Titanic's Final Mystery Posted on 8/18/2019 at 16:33:26 by Bill Crawford, (14)
Last evening I happened to watch a TV documentary, entitled as above, on the Smithsonian Channel.
The documentary made a strong case (by a meteorologist) that the reason for the Titanic's lookouts failing to see the iceberg until it was too late to avoid a collision was the existence of a "cold water mirage"; this due to the Titanic's coming into the extremely cold water of the Labrador Current shortly before the collision.
The documentary pointed out that although the lookouts should have normally seen the iceberg--highlighted against the horizon on a bright starry night-- in plenty of time to avoid a collision, the cold water mirage "raised the horizon", effectively hiding the iceberg, until its sighting came too close so as to avoid a collision.
The Smithsonian documentary was particularly interesting to a Titanic buff such as myself.
Unfortunately, I was unable to copy it for re-play.
