Lifeboat Stations

[Paul Rogers]

Hello all.

I understand that no lifeboat drill was carried out on Titanic during the voyage. Although I'm certain this caused confusion for passengers during the sinking, I'm more interested in how the crew coped.

It appears that "qualified" seamen were sent away with the lifeboats on a purely random basis. It also appears random as to which Officer took control of which davit. So, my questions are:

(1) Were the Officers assigned lifeboat stations of which they were aware - perhaps by Standing Orders or similar? (i.e. without the need for a specific boat drill.) If yes, how many other qualified seamen were also allocated to specific boats and knew of their allotted boat?

(2) I would imagine that Olympic had carried out boat drills prior to the Titanic disaster. How did the crew overcome the PR issues raised by there being obviously too few boats for all the passengers and crew? (Were Steerage passengers simply not invited to attend the drills, perhaps?)

(3) Bearing in mind the importance of sending away at least one seaman with each lifeboat, how were these positions allocated and advised to the crew concerned on White Star Line ships? (Or any other ships, for that matter.)

Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Paul.

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Hi Paul,

I have always understood that all of the crew had specific lifeboat assignments.

Lester

 

[Dave Gittins]

Paul, to answer briefly a messy subject--

1. All the crew had boat stations and were notified of them by notices put up in places where they were likely to see them. Some of the crew knew their places, others, especially members of the "black gang", did not. There was supposed to be 3 or 4 seamen per boat.

2. No passengers of any class went to boat drills. All that was done was to muster the crew at their boats. This was part of the policy of helping passengers to forget that they were out on the deep blue sea and not in some nice safe hotel. Passengers were not allocated boats.

3. You are quite right about things being done at random. There is plenty of evidence about men going to wherever they thought they might be useful or where it looked interesting. At least one officer did not know his boat.

4. Some lines did things better. Some issued all the crew with badges that told them which boat to go to in an emergency. There is a lot of evidence that White Star was slack compared with other lines.

 

[Paul Rogers]

Lester and Dave,

Thanks very much for that info, which I've only briefly read. I'm off on my hols now for a week, (without internet access

), so I'll have a proper read upon my return.

Regards,
Paul.

 

[Paul Rogers]

Right, I'm back and have had a chance to reflect on this topic.

I know that the concept at the time was that the lifeboats would be used simply to ferry passengers from one ship to another, as it was inconceivable that Titanic could actually sink. ;-) However, it still seems to me quite astounding that White Star (and other lines?) could be as complacent as Dave asserts.

Surely the time had not long passed when crossing the Atlantic was seen by all those involved as an extremely hazardous undertaking - when lifeboats were a necessity and not simply an inconvenient waste of deck space. How did the culture of safety (and respect for the sea) change so rapidly? Certainly from the crew's perspective, I would have thought them very aware of the dangers, notwithstanding the "unsinkable" nature of the ship.

On a side note, was a reason ever given for Titanic's boat drill not being held on the Sunday?

Regards,
Paul.

 

[David G. Brown]

Paul -- even today, lifeboats are hardly a perfect means of insuring survival. Those of 1912 were little more than oversize whaleboats. Not even a crew of experienced seamen would have expected to be able to survive launching a boat in the rough seas typical of the North Atlantic.

Titanic had the luck of sinking on a rare calm night, but had it been typical April weather there undoubtedly would have been casualties as the result of launching open boats loaded with frightened passengers. For one thing, the boats did not have crew trained in "shoving off" from the side of a large vessel. Boats on the weather side of the ship might well have been beat to pieces before they got away.

Sailors have always known that losing their ship mean losing their lives. Transferring to an open boat thousands of miles from land is not survival. It only moves crew and passengers from a large vessel (with lots of resources) in danger to a small, dangerous boat (with virtually no resources).

Titanic's boats were spread in all directions within two hours after the sinking. Had there been the usual wind and waves, it is probable that Carpathia could not have found all the boats. Even with help from other rescue ships it is possible that one boatload of survivors might have gone drifting for days...or weeks.

Viewed with a deliberate lack of emotion, Titanic had enough boats for any conceivable situation in which it would be possible to save all aboard -- then or now. Even on April 14, 1912 when boats were launched every 4+ minutes, there was not enough time to have launched even one more lifeboat before the ship sank.

In the aftermath, the cry "lifeboats for everyone" became a public mantra. It was an emotional plea based on the logical human fear of death. No one wants to be the person left behind after the last boat leaves. So, more boats were installed on all ocean liners.

