Posted by Adam Leet on March 26, 2000 at 12:25:55:
In Reply to: Re: calafornian posted by Pete on March 26, 2000 at 08:40:50:
To my knowledge, and from what I have read, Californian was indeed shut down for the night. It is possible some of the furnaces were operational to provide heat for staterooms, but it is also possible they were running the accumulators for that purpose. In any event, she would have taken too long to rescue the survivors, considering the time needed to restart the engines from a cold state, and navigating a dangerous ice field, which they took three hours in daylight to get through to rendevous with the Carpathia. No, Californian could not have rescued anyone, except those in the lifeboats, had she responded to the rockets.
As another point, the first distress rocket was fired between 12:45 and 1:00. This leaves about 1 hour and 20 minutes before Titanic sank. Had Californian responded immediately, she would have taken approximately 45 minutes from engine start to arrive, not counting engine restart time.
Any other input?
Adam