April 2, 1912 - 8:00 PM - Belfast Lough, Ireland

RMS Titanic departs Belfast for Southampton.

There had been quite a few changes made with her Officers that evening just prior to departure however.

Captain Smith requested that Chief Officer Henry Wilde be transferred from RMS Olympic to RMS Titanic, due to his nearly full year of experience handling such a large ship.

This action caused current Chief Officer, William Murdoch, to be lowered in rank to First Officer, which in turn caused current First Officer, Charles Lightoller, to be lowered in rank to Second Officer.

The current Second Officer, David Blair, was then asked by Captain Smith to step into his Quarters to "have a word", where he was informed that he was being discharged from the crew of RMS Titanic, and told to gather his personal effects and disembark.

As Second Officer Blair was on Watch when this impromtpu meeting occurred, in his haste to pack up and get off the ship as quickly as possible, he forgot that he was still carrying the key to the locker holding the binoculars for the Crows Nest, and the key left the ship with him.

While there is no doubt that being discharged from the Maiden Voyage of the largest ship in the world was devastating for Blair; he probably felt a lot better about it after reading the newspapers on the morning of Monday, April 15, 1912.

No, the Lookouts not having their binoculars did NOT in ANY way contribute to the inability of the to spot the iceberg any sooner than they did. Though many urban legends love to falsely perpetuate this myth.

Even with their binoculars, the Lookouts would still not have seen the iceberg any earlier - as the sea was flat as glass, there was no wind to stir up white froth around the base of the iceberg to make it easier to spot, and there was also no Moon - making both the water and the sky nearly ink black.

To add insult to injury, and unknown to all on board RMS Titanic, this rare weather phenomena allowed for a Thermal Inversion to occur - a rare condition in which a pocket of slightly warmer air is trapped a few feet above the ice cold sea, creating a False Horizon much higher than the True Horizon - rendering the iceberg completely invisible to all until it was less than 1000 Yards directly in front of the ship, and even then, Lookout Frederick Fleet was only able to identify it as an iceberg as its outline blotted out the stars.

What happened to the Key to the RMS Titanic Crows Nest Binoculars?

The key was retained by the Blair Family as a treasured heirloom, being one of the only genuine RMS Titanic artifacts to survive the sinking, before being sold at auction in 2007 for £90,000 or $180,130.

(The image below is of Titanic arriving at Southampton, around 11:30 PM the following night, April 3, 1912)

https://preview.redd.it/9axixolt51sc1.jpg?width=744&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87803519aebc88aec8ca461f492963577bf5a1c0