There was talk of why not try to make a run for the pack ice that was 5 or 6 miles away according to the radio reports they had. But the captain was criticized for running as long as he did and shoving more pressure into the hull breech. As for the offending iceberg it was miles behind when they stopped, and you could never get on it to begin with as it was taller than the ship. But all moot points, because when the captain realized from the damage reports that the ship was actually going to sink it was too late to do anything about it. The tragedy was not filling the first lifeboats to capacity. Hundreds more could have been saved. The mistake before that was not paying more attention to what radio reports they had of growlers and pack ice in their path and Ismay ( chairman of the board of White Star) actually suggesting they should try to outrun it and put on more speed. He was He** bent on getting in to NYC on time or before. Another fact I learned just this month was that the radio was inoperable about 7 hours before the striking of the iceberg, and the 2 radio operators (not employees of the ship line, but employees of Marconi radio company) had worked all evening to repair it. And had only gotten it going again a few hours before the strike. This caused them to be backed up with outgoing paying passenger radio traffic. This is what payed the bills and their salaries. And was part of the cause of the unpleasant radio exchange with the nearby ship California's radio operator. The message "shut up shut up I am working Cape Race" was sent his way, which angered him, and he turned of the rig and went to bed. In those days it was normal to only have 1 radio operator on board, if any at all. Titanic carried 2 and a very large 5KW spark rig. The California was less than 5 miles away, but did not hear the CQD call (forerunner to SOS) because the tee'd off operator had went to bed. Also it is alleged, and testified to by the one surviving operator (McBride) that the other operator, (cannot remember his name) had placed another ice warning message under his coffee cup and not delivered it to the bridge because he was so busy sending passenger traffic because of the backlog. All in all a comedy of errors all coming together for a great loss of life.. Please note, 100 years later, the sinking of the Concordia, another comedy of errors also resulting in loss of life. Live and learn?.. um.. not so much.
James K0UA
