“Could a vessel the size of the Titanic change its course sufficiently to avoid the berg within three minutes supposed to have elapsed during which Murdock didn’t answer his lookout’s call? It could. I never sailed a vessel the size of the Titanic, but I unhesitatingly say that the Titanic’s course could be changed in considerably less than a mile. Why, by putting the wheel hard-a-port and stopping the engines on that side the vessel could be turned so quickly that it would list fifteen degrees in swinging around. I have steered a transatlantic liner in and out among fishing smacks and they are easier to hit than an iceberg.” QUESTIONED ABOUT CONDITIONS ON MOONLESS NIGHT. Two other seafaring men of long experience, who have many nights sat in the crow’s-nest of a liner and watched the course, were asked how far an iceberg the size of the one that the Titanic struck could be seen on a clear night without a moon, a condition on which all of the survivors seem to agree was present the night the Titanic was sunk. One of these men said at least one mile, the other at least two miles. So the fact remains that Murdock was supposed to be on the bridge keeping a strict lookout and not depending on the crow’s-nest; that he could have seen the iceberg when it was at least a mile from the vessel, and that the Titanic could have been easily turned sufficiently in her course to avoid the berg within a mile. The surviving passengers are unanimous that the “unbelievable” happened. The voyage had been pleasant and uneventful, except for the fact that it was being made on the largest and most magnificent vessel that ever sailed and for the keen interest which the passengers took in the daily bulletins of the speed. The Titanic had been making good time and all accounts agree that on the night of the disaster she was apparently going at her usual rate--of from 21 to 25 knots an hour. J. H. Moody, the quartermaster, who was at the helm, said that the ship was making twenty-one and that the officers were under orders at the time to keep up speed in the hope of making a record passage. These orders were being carried out in face of knowledge that the steamer was in the vicinity of great icebergs sweeping down from the north. That very afternoon, according to the record of the hyrographic officer, the Titanic had relayed to shore a wireless warning from the steamer Amerika that an unusual field of pack ice and bergs menaced navigation off the Banks. OFFICERS CONFIDENT EVEN IN THE FACE OF DANGER. But it was a “clear and starlight night,” as all the survivors described the weather, and the great ship sped through the quiet seas with officers confident that even though an iceberg should be seen the vessel could be controlled in ample time, and the passengers rested in full confidence that their temporary quarters in the largest and most magnificent vessel ever constructed were as safe as their own homes.