The lifeboats of the RMS Titanic played a crucial role in the disaster of 14–15 April 1912. The ship had 20 lifeboats that, in total, could accommodate 1,178 people, approximately half of the 2,208 on board the night it sank. RMS Titanic had a maximum capacity of 3,547 passengers and crew.
Partially flooded with ice-cold seawater, Titanic's Collapsible Boat D approaches RMS Carpathia at 7:15 am on 15 April 1912.
RMS Titanic, showing eight lifeboats along the starboard-side boat deck (upper deck): four lifeboats near the bridge wheel house and four lifeboats near the 4th funnel.
Lifeboat id numbers on deck←bowstern→ (01) (03) (05) (07)(09) (11) (13) (15) (A) \(C)(B) /(D)(02) (04) (06) (08)(10) (12) (14) (16)Lifeboats 7, 5, 3 & 8 left first. Collapsible lifeboats A, B, C & D were stored inboard. Boat A floated off the deck, and Boat B floated away upside down.
18 lifeboats were used, loading between 11:45 p.m. and 2:15 a.m., though Collapsible Boat A floated off the ship's partially submerged deck, and Collapsible Boat B floated away upside down minutes before the ship upended and sank.
Many lifeboats only carried half of their maximum capacity; there are many versions as to the reasoning behind half-filled lifeboats. Some sources claimed they were afraid of the lifeboat buckling under the weight, others suggested it was because the crew were following orders to evacuate women and children first. As the half-filled boats rowed away from the ship, they were too far for other passengers to reach, and most lifeboats did not return to the wreck, due to fear of being swamped by drowning victims. Only lifeboats 4 and 14 returned to retrieve survivors from the water, some of whom later died.
RMS Carpathia did not reach the lifeboats until 4 a.m., one hour and forty minutes after Titanic sank to the bottom of the sea according to generally accepted reports, and the rescue continued until the last lifeboat was collected at 8:30 a.m.
Although the number of lifeboats was insufficient, Titanic was in compliance with maritime safety regulations of the time. The sinking showed that the regulations were outdated for such large passenger ships. The Inquiry also revealed White Star Line wanted fewer boats on the decks, to provide unobstructed views for passengers and give the ship more aesthetics from an exterior viewpoint. In the event of an emergency, it was not anticipated that all passengers and crew would require evacuation at the same time, as it was believed Titanic would float for long enough to allow a transfer of passengers and crew to a rescue vessel.
Compounding the disaster, Titanic's crew were poorly trained on using the davits (lifeboat launching equipment). As a result, boat launches were slow, improperly executed, and poorly supervised. These factors contributed to the lifeboats departing with only half capacity.
1,503 people did not make it on to a lifeboat and were aboard Titanic when she sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. 705 people remained in the lifeboats until later that morning when they were rescued by RMS Carpathia. Those aboard the lifeboats were picked up by Carpathia over the course of 4 hours and 30 minutes, from about 4 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., and 13 of the lifeboats were also taken aboard. The lifeboats were returned to the White Star Line at New York Harbor, as they were the only items of value salvaged from the shipwreck, but subsequently vanished from history over time.
"Number and types of lifeboats"
Titanic's wooden lifeboats in New York Harbor following the disaster. This particular image has been doctored[citation needed] to add the words "R.M.S. Titanic". In fact the lifeboats bore the name "S.S. Titanic" on a plaque mounted at the other end of the boat
Titanic had 20 lifeboats of three different types:
14 clinker-built wooden lifeboats, measuring 30 feet (9.1 m) long by 9 feet 1 inch (2.77 m) wide by 4 feet (1.2 m) deep. Each had a capacity of 655.2 cubic feet (18.55 m3) and was designed to carry 65 people. The rudders were made of elm – selected because it resisted splitting – and were 1.75 inches (4.4 cm) thick. The exterior of the boats were fitted with "grablines" for people in the water to hold on to. They were fitted with a variety of equipment to aid the occupants, comprising 10 oars, a sea anchor, two bailers, a painter (effectively a tow-rope) 150 feet (46 m) long, two boat-hooks, two 10 imperial gallons (45 l) tanks of fresh water, a mast and sail, a compass, a lantern and watertight metal provision tanks which contained biscuits. This equipment was not kept in the boats for fear of theft, but in locked boxes on the deck. In many cases, the equipment was not transferred to the boats when they were launched on 15 April and ended up going down with the ship. Blankets and a spare lifebelt could also be found in the boats. Apparently unknown to many officers and crew, these boats were reinforced with steel beams in their keels to prevent buckling in the davits under a full load.
