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Originally Posted by iambecomelife
At "Encyclopedia Titanica", someone posted another theory about those last few seconds before the collision. The lookouts in the crow's nest may have initially seen the berg at a distance, but it was not on a collision course. Then the bridge crewmembers, who did not have as good a view, gradually adjusted the course to avoid some pack ice, inadvertently steering towards the much more dangerous solid iceberg. By the time the lookouts realized what was going on they were too close to evade. The traditional portrayal with the iceberg suddenly appearing out of the darkness may not be accurate.
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For that theory to be true, the lookouts would have to be incompetent idiots.
When you're on lookout, your job is to report every. single. thing. you. see. Especially in an ice zone. You don't do collision bearings, you don't think, you report. Even if you're pretty sure it's just a star near the horizon, and there's only a tiny bit of a chance that it's a ship's light - but really, you're pretty sure it's a star, I mean, look at it, twinkling and all - YOU REPORT IT. Let the OOW decide if it's dangerous. If I had a lookout tell me he didn't report something "Because it wasn't on a collision bearing", I'd go up his left side and down his right side. Seriously. Then I'd tell the captain, and the captain'd tear him a new one as well. That's how stupid that would be.
Things do appear out of nowhere at sea. Sort of. People are human - They look away, they get distracted, and SURPRISE! There's a tanker! (Usually, the surprise happens far enough out that nobody gets hurt or even excited) Plus, you're not alway looking exactly in the right direction, so something that was out of visual range the last time you looked might "suddenly" be visible by the time you look again.
These guys were up in a mast, on the north Atlantic, in April, with the ship doing something like 20 kts. They were not having a fun time, and they might not have been a peak efficiency. Try to keep your eyes open for hours in that kind of situation. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have gone "Bah, that's not important enough to report."