Catastrophe, Complacency or Courage
In this article I would like to use the story of a tragic event in which three ships
played a part to illustrate three different approaches to danger
The first ship is probably the most famous passenger ship ever, but famous, not so
much for its size and luxury, but for its sinking;
RMS Titanic
Built in Belfast it was the world’s largest, most luxurious ship and deemed to be
unsinkable. But, at 2:20 on 15th April 1912, less than three hours after hitting an
iceberg, it sank with the loss of 1514 lives.
The Captain of the Titanic was Edward J Smith. Captain Smith wanted to crown
the honour of being in charge of this iconic ship on its maiden voyage by making
the crossing in record time. This desire to impress, together with his faith and trust
in the statement that the Titanic was unsinkable, were almost certainly significant
factors in the disaster that was to take place.
This is clear from the following facts.
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Despite 6 warnings of icebergs from other ships, he took no avoiding action
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He kept going at virtually full speed [top speed 23 knots -the actual speed
22.5 knots]
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The lookouts had no access to the binoculars, which were locked away.
The wireless operator (Jack Phillips)
Although he passed on most of the messages about icebergs; He repeatedly
ignored messages of icebergs from Californian culminating in a message “shut up,
shut up! I am working Cape Race”
[Cape Race was a radio relay station. The radio had gone down earlier in the day
and having now repaired it he was busy with a backlog] He did not pass on the last
and most specific report
It appears that he too believed that the ship was unsinkable and therefore that
these messages were non-urgent. He was too busy to give the warnings proper
consideration
But there were other factors that contributed to the scale of the disaster. For
example the number of lifeboats:There were 2,223 passengers and crew and each lifeboat could carry 65 people.
Therefore it would require a minimum of 32 lifeboats. The Titanic was able to carry
64 lifeboats with a total capacity to carry more than 4,000 people. But, there were
only 20 lifeboats on board. Therefore, if every lifeboat was launched filled to its
capacity the maximum number of people who could use the lifeboats was
only1300; leaving 1000 people without a lifeboat.
Was this because the Titanic’s owners trusted in a false promise? Did they take the
view; “Why put a full complement of lifeboats on an unsinkable ship?”
But it gets worse: the first lifeboat was launched 60 minutes after the iceberg with
only had 28 people on board, another had only 12 on board. Although the order to
‘abandon ship’ had been given, it seems that because there were no obvious signs
of imminent danger the passengers were reluctant to leave. This suggests that the
passengers believed the lie that the ship was unsinkable.
SS Californian (some of these facts are disputed)
The Californian,
Star lines also owned this ship. It was smaller and slower that Titanic (max speed
12 knots). Its Captain was Stanley Lord.
Time line for the Californian, commencing the evening of 14th April:
19:00
Wireless operator received reports of 3 large icebergs and later large ice
fields
22:21
Captain Lord decided to stop ship and wait until morning light [prudent]
23:00
Lord saw another ship and established that the Titanic was the only
other ship in the vicinity
23:30
Evans (radio operator) having tried to warn Titanic (and having been told
by the Titanic’s operator to ‘shut up’) switched off radio and went to bed
23:40
Titanic hit iceberg
00:15
(35 minutes after collision) First distress call was sent from the Titanic
but the Californian’s radio was turned off
00:45
2nd officer saw a white flash from nearby ship, followed at intervals by
eight rockets.
Apparently ships used different coloured rockets to identify which company they
belonged to. But white rockets meant distress
They tried to make contact with Titanic via Morse lamp. Because of lack of
response assumed that the light they had seen had been the flickering of the
masthead lamp [or so they later claimed]. Importantly and tragically, they did not
try to make contact by radio
They must have known that this other ship was the Titanic, did they also believe
that whatever the issue was, it could not have been life threatening because (after
all) the Titanic was unsinkable?
02:20
Titanic sank
05:30
2nd officer turned the radio on and discovered that Titanic had sunk
As soon as Lord discovered this he ordered that his ship head west, into the iceflow - away from the Titanic. Then they went towards the disaster sight.
08:30
Californian arrived at site of sinking too late to save anyone.
Why would Californian steer away from the Titanic before returning hours later??
Lord was trying to practice a deceit, to deny the truth, and present a lie.
He was trying to hide the fact that they were relatively close to the Titanic (visible to
each other) and had he acted properly could have been quickly on scene to save
many passengers. However he claimed that they were some 20 miles away. It is
suggested that Lord forced his crew (some at gun point) to falsify the log entries to
show that the Californian was a distance from the Titanic when it went down. Later
studies indicate that, had he acted promptly and properly, he could have saved at
least 300 lives.
