why did it take so long for a rescue ship to get to titanic?

Answer 1

I think it was the speed at which the Titanic sank that was more of the factor. The rescueing ship just happened to be fairly close for the middle of the ocean, and arrived as fast as they could without sinking their ship. The rescue ship went to lend aid as soon as they recieved notification that there was trouble.

Answer 2

The closest ship, the California, had turned its radio off because its radio operator had gone to sleep. The next nearest ship was miles away and it took some time to respond, but came eventually. However, the distance was so far that the ship could only promise to save any survivors.

Answer 3

One reason is thet the Californian saw the distress rockets but thought they were fireworks from a passenger ship on which people were making whoopee. Further, the Titanic broadcast the new SOS code for an emergency and that wasn't recognised immediately.

Answer 4

Titanic,

At approximately 12 p.m. on April 10, 1912, the new Royal Mail Steamer Titanic, flagship of the White Star Line, cast off from Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage to New York. She stopped at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, picking up additional passengers and mail, as well to debark cross-channel passengers.

http://web.titanicinquiry.org:81/index.html

http://www.webtitanic.net/menu.html

http://www.titanic-titanic.com/index.shtml

http://www.historyonthenet.com/Titanic/crew.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic

http://www.britannica.com/titanic/

http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmah/titanic.htm

http://titanic.gov.ns.ca/

A bit of fun

http://www.angryalien.com/0604/titanicbunnies.html

Good luck.

Kevin, Liverpool, England.

Answer 5

It would be several hours for the Carpathia to reach the Titanic since it had to travel at full speed through the same iceberg field where the Titanic sunk. Ships of that size are of large capacity but move relatively slowly. They were steam powered.

Answer 6

http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/carpathia.html

Here is a good article on this. Read up, some good info. Mostly due to the technology available for navigation (the stars) and the technology to place a location was really a guess...based on speed and heading should put you in a certain spot........then there is drifting...the location reported by Titanic may have been largely correct, but Titanic was DIW and drifting away from her reported location.

Answer 7

Distance to travel coupled with the limited scope of navigation at the time. The world did not have GPS or even LORAN. What it had was time traveled and speed to give you approximately where you were from the equator. You took star sightings to find latitude or distance from the Greenwich meridian. Therefore the world did not know their exact position. The other ships did not know their own positions for certain. Where do you head if you do not know your position in relation to theirs?

Answer 8

because they were in the middle of the ocean and the ships weren't as good back then in 1912

Answer 9

because they are so far on the ocean middle of somewhere where theres noone can rescue them faster

Answer 10

I think because they were so far out in the ocean....