SS Californian was a British Leyland Line steamship. She is thought to have been the only ship to see the Titanic, or at least her rockets, during the sinking,[2][3] but despite being the closest ship in the area, the crew took no action to assist. The United States Senate inquiry and British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the sinking both concluded that the Californian could have saved many or all of the lives that were lost, had a prompt response been mounted to the Titanic's distress rockets.[4] The U.S. Senate inquiry was particularly critical of the vessel's captain, Stanley Lord, calling his inaction during the disaster "reprehensible".[5] Despite this criticism, no formal charges were ever brought against Lord and his crew for their inaction. Lord disputed the findings and would spend the rest of his life trying to clear his name. In 1992, the UK Government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch re-examined the case and while condemning the inaction of the Californian and Captain Lord, also concluded that due to the limited time available, "the effect of Californian taking proper action would have been no more than to place on her the task actually carried out by RMS Carpathia, that is the rescue of those who escaped ... [no] reasonably probable action by Captain Lord could have led to a different outcome of the tragedy".[6][7] Californian was later sunk on 9 November 1915, by the German submarines SM U-34 and U-35, in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War I while serving as a transport ship. Californian was a steamship owned by the Leyland Line, part of J.P. Morgan's International Mercantile Marine Co. She was constructed by the Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Dundee, Scotland,[8] and was the largest ship built in Dundee up to that time.[9][10] The ship was built to the maximum dimensions that were allowed to moor and outfit her in the Dundee Docks. The ship's size and importance to the local shipbuilding industry meant that there was a lot of local interest in her construction as it progressed. There were also some problems – when both of the ship's boilers were being transported through the streets from a foundry to the shipyard the weight of them (carried on a wheeled bogie) caused considerable damage to the city's roads, as well as breaking a number of underground water pipes. Later when a crane was being used to rig a spar on one of the Californian's four masts, the spar became tangled in nearby telephone wires and severed them.[11] She was designed primarily to transport cotton, but also had the capacity to carry 47 passengers and 55 crew members.[citation needed] The primary clientele was those passengers with too limited the means to travel on board large liners. By offering them comfortable cabins at an affordable prices (£10 per crossing in the direction Liverpool — Boston, £50 in the opposite direction), Leyland Line was able to secure some profits this way.[12][13] Nonetheless, the ship was still primarily a freighter, as evidenced by her massive bunkers. She was named Californian according to a tradition specific to the company which gave its ships the name of one of the 46 states of the United States at the time.[14] She measured 6,223 tons, was 447 feet (136 m) long, 53 feet (16 m) at her beam,[10] and had a triple expansion steam engine powered by two double-ended boilers. Her average full speed was 12 knots (22 km/h).[15] The accommodation of most of the fifty or so crew members was located below the foredeck. They stayed there in cabins designed for four to eight people that were quite uncomfortable, poorly ventilated and lighted.[16] In all, the crew included the captain, four officers, a radio operator, and 49 crew members (sailors, drivers, trimmers, etc.).[17] The cabins were located in the superstructure. The officers of the crew resided on the starboard side and the passengers on the port side. The facilities for passengers corresponded to the second class of most ships of the time. Although the cabins were not of high quality, they remained comfortable and had electric lighting, which was not the case on all contemporary ships. The passengers of the Californian also had at their disposal a smoking room on the upper starboard deck, decorated with oak panels and linoleum, a novelty at the turn of the century. The dining room was also decorated and comfortable.
