A sardonic response to the excessiveness of the Belle Époque, the surviving buoy of 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 cooled them, they who were chained in Tartarus “where neither the rays of the high sun nor the breeze are enjoyed”, as Homer sings so well. Nothing better describes the seabed of the North Atlantic where, on April 14, 1912, the Titanic sank, the rare material evidence of which 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 the shipyards in Belfast and responsible for fittings and lifesaving devices on the liners, is a temperate, reasonable man. Aware that human achievements are never infallible, he provides for the Titanic sixty-six lifeboats when the standards of the Commerce Commission in force require at least 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.
A last chance was offered to the Titanic to escape its fate when, on April 10, 1912, Captain Maurice Clarke, inspector of the Commerce Commission, was dispatched to Southampton to deliver the clearance which 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. Board swept aside by the shipping company – which seems to add buoys since another inventory lists forty-eight.
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 well aware of 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.
On May 10, Quebec captain François-Xavier Pouliot, in charge of recovering the bodies of the castaways aboard the CGS Montmagny, fished out an empty buoy which floated benignly. Its cord has held and carried around the wrist and body of Harold Reynolds for almost 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.