Sinking - Titanic Connections

The Collison: 11:39 PM to 11:41 PM

High up in the crow’s nest, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee are doubtlessly looking forward to being relieved for the 12am-2am watch, although their watch will be extended just over 20 minutes to account for the setback of the clocks at midnight by 47 minutes. This change is divided between the two watches as evenly as possible, with one watch extended by 23 minutes and the other by 24. Scanning the dark horizon where the stars merge into the sea, Fleet suddenly sees a shape looming directly ahead of the onrushing liner. Tugging immediately on the cord of the crow’s nest bell three times to indicate an object dead ahead, Fleet then reached for the phone connecting them to the ship’s bridge. Sixth Officer Moody answers the call after a moment, calmly asking the lookout what he has spotted. “Iceberg, dead ahead, sir,” or some slight variation of this, is shouted back to Moody by Fleet. It is likely that by the time Fleet and Moody’s brief conversation had concluded that First Office Murdoch had also seen the ice from the bridge wing and had begun swinging into action.

"There's talk of an iceberg ma'am..."
Steward Bishop

Murdoch, Moody, and Quartermaster Robert Hichens take the following actions in quick succession to try and avoid a tremendously damaging collision with the iceberg staring them down:

Rushing onto the bridge, Murdoch orders “Hard-a-starboard!” Under the tiller helm commands of the time, this would cause Hichens to turn the wheel counter-clockwise and the ship’s bow to swing slowly to port.
At roughly the same time, Murdoch grasped the handles of the engine telegraphs and set them to “All Stop” for all of the ship’s engines. This is often incorrectly portrayed as Murdoch ordering the engines “Full Astern,” which would have been a jarring “crash stop” maneuver that would not have escaped the notice of all aboard.
Moody observed Hichens as the latter man spun the wheel as fast as possible. Once the wheel hit against its stop, Moody reported to Murdoch that his order had been carried out and that the helm was hard over.

The three, along with the two lookouts in the crow’s nest, waited breathlessly to see if they’d acted in time. Titanic’s bow slowly, inexorably began to swing to port. Her stem cleared the side of the iceberg, which now began to pass along the ship’s starboard side. As stokers raced to shut dampers and engineers worked feverishly to close down the supply of steam to the liner’s engines, those watching far above must’ve felt like they’d narrowly missed the ice. Murdoch was well known as a cool shiphandler and had acted heroically in previous circumstances to save his ship from disaster.

This time, however, he was just a little too late. Chunks of ice broke from the iceberg and began cascading onto the forward well deck. A distant bumping and grinding noise transmitted itself to the men on the bridge, indicating that the ship was striking against the ice. His heart probably sinking, Murdoch rushed to the controls for the watertight doors and had them begin closing. He then ordered the helm “hard-a-port” in a fishtail maneuver to ensure that the giant liner’s stern would swing clear of the ice. As the berg passed the bridge, the grinding and bumping ceased and the ship and ice parted ways. The ice receded into the moonless night.

Below, Titanic was mortally wounded. Her forepeak, three cargo holds, and forwardmost boiler room were taking on water. Designed to float with her first four compartments open to the sea, Titanic had now exceeded that by one compartment.

The largest and safest ship afloat was going to sink.

The times represented in the sinking timeline are approximations based on triangulation and extrapolation from survivor accounts and other primary source evidence. While there is no way to be exact about what minute something occurred in most cases (with the notable exception of wireless transmissions that were logged by other vessels and by land stations), the sequence of events is accurate and the times given are a good approximation of how events unfolded over the period of time that the ship sank. What is presented here represents the best efforts of researchers and historians, including this author.

14 April 1912

11:41 PM

Iceberg right ahead!

Artwork: Impact moment. RMS Titanic April 14, 1912 by Anton Logvynenko.

As Titanic glides to a stop, her bow now facing a little west of north, passengers become aware of the absence of the rhythmic thrum of her engines, part of their lives since they boarded. Captain Smith emerges on to the bridge to meet Fourth Officer Boxhall and First Officer Murdoch, inquiring as to what had happened. Murdoch explains that the ship has struck an iceberg and details his actions to avoid it. Boxhall is sent below immediately to check for damage. Also around this time, J. Bruce Ismay becomes aware that the ship is stopping and imagines that she may have thrown a propeller blade, an occurrence not uncommon for liners at sea and that Olympic had recently encountered on one of her voyages.

14 April 1912