SS Californian

at 11.40pm. At 12.15am, 35 minutes later, she started broadcasting distress signals.

A nearby British Leyland line vessel, the SS Californian, SS stands for steamship, which I didn't know.

Toot toot.

It was around 10 miles away, so actually really close.

Unfortunately, their radio operator had gone to bed after a conversation in which the Titanic's radio operator had told him to shut up because he was busy sending messages for rich people.

So there was no one on board the California manning the radio to hear the distress.

However, crew on the Californian actually did have visual contact with the Titanic, saw it firing distress rockets.

Eight white distress rockets went up sometime between 12.45 and 2 a.m.

They got numerous warnings about icebergs throughout the night.

And the last one they got was from a nearby ship called the Californian, but it was ignored and not brought to the captain.

Okay, wait, why?

Okay, this is going into the weeds on this communication, but it's kind of important, so bear with me here.

The Californian was the closest ship to the Titanic that night.

And with these radio transmissions, the closer you got, the louder your transmission is.

And on top of that, this early radio technology was like a Zoom where no one was muted, you know? So if several people tried to talk at once, no one could understand anything.

It froze.

All of us probably know that, but what many of us probably don't know is there was actually another ship already ahead of the Titanic.

It was called the SS Californian.

And the Californian radioed back to the Titanic with the words, Danger, ice ahead.

Did you know that? Californian radioed to the Titanic, Danger, ice ahead.

Unusual atmospheric conditions made the Titanic look like a smaller ship, and that first mistake shaped everything that followed.

I'd love to hear more about the Californian and what happened there.

Like, what was that ship?

You've asked the right question there, because that, I believe, is genuinely for anyone the most fascinating part of this, because it's, it's so counterintuitive.

The way you judge distance at night at sea is by the relative height of the vessel to the horizon.

So if a vessel is what we call hull down, a sailor will think, "Oh, that's 15 miles away.

That's 12 miles away." Okay? If a vessel is on the horizon, they'll think, "Oh, it's 10 miles away." If a vessel is halfway between the horizon and, and what you're looking at, they'll think, "Oh, that's five miles away." Because of the raised horizon that was caused by the very cold air that night that was caused by the ice, the Titanic that was actually on or just beyond the horizon, because the horizon was raised, if you like, behind Titanic, 'cause Titanic was only 10 miles away and the horizon's, like, 80 miles away that night, Titanic looked as though, it's very important to understand, in the dark Titanic appeared as though she was halfway between the Californian, a would-be rescue vessel, and that ship.

Now, they then decided, this is just gets completely bizarre, but if Titanic is 882 feet long, which it is, call it 800 feet for ease, it was actually an 800-foot ship 10 miles away.

So did Captain Smith.

The freighter was the Californian and Morgan owned that one too.

It left five days ahead of the Titanic with no passengers, but a cargo of 3,000 wool sweaters and 3,000 blankets.

3,000 sweaters and blankets, huh? That's either a rescue or, or somebody's grandma has a serious problem.

Morgan made sure they were on this ship.

Each man got a personal invitation and each was told that Morgan would be sailing too.

The Californian wasn't the only ship Morgan sent.

He sent another one out ahead of it running dark.

Um, and some say that one of the reasons that ships didn't come to respond was because between the CQD and the SOS and the flares that they sent up and the bias that after all, the Titanic was unsinkable, that people made the assumption that the Titanic was just having a party.

In fact, about an hour or so before that, the SS Californian tried to send a note, um, a ice warning note to the Titanic.

The Titanic was sending out Marconigrams.

These were little telegrams that the luxury passengers could send to their family and their friends back at home to boast that they were on the ship.

Wireless technology allowed contact, but it did not guarantee coordination.

One ship, the Californian, lay relatively close, possibly within 10 to 20 miles.

However, her wireless operator had gone off duty for the night and the ship did not receive Titanic's distress calls in time.

The Californian's crew observed rockets in the distance, but did not interpret them as distress signals.

This gap between observation and understanding would later become a focal point of investigation and controversy.

The wireless room aboard Titanic grew increasingly crowded as officers and messengers arrived with updates and questions.

The lack of a centralized system for prioritizing navigational warnings became apparent.

Wireless technology had advanced faster than procedures governing its use.

And this had been going on for the best part of eight weeks and the coal stocks had virtually gone.

Now, in addition to that, a ship left London, not Southampton, where the Titanic went from, A ship left London called the SS Californian, which was part of the Red Star Line, again owned by Morgan.

It left a few days before Titanic.

It was a lot slower than Titanic.