2023-08-10 06:45:00
HISTORY OBJECTS. A few weeks after the shipwreck of the liner on April 10, 1912, Captain Pouliot, in charge of recovering the bodies of the castaways, fished out a buoy which was floating benignly.
By Marielle Brie On April 4, 1912, the Titanic leaves the port of Southampton, England, for its final voyage. © SOUTHAMPTON CITY COUNCIL / AFP Published on 08/10/2023 at 06:45
A sardonic response to the excessiveness of the Belle Époque, the buoy that survived the Titanic is, like the iceberg, a placid and cruel provocation. It is a pity that the sponsors of the liner did not know their mythology better. The fate of the Titans should have chilled them, they who were chained in Tartarus “where one never enjoys either the rays of the high sun or the breeze”, as Homer sings so well. Nothing better describes the seabed of the North Atlantic where, on April 14, 1912, the Titanic whose rare material evidence is a lesson in philosophy.
At the dawn of this fantastically human disaster, two men embody two possible destinies of the Titanic. Alexander Montgomery Carlisle, general manager of shipyards in Belfast and responsible for fittings and lifesaving arrangements on liners, is a temperate, reasonable man. Aware that human achievements are never infallible, he plans for the Titanic sixty-six lifeboats when current Commerce Commission standards require a minimum of sixteen.
Facing him, the young naval architect Thomas Andrews agrees with the opinion of his uncle, Lord William James Pirrie, a partner in the shipyard company and whose only standard is excess. He estimates at twenty the number of canoes unnecessarily intended to satisfy the rules of maritime safety.
READ ALSO“Objects of History”: find all the episodes of our seriesThe tragedy is on. While reason, embodied by Alexander Montgomery Carlisle, withdraws from the site due to a lack of agreement on safety equipment, the fate of the Titanic is placed under the aegis of its proud designers. After launching in 1911 theOlympicmodel of Titanicthe shipowners seem too inclined to exceed their mortal condition, a symptom characterized by an always disastrous hubris.
hit bottom
A last chance is offered to Titanic to escape his fate when, on April 10, 1912, Captain Maurice Clarke, an inspector for the Commerce Commission, was dispatched to Southampton to issue the security clearance that marked the start of the odyssey. Clarke warns of a lack of lifeboats and only has six buoys on board. It is pressurized by the company White Star Line, which operates the liner on the transatlantic line. Worried about the threats to his job, Clarke issues the clearance, suggesting only to double the number of canoes. Advice swept away by the back of the hand by the shipping company – which nevertheless seems to be adding buoys since another inventory counts forty-eight of them.
READ ALSOApril 14, 1912. The day the “Titanic” sank with many dogs and catsPrecaution, alas, useless: on the fatal day, the castaways who do not board a canoe will die of hypothermia rather than drowning, when it is not the lower part of their lifejackets made of cork blocks that break their neck or jaw (or both) when they jump into the water.
It is the company Fosbery and Co Ltd, based in Barking, on the banks of the Thames, which designed these vests – as it is undoubtedly the author of the buoys. The factory is perfectly familiar with the standards in force since it works in particular for “British and foreign governments”, as it presents itself in the Post Office in London. Approved buoys must be made of solid cork and capable of floating in fresh water for at least twenty-four hours while supporting a weight of nearly 15 kg. The finest quality cork is imported from Portugal and wrapped in waxed white cloth, without any indication.
Six of the buoys are fitted with a patented Holmes device. It includes a casing containing calcium carbonate and calcium phosphide, which ignite spontaneously on contact with water. A very useless lighthouse in this polar night since the nearest ship is now at 3,800 meters deep.
drowned hopes
On May 10, Quebec captain François-Xavier Pouliot, in charge of recovering the bodies of the castaways aboard the CGS Montmagny, fishes out an empty buoy which floats benignly. Its cord has held and carried around the wrist and body of Harold Reynolds for nearly a month, baker and soldier who could not have deserted better… Let us admire all the same the quality of the work which did not leak, the cork perfectly sealed by the oil cloth. Pouliot treasured the buoy but perished two years later in the sinking of the Montmagny. The Titan, guilty of hubris, has joined Tartarus, and the floating buoy might as well be called Nemesis.
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