Adding lifeboats did not insure that more people would survive the sinking of a liner. All we have to do is look to the Andrea Doria sinking to see the fallicy of lifeboats. That ship had plenty of boats, but a radical list to starboard made it impossible to launch those on the port side. It was deja vu of the Titanic. Half the Doria passengers were unable to escape from their sinking ship.

Having one lifeboat seat for everyone on board has one huge benefit, even if not all the boats can be launched. Everyone believes that they have a chance at survival because they know their lifeboat seat exists. In a real emergency, passengers are mustered in public rooms, then taken to the boats. Those whose boats are non-functional do not learn the truth until the people assigned to the functioning boats have been loaded and launched. Panic should not develop during the launching of the available boats. The result is the largest possible number of saved lives, which is the real goal of any evacuation at sea.

The cold, unemotional truth is that when you take people to sea, a certain number will not return. Safety at sea is aimed at reducing that number to the smallest possible. Obviously, behind each statistic is a human being with a family, a career, hopes, and fears. It is almost impossible to avoid one or more human deaths once a ship reaches the point of foundering.

Lifeboats (or the lack of them) were not the real problem with Titanic or Andrea Doria. The ultimate cause for loss of life in both cases was losing the ship. Good officers made bad decisions and people died. That's why the mantle of responsibility rests so heavily on the master of a vessel.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Tracy Smith]

Exactly. I couldn't agree more, Dave.

 

[Inger Sheil]

Well expressed, David. Whatever way you cut it, from the time she hit the berg the maths were going to be brutal. Some of the most chilling things I've seen on underwater shipwrecks are the lifeboat davits on sunken ships, some still swung out. The Salem Express, a roll-on roll-off ferry that sunk in 1991 with hundreds of pilgrims returning from Mecca (exact figure still disputed), sunk within 20 minutes. Her lifeboats lie beside her on the sea floor, a tableau of which scuba divers take 'evocative' photos. One wonders while diving the SS Yongala, lost in a 1911 hurricane, if they ever even had a chance to attempt to launch the boats - no one will ever know, as there were no survivors.

We still desire to eliminate all risk in travel, wanting to achieve 100% safety records, but it can't be done - all that we can hope for is to minimise risk. But human and mechanical error will always be with us.

~ Inger

 

[Paul Rogers]

Hello all, and thanks for your replies. (Hi Inger, it's good to see you back.)

David - thanks for explaining the facts of maritime life to me.

I can and do appreciate and accept your argument logically. Emotionally, it still seems right to me that there should be a seat in a lifeboat for all. Everyone deserves the chance to survive a shipwreck, however slim that chance might be. It may not be possible to use, launch or survive in lifeboats from any ship for any number of reasons - but they should at least be there. And they should have been there 89 years ago.

I do appreciate that Titanic couldn't have used more lifeboats even if she'd had them; the floating off of the last 2 collapsibles being proof. (Unless they had started launching the boats earlier, of course...) Didn't Lightoller say something about "the disgrace of sinking with boats still in the davits?" At least Titanic managed - just - to avoid that.

Regards,
Paul.

 

[Erik Wood]

Safety as Sea is probably the one thing that I have recieved more training on then any other. Including the mechanics of ship driving.

One thing that isn't really pointed out is something Dave hit upon but didn't really say. When the Captain of a ship knows the ship will sink. His job isn't to save every single person. It is to save as many as he can. Time and the situation determine the rest.

The logisics of a ship the size of Titanic in todays day and age are absoultly horrifying. You have to remeber that I will have to get people from where ever they happen to be. To there stateroom to get there lifejackets to there muster stations. Then I have to have my crew quielty and calming escort a select few at a time to boats that are ready. All this time the ship is in the stages of foundering.

It is said (keep in mind that I said "said"). That the Carnival Destiny if fully loaded could be completely abandoned in a little over a half of an hour. That is 3,000+ in passnergs and crew off in 30 minutes. From the second I decide to get people off to the second I step into the lifeboat.

As someone above said it wasn't the lifeboat number that killed 1500 it was the time frame in which the officers had to get people off.

In yesterdays fleet abandoning a ship meant death for some. It was a guaruntee or at least somebody getting hurt. Three men moving a 2 ton lifeboat or even a 500 pound lifeboat in a constantly moving enviroment will get somebody hurt.

Also remeber that at sea there is no such thing as democracy or equal rights when it comes to emegencies. It is all happen stance. What ever will save the most amount of lives will be done. Whether it kills others or not.

"The needs of the many out way the needs of the few".

Erik