2 wooden cutters intended to be used as emergency boats. They were kept ready to be launched quickly in the event of an incident requiring a boat in the water, such as a man overboard. The cutters were swung out at all times when the ship was underway, uncovered and with all their equipment, including a lighted oil lantern placed in the boat every evening. The cutters were of a similar design to the main lifeboats, but smaller, measuring 25 feet 2 inches (7.67 m) long by about 7 feet (2.1 m) wide by 3 feet (0.91 m) deep. They had a capacity of 322 cubic feet (9.1 m3) and could carry 40 people. They were equipped similarly to the main lifeboats but with only one boat-hook, one water container, one bailer and six oars each.
4 "collapsible" Engelhardt lifeboats. These were effectively boat-shaped unsinkable rafts of kapok and cork, with heavy canvas sides that could be raised to form a boat. They measured 27 feet 5 inches (8.36 m) long by 8 feet (2.4 m) wide by 3 feet (0.91 m) deep. Their capacity was 376.6 cubic feet (10.66 m3) and each could carry 47 people. The Engelhardts, built to a Danish design, were built by the boat-builders McAlister & Son of Dumbarton, Scotland. Their equipment was similar to that of the cutters, but they had no mast or sail, had eight oars apiece and were steered using a steering oar rather than a rudder.
The main lifeboats and cutters were built by Harland and Wolff at Queen's Island, Belfast at the same time that Titanic and her sister ship Olympic were constructed. They were designed for maximum seaworthiness, with a double-ended design (effectively having two bows). This reduced the risk that they would be flooded by a following sea (i.e. having waves breaking over the stern). If a lifeboat had to be beached, the design would also resist the incoming surf. Another safety feature consisted of airtight copper tanks within the boats' sides to provide extra buoyancy.
" Use and locations aboard Titanic "
Plan of the Boat Deck of RMS Olympic showing the location of the lifeboats. The main lifeboats are marked in green, while the emergency cutters are highlighted in red. Two of the collapsible lifeboats are marked in purple. The other two (not on this diagram) were situated on the roof of the officers' quarters behind the wheelhouse.
All but two lifeboats were situated on the Boat Deck, the highest deck of Titanic. They were located on wooden chocks at the fore and aft parts of the Boat Deck, on both sides of the ship; two groups of three at the forward end, and two groups of four at the aft end. The two cutters were situated immediately aft of the bridge, one to port and the other to starboard. While Titanic was at sea they were positioned outboard so that they could be lowered instantly in the event of an emergency, such as needing to rescue a person who had fallen overboard. The lifeboats were assigned odd numbers on the starboard side and even numbers on the port side, running from forward to aft, while the collapsible lifeboats were lettered A to D.
The collapsibles were stored in two places. Two of them were stowed on the deck in their collapsed state underneath the cutters, while the remaining two were situated on top of the officers' quarters. Despite the first two both being erected and launched without difficulty during Titanic's sinking, the other two both turned out to be very poorly located. They were both located 8 feet (2.4 m) off the deck and lowering them required a piece of equipment held in the boatswain's store in the bow. By the time this was realised, the bow was already well underwater and the store was inaccessible. They were manhandled down and floated away freely as the deck flooded.
The lifeboats were intended to be launched from davits supplied by the Welin Davit & Engineering Company of London. All lifeboats but the collapsibles were slung from the davits, ready to be launched. The davits were of a highly efficient double-acting quadrant design, capable of being slung inboard (hanging over the deck) as well as outboard (hanging over the side) to pick up additional lifeboats. The davits aboard Titanic were capable of accommodating 64 lifeboats, though only 16 were actually fitted to them. The collapsibles were also intended to be launched via the davits. Each davit was doubled up, supporting the forward arm of one boat and the after arm of the next one along. A bitt and sheave was located at the keel of each davit to facilitate the lowering of boats, and the falls could be taken across the deck so that a number of men could work simultaneously on each boat and davit.They had to be lowered by hand, ideally by a team of between eight and ten men. Despite Titanic having a number of electric winches, they could only have been used to winch the lifeboats back out of the water.
