to Rostron’s cabin to alert him.

Rostron immediately ordered the ship to race towards the Titanic’s reported position, posting extra lookouts to help spot and maneuver around the ice he knew to be in the area. About 58 nautical miles (93 km) separated the Carpathia from Titanic’s position, but the Carpathia was not the closest ship to the Titanic, it was the Californian, Captain Lord saw the distress signals but thought there was a party going on at the Titanic and also their radio was turned off, so they did not receive the distress signals. Rostron and his engineering crew skillfully obtained the maximum speed possible from the Carpathia, coaxing her up to 17.5 knots - three and a half more than she was rated for. Even so, Carpathia, travelling through dangerous ice floes, took about 3 hours to reach the Titanic’s radioed position. During this time Rostron turned off heating to ensure the maximum amount of steam for the ship’s engines and had the ship prepared for the survivors; including getting blankets, food and drinks ready, and ordering his medical crew to stand by to receive the possibly injured survivors. Altogether, 23 orders from Rostron to his crew were successfully implemented before Carpathia had even arrived at the scene of the disaster.

He went 25% over the Top Speed of the Carpathia to get there. He probably damaged the engines of that small liner to haul ass there. Definitely the best person involved in the disaster.