[BITList] ah- so now we know

Mon Apr 2 23:02:36 BST 2012

I’m researching the subject, Hugh
for my  PhD dissertation on,  ‘How pure conjecture could have sunk the Titanic’. or “How to become an Expert and yet Know Fuck-all”
so far I have discovered the following.........

Key that could have saved the Titanic

The key believed to have fitted the locker that contained the binoculars for the crow’s nest 
By Graham Tibbetts

12:01AM BST 29 Aug 2007

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. 

So there is a small rusty key and all that is known for certain is that it has  a brass-looking tag imprinted with R.M.S.TITANIC.

So we then go from, ‘it is believed, could have, thought to have, if, we think, probably’ to ‘this key could have saved the Titanic’.............................WTF.

With nothing more than the above ‘may-be’s’, it is clear there is no provenance – but it is anticipated that someone will pay 70,000 pounds for it – egad.

this article is from 2007, but I don’t know if it was sold for any amount

I could make a pretty good facsimile of it myself. 

But there is more...

This appears to be a different key..

oh, OK – say no more, Provenance by direct descent..........................................WTF [again]. 

ct

From: HUGH 
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 10:29 AM
To: BitList 
Subject: Re: [BITList] ah- so now we know

Colin,

Sailing too fast .... for what?

No binoculars in crow's nest has been flogged to death - how do they know?

Radio message not passed on?  Source?

"Poorly cast wrought iron rivets"? I didn't know wrought iron could be cast.  There are wrought iron bridges still in good order.

Rivets "inserted by hand".  As opposed to what method?

If they must throw Titanic at us every five minutes, why don't they stick to the "human" angle based on real prople with nothing made up?  I managed to catch Episode 1 of Len Goodman's series on that theme, and I give him 11 out of 10.  It would have been 12 out of 10 had he not said she was launched by hydraulic jacks.

Hugh.

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