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Distress rockets
31 August 2018 11:41 pmI wasted a great deal of time trying -- in a Web seemingly dominated by Titanic distress rocket controversies -- to research what the 'old' signal rockets were like before the Cotton Powder Co. started producing the new 'socket signals' (as used by the Titanic) in the 1880s, and how they were let off. After several days it dawned on me that the old-style whoosh-hiss-trail-of-fire signal rockets would be no use to Raoul anyway, given that he is currently engaged in trying to signal a ship in broad daylight :-(
What he needs is something with a loud bang, and since I really don't want to have to get into the question of the Requin's armament -- as a navy ship with a large complement of men she probably ought to have guns, but that raises complicated questions about the heeling over and the salvage procedure -- it's much easier just to give him access to a patent new-fangled distress signal. ( Read more... ) I think it unlikely that the French navy would have adopted them as standard circa 1883, but perhaps the special circumstances of the Requin's mission might have made her an exceptional case?
What he needs is something with a loud bang, and since I really don't want to have to get into the question of the Requin's armament -- as a navy ship with a large complement of men she probably ought to have guns, but that raises complicated questions about the heeling over and the salvage procedure -- it's much easier just to give him access to a patent new-fangled distress signal. ( Read more... ) I think it unlikely that the French navy would have adopted them as standard circa 1883, but perhaps the special circumstances of the Requin's mission might have made her an exceptional case?