What if the ship did not hit the iceberg, would it of got there and went back?

-- Ally Anderson (foo@bar.com), August 24, 1998

Answers

Hello Ally:

I think I understand your question but am not %100 sure. Had the ship missed the iceberg that sank her, I believe she would have hit the 20 mile long (or so) field ice floe that was ahead of it. This would be the same floe that caused the Captain of the Californian to stop for the night rather than try to get around the ice in the dark. The end result may have been different had that happened but none the less, at that speed and under those conditions, Titanic was bound to hit ice one way or the other.

Regards, Peter

-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), September 01, 1998.

One of the best shots from the recent two-part miniseries was a shot of (relatively) small pieces of floe ice being tossed about by Titanic's bow wave. It takes place about (IMHO) twenty minutes *before* the big collision. There's been speculation that the lookouts *did* see floe ice before the big collision (can't remember the exact citation).

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Ally: Titanic would have had a long career of Atlantic crossings (barring submarine attack in World War I).

-- Thomas M. Terashima (titanicshack@yahoo.com), September 02, 1998.