The trip up on the Flying Fish was uneventful. Many got quite dried off in the engine room and nearly all regained much of their normal composure. There were comparatively few who were in dire distress.
The illustration opposite this page shows the lifeboats as I found them in the slip beside the Cunard wharf on Saturday morning. I called the attention of the newspaper men who had cameras to these boats, and I was glad to see them take the picture. If they hadn’t done so I should have had it done, for to me this is a very pretty piece of evidence. The picture reproduced here is taken from one of the London dailies.
I think it would be well for the Cunard Line to explain how lifeboats that are supposed to hold people, should be brought into port carrying so much dunnage. Look at the oars and sails that were left in these boats, occupying space that could have been better used for carrying human freight! I climbed through each one of these boats, and they all showed evidence of having been used by survivors. You will notice that some of the boats are stripped of all extra fittings, and these probably carried their proper quota of human freight. There are but five of the boats in this picture; the sixth was in another slip.
Evidence has been given that the first torpedo crippled the engines so that it was impossible to reverse the screws and bring the steamer to a stop or slow her down to a point where the captain judged it safe to lower the boats. All right, if that is the opinion of an experienced seaman I shall not dispute it; but I should like to have a naval engineer estimate how much way there could have been on the steamer, say ten minutes after she was struck, even if the engine room wasn’t able to reverse the screws and bring her to a stop.
The Lusitania was of 32,000 tons displacement. She was going through the water at about 17 knots an hour. If you suddenly shut off that propulsion, giving her a list to starboard and a rapid settling by the head, I can’t believe she would be ranging ahead very fast after the first 10 or 12 minutes.