Ruspini finally spotted the badly dam-
aged Republic, but he couldn’t offer much
help to Sealby. The Florida’s bow had been
crushed like an eggshell. Three of her sailors
had been killed, and her two forward holds
were filled with water. So Sealby and Ruspini
agreed to wait together for help.
The two ships drifted helplessly for hours.
By daybreak, the Baltic still had not appeared.
By now the Republic was riding too low in
the water. Sealby couldn’t wait any longer. He
ordered his lifeboats to transfer passengers to
the Florida.
The ships hovered about one mile away
from each other, trying not to collide again.
Eleven lifeboats shuttled back and forth more
than 20 times through rough sea.
By 12:30 p.m., all of the Republic’s pa ssen-
gers were safely aboard the Florida. But Binns
wasn’t about to abandon ship. He knew that
the Republic’s wireless was the best chance of
saving the people now on board the Florida.
Over and over again, Binns tapped out the
Republic’s location. But the rescue ships were
having problems, too.
The Mohawk ran aground in fog. The
Acushnet stopped to help get the Mohawk
afloat. The fog was playing tricks on La
Lorraine, too. She got lost in the murk and
eventually abandoned the search.
The Baltic had better luck. It reached
the crash scene at about noon, but the fog
was so dense that the two ships couldn’t
see each other. Both detonated bombs and
blew foghorns to help pinpoint their loca-
tions as Binns played blindman’s bluff with
his wireless, trying to guide the Baltic to the
Republic.
“You are now on our port bow. Can you
see us?” Binns tapped out to the Baltic.
They couldn’t.
“You are now very close. Can you see our
rockets?” Binns asked.
They couldn’t.
“You are too close to us for safety,” Binns
warned after hearing a particularly loud blast
from the Baltic’s fog horn.
The Baltic zigzagged for 200 miles,
searching within an area of 10 square miles.
By now, Binns’s hand was practically frozen
at the key, it was dark, and the ships had no
bombs left. Finally, after more than 12 hours
of searching, the Baltic arrived.
“The most beautiful sight in the world
is a ship at sea, especially when that ship is
needed to supply a link between life and
death,” Binns later said.
Binns and most of the crew rowed to
the Baltic, while Sealby and a few officers
remained on the Republic.
Although the Florida was still afloat, 30
feet of her bow were missing, she was laden
with passengers, and she was listing badly. So
Sealby and Ruspini decided to transfer the
passengers one more time.
This time, lifeboats shuttled from the
Florida to the Baltic. Twelve hours and more
than 80 trips later, 1,650 passengers and crew-
men had made it safely aboard the Baltic.
Then Sealby shouted across to the Baltic,
asking for volunteers to come back and wait
with him on the Republic for the tugs thatLISTING MEANS LEANING
OVER TO ONE SIDE.YIKES!