QUESTIONED ABOUT CONDITIONS ON MOONLESS NIGHT.
Two other seafaring men of long experience, who have many nights sat in the crow’s-nest of a liner and watched the course, were asked how far an iceberg the size of the one that the Titanic struck could be seen on a clear night without a moon, a condition on which all of the survivors seem to agree was present the night the Titanic was sunk.
One of these men said at least one mile, the other at least two miles. So the fact remains that Murdock was supposed to be on the bridge keeping a strict lookout and not depending on the crow’s-nest; that he could have seen the iceberg when it was at least a mile from the vessel, and that the Titanic could have been easily turned sufficiently in her course to avoid the berg within a mile.
The surviving passengers are unanimous that the “unbelievable” happened. The voyage had been pleasant and uneventful, except for the fact that it was being made on the largest and most magnificent vessel that ever sailed and for the keen interest which the passengers took in the daily bulletins of the speed.
The Titanic had been making good time and all accounts agree that on the night of the disaster she was apparently going at her usual rate—of from 21 to 25 knots an hour.
J. H. Moody, the quartermaster, who was at the helm, said that the ship was making twenty-one and that the officers were under orders at the time to keep up speed in the hope of making a record passage.
These orders were being carried out in face of knowledge that the steamer was in the vicinity of great icebergs sweeping down from the north. That very afternoon, according to the record of the hyrographic officer, the Titanic had relayed to shore a wireless warning from the steamer Amerika that an unusual field of pack ice and bergs menaced navigation off the Banks.