Titanic
On 14 April 1912, Parisian was making a westbound crossing from Glasgow to Montreal. The transmission range of shipborne wireless telegraphy at that time was relatively short. Parisian's was only 270 km, which was typical for many ships of her era. Wireless-equipped ships compensated for this by relaying signals from ship to ship. At one time during the day on 14 April, the Atlantic Transport Line ship SS Mesaba (1898) was about 50 nmi ahead of Parisian, which in turn was a similar distance ahead of the Leyland Liner SS Californian. RMS Titanic was about 125 nmi astern of Parisian. At about 12:00 noon, Mesaba transmitted an ice warning to Parisian, whose Marconi wireless officer, Donald Sutherland, relayed it to the Cunard Liner RMS Carpathia.[4] At another time on the same day, Mesaba was astern of Parisian and ahead of Titanic. Early that evening, Parisian sighted "huge icebergs", and transmitted a warning, which Mesaba relayed to Titanic. Sutherland said his last contact with Titanic was about 22:30 hrs (ship's time).[5]
On the same day, Sutherland had been busy trying to summon aid for a German oil tanker, the Deutschland, which was reported to be drifting and disabled. At 22:00 hrs that evening, Parisian's Master, Captain Hains, ordered Sutherland to bed.[6][7] At that time, most wireless-equipped ships carried only one wireless officer. They worked during the day, and their transceivers were unmanned overnight. By 1912, about 450 ships in the UK merchant fleet had wireless, but only about 50 of them carried enough wireless officers to keep watch at all hours of the day and night.[8] Titanic struck the iceberg around 23:40 hrs (New York time), and started transmitting distress signals after midnight. By then, Sutherland aboard Parisian was in bed, and so were his sole counterparts aboard several other ships in the area.
Sutherland resumed duty early on the morning of 15 April, and heard Carpathia signal that Titanic had sunk.[5] Captain Hains realised that Parisian was too far from Titanic's reported position to be of any help, and that other ships, including Californian and Carpathian were nearer, so he kept Parisian on course for Halifax. On 16 April, when Parisian was within range, Sutherland signalled to the Marconi station on Sable Island: "I have no survivors of the Titanic on board and no official information as to the fate of the ship. Expect to reach Halifax early to-morrow morning."[9] She reached Halifax on 17 April.[10]