Captain Lord might have protected his own ship from the danger of icebergs, but
he hadn’t saved himself; professionally his reputation and career were destroyed.
RMS Carpathia
The third ship was the RMS Carpathia, its captain - Arthur Rostron,
It was owned by the rival Cunard line and was en route for a Mediterranean cruise.
It was more than 58 miles away when they heard the Titanic’s distress call and yet
arrived at the scene of the disaster by 4:00 am.
Captain Rostron was in his cabin sound asleep when the ship’s radio officer Harold
Cottam received the distress call from the Titanic. Cottam dashed onto the bridge
to find First Officer Dean. He told Dean about the Titanic’s call for help, and without
taking the time to verify the story, they ran to Rostron’s cabin and burst in to wake
him and give him the dreadful news, that the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic was sinking.
Within minutes Rostron had summoned all his senior officers to the bridge and told
them what had happened to the Titanic. He advised them that they had four hours
to prepare for hundreds of survivors.
Captain Rostron then began to use the hours of travel time wisely and his planning
reads like a manual for rescuing passengers at sea.
The To-Do List he put together includes the following items;
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Order all off-duty crew members to be summoned
Chief Engineer to get as much speed as possible out of the ship.
Turn off steam heating to free up all available steam for more speed.
Prepare and swing out all lifeboats.
Set up electric lights along the ship’s hull.
Collect all stimulants and medications.
Set up first aid stations in each respective dining room. .
Ensure all survivors are given medical checks.
 Have soup, coffee, tea, and brandy ready for survivors.
 Convert larger public rooms into dormitories.
 Blankets and pillows to be collected from every available place.
 Allow every crewman to have hot coffees the night ahead
etc
Rostron told his passengers what had happened; that their pleasure cruise was
now a rescue mission. So whilst the Titanic’s passengers were dithering about
whether or not to leave their warm cabins, the passengers of the Carpathia were
already part of a mission to rescue them.
Initially Captain Rostron’s main interest was how fast could the Carpathia go?
According to its owners and builders the maximum possible speed was 14 knots.
Rostron had calculated that at this speed it would take 4 hours to reach the Titanic.
Determined to do better he sent every available stoker and deckhand down to the
engine room to shovel coal into the engine as fast as humanly possible. Their
efforts, combined with shutting off hot water and heating for the rest of the ship
meant all possible power was going to the engines. Gradually the ship’s speed
increased to 17 knots – 3 knots faster than her official top speed!
3 knots may not sound like much; but this fantastic 21% increase in speed ensured
that the Carpathia reached the people in trouble a full 50 minutes earlier than
planned. And 50 minutes, when you are in a small boat adrift in the freezing ocean,
is a very long time!
But they were also steaming at more than full speed into an area full of icebergs.
Titanic: The big lie that led to death.
The whole tragic story of the Titanic is one of people putting their faith in something
that wasn’t true. Call it a lie, a deception or misplaced trust.
They all put their faith in the ‘fact’ that the Titanic was unsinkable.
The ships owners, captain, crew and passengers believed this.
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The owners didn’t think lifeboats were necessary
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The Captain took no heed of the iceberg warnings
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The radio officer dismissed warnings and
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The passengers dismissed the ‘abandon ship’ order.
Captain, crew and passengers, having been told that the Titanic was not
unsinkable and was sinking, nevertheless they chose to suppress that truth.
In the epistle to the Romans Paul tells us how, even though the wrath of God is
revealed to people, they suppress the truth. The truth is that Jesus is Lord of all
and it is appointed for man to die once and then to face judgment. Refusal to
accept this truth will lead to an eternity in hell.
But people prefer to believe that:
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There is no God, or
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Science and evolution have the answers, or
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When you die you die, or
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They have earned a place in heaven by their good living
On the Titanic they thought that they did not need lifeboats because it could not
sink. Despite being told of the danger they were in, they refused to accept the truth
and preferred to stay in their current comfort, sailing at full speed towards
impending disaster,
Non-believers think that they don’t need a saviour because they refuse to accept
that they’re in danger. They prefer to stay in the comfort of their worldly lives, to
believe the lie, and therefore to head for eternal disaster, ignoring the ‘life boat’ of
the gospel.
The Californian
It is recorded that “The crime of Stanley Lord was not that he might have ignored
the rockets of the Titanic, but that he unquestionably ignored someone’s cry for
help”
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We know that he was aware of the danger of the icebergs because he took
action to try and protect himself and his ship.
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He made a token effort to warn the Titanic of the danger.
