Posted on 08/29/2007 5:18:09 PM PDT by wagglebee
It looks for all the world like an ordinary key but this unremarkable piece of metal could have saved the Titanic from disaster.
It is thought to have fitted the locker that contained the crow's nest binoculars, vital in detecting threats to the liner lurking in the sea in the pre-sonar days of 1912.
Catastrophically for the Titanic and the 1,522 lives lost with her, the key's owner, Second Officer David Blair, was removed from the crew at the last minute and in his haste forgot to hand it to his replacement.
Without access to the glasses, the lookouts in the crow's nest were forced to rely on their eyes and only saw the iceberg when it was too late to take action.
One, Fred Fleet, who survived the disaster, later told the official inquiry into the tragedy that if they had had binoculars they would have seen the obstacle sooner.
When asked by a US senator chairing the inquiry how much sooner, Mr Fleet replied: "Enough to get out of the way."
The key and its importance has only properly come to light 95 years later after it was put up for auction.
Alan Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Sons in Devizes, Wilts, said: "We think this key is one of the most important artefacts from the Titanic to have come to light.
"A few days before the Titanic sailed, Mr Blair was bumped off the ship, a decision which probably saved his life.
"But in Blair's rush to leave the Titanic he carried this key off with him in his pocket and forgot to hand it to his replacement, Charles Lightoller.
"Obviously he only realised this after the Titanic had left Southampton and kept the key as a memento. But had Lightoller had the key then there probably would have been a pair of binoculars in the crow's nest.
"It is the key that had the potential to save the Titanic."
Mr Blair, 37, from Broughty Ferry, Forfarshire, sailed on the Titanic from Belfast to Southampton on April 3, 1912.
He had been due to be the second officer for the Titanic's voyage to New York on April 10. But the White Star Line, the ship's owners, removed Mr Blair and drafted in Henry Wilde, a senior officer from sister ship, the Olympic, because of his experience of such large liners.
He wrote of his disappointment in a postcard he sent to his sister-in-law days before the Titanic left Southampton. In the card, which is also up for auction, he wrote: "Am afraid I shall have to step out to make room for chief officer of the Olympic.
This is a magnificent ship, I feel very disappointed I am not to make her first voyage." The 46,000-ton Titanic struck the iceberg in the north Atlantic at 11.45pm on April 14 and sank at 2.20am on April 15. Mr Wilde was among those who perished.
According to the US inquiry into the sinking, Mr Fleet recalled seeing Mr Blair with binoculars during the trip from Belfast to Southampton. Asked where Mr Blair's glasses went, Mr Fleet replied: "We do not know. We only know we never got a pair." Senator Smith, the chairman of the inquiry, said: "Suppose you had glasses… could you have seen this black object [at] a greater distance?"
Fleet: "We could have seen it a bit sooner."
Smith: "How much sooner?"
Fleet: "Well, enough to get out of the way."
Smith: "Were you disappointed that you had no glasses?"
Fleet: "Yes, sir."
Mr Blair, who was later awarded the King's Gallantry medal for jumping into the Atlantic to rescue a crewman, eventually passed the key on to his daughter Nancy. She gave it to the British and International Seamans Society in the 1980s.
Intriguingly, the key may not entirely unlock the Titanic mystery. According to an alternative account, it may have unlocked the crow's nest telephone.
It is expected to fetch up to £70,000 on September 22.
Semi-GGG Ping.
That’s part of what I meant. Titanic’s sinking resulted in some very valuable design and safety lessons.
Yes, more than often these disasters are what improves designs avoiding future disasters.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge being one of the most obvious.
If a valuable piece of equipment is inaccessible while at sea the Captain or anyone of rank can order any necessary steps to recover it for use up to and including cutting torches.
The locks of that era were easily breached and no doubt at least one member of the crew could have done it on command.
The whole line of reasoning sounds like something from a Monty Python sketch.
"Oh dear, we've locked the binoculars away, what shall we do?"
Best regards,
pimp my key bump
I don’t disagree at all.
Well said!
Including the lesson that the screws were too close together, probably too shallow and the rudder wasn't big enough.
Part of what doomed the Titanic was its sheer size, which was much bigger than any ship before the Olympic class. They didn't have experience operating such a behemoth. This was shown in an earlier collision when the ship, or perhaps it's sister, caused another ship in port to swing out toward it by the force of its movement in the water. Though as I recall Smith had captained an earlier ship that hit an iceberg he just didn't appreciate the danger. Indeed that earlier accident may have given him a false sense of security that he would come out of any iceberg encounter okay. Though some unaccounted for ships were probably lost this way over the years, without radio or even wireless no one was around to witness it. No one stopped to think how long it was going to take to swerve around an obstacle, or that the rudder was too small to work efficiently, or that throwing the engines in reverse would delay the effects of the rudder and cause a turbulence that worked against it. They would have been better to stop engines and ram right into it, bow first.
On the other hand, the conditions that night added to the circumstances that doomed Titanic. It was believed to be a black berg, and on a calm and moonless night it was very difficult to see. Not even the telltale white caps striking the berg at the waterline were there.
I am trying to remember the speculation about this factor is one of the books I read. I think it came down on the side of the advantages of binoculars, mostly as a barrier from the icy wet air that would have stung the lookouts' eyes more than any magnification. In any event, it's incredible there was only a single key, or really that they even locked them up at all.
I am thinking I remember that the crew thought the binoculars had been left in port. Maybe that was a story invented to shield this guy Blair. Anyway, there was some cannibalizing of Titanic for its sister Olympic after the collision caused repairs to be needed and parts were taken off Titanic at the yards and used for Olympic. Anyway, the bottom line is the crew didn’t realize how important they would turn out to be.
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removed Mr Blair and drafted in Henry Wilde, a senior officer from sister ship, the Olympic, because of his experience of such large liners.Not quite enough, apparently.
I seem to remember reading about the crews nest crew having binoculars during the trip. I don’t beleive this sstory, also why come out now? why not before?
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