" Lack of lifeboats and training "
Arrangement of lifeboats on the forward part of the Boat Deck of Titanic, shown on a large-scale model of the ship
Titanic only had enough lifeboats to accommodate approximately a third of the ship's total capacity. Had every lifeboat been filled accordingly, they still could have only evacuated about 53% of those actually on board on the night of the sinking. The shortage of lifeboats was not due to the lack of space; Titanic had actually been designed to accommodate up to 64 boats – nor was it because of cost, as the price of an extra 32 lifeboats would only have been some $16,000, a tiny fraction of the $7.5 million that the company had spent on Titanic. The reason lay in a combination of outdated safety regulations and complacency by the White Star Line, Titanic's operators.
In 1886, a committee of the British Board of Trade devised safety regulations for the merchant vessels of the time. These were updated with the passage of the Merchant Shipping Act 1894 and were modified subsequently, but by 1912 they had a fatal flaw – they had been intended to regulate vessels of up to 10,000 tons, a limit that had long since been exceeded by shipbuilders. By comparison, Titanic had a gross register tonnage of 46,328 tons. Other ships were in a similar situation; 33 of the 39 British liners over 10,000 tons did not have enough lifeboats for all aboard (the six that did were marginally over 10,000 tons). RMS Carmania was perhaps the worst of them, with only enough lifeboats for 29% of her occupants. Foreign ships, such as the German liner SS Amerika and SS St. Louis similarly had only enough lifeboat space for about 54–55% of those aboard. A random sampling of ships that exceeded 10,000 tons in 1912, of numerous different shipping lines in the United States, Canada, and Europe, show the ship that came the closest to carrying enough lifeboats for all its passengers was the French Line's La Province which carried enough boats to accommodate 82% of her passenger capacity. Walter Lord stated in his 1987 book The Night Lives On that the lack of lifeboats on the Olympic-class liners might have had more to do with economics than one might have thought. Had Olympic and Titanic been properly provisioned with enough lifeboats, it might have drawn notice by the press that other smaller and perhaps less safely equipped liners were lacking sufficient lifeboats. This could have created a domino effect, leading to a call for more stringent regulations concerning lifesaving equipment onboard ships, circumstances which would have cost numerous shipping lines a considerable amount of money to accommodate.
The regulations required a vessel of 10,000 tons or more to carry 16 lifeboats with a total capacity of 9,625 cubic feet (272.5 m3), sufficient for 960 people. Titanic actually carried four more lifeboats than was needed under the regulations. Her total lifeboat capacity was 11,327.9 cubic feet (320.77 m3), which was theoretically capable of taking 1,178 people. The regulations required that lifeboats should measure between 16–30 feet (4.9–9.1 m), with a minimum capacity of 125 cubic feet (3.5 m3) each. The cubic capacity divided by ten indicated the approximate number of people that could be carried safely in each boat, and also dictated the size of the airtight buoyancy tanks incorporated into the boats' hulls, with each person corresponding to 1 cubic foot (0.028 m3) of tank capacity.
In reality, the given capacity was quite nominal, as filling the boats to their indicated capacity would have required some passengers to stand. This did in fact happen to some of the last boats to leave Titanic; at the subsequent British enquiry, Titanic's Second Officer Charles Lightoller testified that the nominal capacity could only have applied "in absolutely smooth water, under the most favourable conditions." The proper capacity would have been more like 40 people per boat under typical conditions. Few officers and crew were aware that steel beam reinforcements had been added to the keels of the boats to prevent buckling in the davits under a full load.