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Having tried and failed to get Titanic to appreciate the danger, but secure in
the knowledge that he was safe, he felt that he had discharged his
responsibilities
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He allowed the radio to be switched off then he retired to a warm
comfortable bed
You may feel some sympathy for Captain Lord and his crew; they did after all try to
warn the Titanic. But when we examine their actions we see that they were really
only token efforts, they never really did anything.
How many people who like to think of themselves as Christians are really like
Captain Lord?
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They believe that they have taken the necessary steps to secure their own
salvation.
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They may make some token effort to warn non-believers,
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But basically do the spiritual equivalent of Captain Lord;
switch off the radio and retire to a warm comfortable bed.
We know that many people do not appreciate being told the gospel.
They may do the equivalent of the radio operator and tell us “shut up I’m busy”. Do
we also ‘turn the radio off and retire to bed’?
Captain Lord realised too late that the Titanic had indeed been in danger.
Perhaps it’s a bit like attending the funeral of a non-believing friend or colleague.
Carpathia - Captain Rostron
The Captain, 1st Officer, radio operator, all recognised the danger and urgency and
took decisive and immediate action.
There was a period when the passengers on the Titanic did not accept that they
were in danger, whilst at the same time the Carpathia knew of their plight and had
already started its rescue mission.
That strikes me as similar to the position I was in before I became a Christian. I
didn’t accept that I was in danger, like the passengers who didn’t get into the
lifeboats. I didn’t believe it when people told me I was in spiritual danger. But at the
same time, like the Carpathia steaming to the rescue, people were already involved
in my spiritual rescue mission by praying for me.
The Carpathia’s crew did everything that they could to prepare themselves for the
forthcoming encounter with people who needed saving. Captain Rostron made
sure that his crew would be fit for purpose when they arrived.
Knowing that we will encounter people who need saving, we too should prepare
ourselves. How can we make sure that we are fit for purpose?
In John’s gospel (5:24) Jesus says “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and
believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has
crossed over from death to life. Similarly in 1Corinthians (15:2) Paul reminds us
that “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to
you...” and again, in 2 Timothy (4:2) he tells us to “Preach the Word; be prepared
in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience
and careful instruction.”
We need to acknowledge that it is God’s word that saves people and we should
therefore make ourselves as familiar as we can with His word, in the Bible.
Similarly Peter tells us “... set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be
ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess. Yet do it
with courtesy and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15)
Peter is telling us that we should be prepared to explain to people why we are
Christians. Their questions shouldn’t take us by surprise. This doesn’t mean that
we need to have a deep theological knowledge; it simply means that that we are
clear in our own minds (and hearts) why we love Jesus, why we trust Jesus, why
we worship Jesus.
There are three elements to this, each building on the other.
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We should believe in hearts that Jesus is Lord
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Use our minds to understand why it is we believe
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and explain it with our mouths
It seems to me that it the final bit that is the stumbling block for many of us; actually
telling people. It’s a strange thing, but very many people in our culture (myself
included) seem to have a built in perception that by telling others of our faith we will
somehow offend them and make them think less of us. In some cases this is true,
but frequently it isn’t.
Remember Evans, the Californian’s radio operator. He was told by Titanic’s
operator to ‘shut up I’m busy” and (by implication) ‘I don’t think I’m in danger’. We
don’t know why he wasn’t more persuasive, but perhaps he too was influenced by
this culture of ours. Imagine how he must have been haunted by that fact that he
didn’t try harder to warn him.
Looking at this tragic event we see three different approaches to danger;
Titanic - Although they that were in real and imminent danger, they preferred to
stay in the warm comfort of their current situation. They believed the lie that
nothing can harm them. They ignored or dismissed the warning of real and
imminent danger and carried on blindly to disaster
Californian - They were aware of the danger that they faced and took action to
protect themselves. They made token efforts to warn others of the danger, but in
the end did nothing and were not only content in the warm comfort of their own
current situation, but probably felt content that they had discharged their
responsibility. They realised too late that they were wrong; they hadn’t fulfilled their
responsibility at all. Had they acted as they should some would have been saved.
Carpathia - Even though they represented the competition to the Star Line, they
recognised the real and imminent danger. They put aside their own warmth and
comfort, prepared themselves for the rescue, put all efforts into the rescue and
even took risks.
So; three ships, three captains, three analogies
Titanic / Californian / Carpathian
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Suppressing the truth, believing the lie and blindly heading for disaster
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Looking after number one, making a token effort to warn others, but doing
nothing. And having to face the consequences of doing nothing.
OR
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With no thought for themselves or their comfort, did everything in their power
to try and save as many as possible
Which of these most reflects you?
Tony Thomas