Titanic and her sister ships had been designed with the capability of carrying many more lifeboats than were actually provided, up to a total of 64. During the design stage, Alexander Carlisle, Harland & Wolff's chief draughtsman and general manager, submitted a plan to provide 64 lifeboats. He later reduced the figure to 32, and in March 1910 the decision was taken to reduce the number again to 16.Carlisle is believed to have left his position in dispute of this decision. The White Star Line preferred to maximise the amount of deck space available for the enjoyment of the passengers (and the area that was free of lifeboats was, not coincidentally, the First Class promenade). The reasoning for this was explained by Archibald Campbell Holms in an article for Practical Shipbuilding published in 1918:
The fact that Titanic carried boats for little more than half the people on board was not a deliberate oversight, but was in accordance with a deliberate policy that, when the subdivision of a vessel into watertight compartments exceeds what is considered necessary to ensure that she shall remain afloat after the worst conceivable accident, the need for lifeboats practically ceases to exist, and consequently a large number may be dispensed with.
Holms made his comments six years after the sinking of Titanic, an indication of the persistence of the view that "every ship should be her own lifeboat". Sailors and shipbuilders of the time had a low opinion of the usefulness of lifeboats in an emergency and considered it more important to make a ship "unsinkable". Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, who served simultaneously as a high-ranking Royal Navy officer and Member of Parliament, told the House of Commons a month after the disaster:
Remember that on not more than one day in twelve all the year round can you lower a boat. With the roll of the ship the boats swing and will be smashed to smithereens against the side of the ship. The boats then should not be overdone ... It might be fairly supposed that had the Titanic floated for twelve hours all might have been saved.
The White Star Line never envisaged that all of the crew and passengers would have to be evacuated at once, as Titanic was considered almost unsinkable. The lifeboats were instead intended to be used to transfer passengers off the ship and onto a nearby vessel providing assistance. While Titanic was under construction, an incident involving the White Star liner RMS Republic appeared to confirm this approach. Republic was involved in a collision with the Lloyd Italiano liner SS Florida in January 1909 and sank. Even though she did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers, they were all saved because the ship was able to stay afloat long enough for them to be ferried to ships coming to assist. This fact is what led to the harsh condemnation of Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian, who both American and British inquiries into the disaster felt could have saved many if not all of the passengers and crew had she heeded the Titanic's distress calls. In this scenario, Titanic's lifeboats would have been adequate to ferry the passengers to safety as planned. However, it is worth noting that the ferrying of passengers between two ships would have been a long, arduous process even under the best conditions. It took Carpathia well over four hours to pick up and account for all of Titanic's lifeboats in the morning after the disaster. During the sinking of the aforementioned Republic in 1909, it took nearly half a day to ferry all of her passengers to rescue ships, and during the sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria in 1956 it took nearly eight hours to ferry all her passengers to safety. Both liners sank at a much slower rate, roughly half a day, in contrast to Titanic, which sank slightly shy of three hours after her collision with the iceberg.
While Titanic's supply of lifeboats was plainly inadequate, so too was the training that her crew had received in their use. Only one lifeboat drill had been carried out while the ship was docked. It was a cursory effort, consisting of two boats being lowered, each manned by one officer and four men who merely rowed around the dock for a few minutes before returning to the ship. The boats were supposed to be stocked with emergency supplies, but Titanic's passengers later found that they had only been partially provisioned. No lifeboat or fire drills had been carried out since Titanic left Southampton. A lifeboat drill had been scheduled for the morning before the ship sank, but was cancelled, allegedly because the ship's captain, Edward Smith, wanted to deliver one last Sunday service before he went into full retirement.
Lists had been posted on the ship allocating crew members to particular lifeboat stations, but few appeared to have read them or to have known what they were supposed to do. Most of the crew were, in any case, not seamen, and even some of those had no prior experience of rowing a boat. They were suddenly faced with the complex task of coordinating the lowering of 20 boats carrying a possible total of 1,200 people 70 feet (21 m) down the sides of the ship. Thomas E. Bonsall, a historian of the disaster, has commented that the evacuation was so badly organised that "even if they had the number of lifeboats they needed, it is impossible to see how they could have launched them" given the lack of time and poor leadership. Indeed, they didn't even launch all of the boats they did have.
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