Blog 146 - TITANIC - PART VI - LIFEBOATS

TITANIC - PART VI - LIFEBOATS

Lifeboats can be seen on the top deck

Lifeboat Deck - Clinker Lifeboats - Davit Mechanism

Q. Were the Titanic’s Lifeboats too far from the water?

1. By today’s standards, 70 feet or 21.34 metres is not much. Except for vessels with smaller freeboards, vessels such as Car Carriers, Super Carriers, Cruise Ships and even the larger Oil Tankers and Bulk Carriers have a lot of distance to travel before the LifeBoat eaches the water. Although, in the modern day, SOLAS has no specific rate of fall, technical considerations limit the rate of fall to less than 36 metres / minute, due to the strength of the wires used.

What the Titanic had in terms of Life Saving Appliances

Titanic’s Life Boat Plan

• Total 20 Lifeboats

• 14 Clinker boats, capacity 65

• 2 wooden cutters, capacity 40

• 4 collapsible boats, basically rafts, capacity 47

• Total space available 1198

The Philosophy Behind the Number of Lifeboats

The above statement, by Bruce Ismay, Director of White Star Line, when he addressed Thomas Andrews, Chief Designer Harland & Wolff, if true, about sums up the thought processes of the day.

The Chief Designer, Andrew Carlisle, had designed the ship initially for 64 lifeboats, later scaled down to 48 lifeboats, with 16 davits, each launching 3 boats.

The reason Ismay gave of not wanting too many lifeboats was that it spoilt the view on the Lifeboat Deck and cluttered up the place for the passengers who woud be walking by. The Lifeboat Deck was the Promenade Deck for First Class Passengers.

The final installed count was 16 lifeboats and 4 collapsible boats.

The main men who designed the Titanic and all the Olympic Class ships were Alexander Carlisle and Edward Wilding.

Why 16? Why not 12 or 8?

The regulations of the day, drawn up in 1894, stated that vessels larger than 10,000 gross tons had to be equipped with a minimum number of 16 lifeboats, with a total capacity of 9,625 cubic feet, with enough capacity to carry 960 persons, or 60 persons in each lifeboat.

The emphasis was not on the number of passengers carried,but on the size and tonnage of the vessel.

Congruently, a declared cargo ship of 10,000 gross tons and more, carrying only crew will have to have 16 lifeboats installed where, actually, they would need 2 or 3 at the maximum to accommodate all the crew on board. The law  was lopsided.

But, in those days, cargo ships were much smaller, so the question never arose and the conundrum never became an issue..

The regulations of the day did not differentiate between Cargo Ships - which carried only crew - and Passenger Ships - which carried passengers and crew.

(Today, there is a separation - in SOLAS - of the needs of a Cargo Ship and a Passenger Ship).

When the Titanic was built, maritime safety regulations were in place, but they were outdated for large passenger ships. The Board of Trade, UK were responsible for implementing them. (Each nation tended to have its own regulations). The Titanic complied with these regulations, but the sinking showed that they were completely outdated and needed to be updated.

In 1911, the number of Lifeboats - for the Titanic - were again reduced to 16. Andrew Carlisle, one of the Chief Designers, left Haland &Wolff in protest.

The reasoning in reducing the number of lifeboats was that the Titanic was unsinkable, which was based on the Watertight Bulkheads. Making an incorrect and unsafe decision on the basis of a flawed premise - only shows corporate greed in the savings made from 

1. Shortening the height of the watertight bulkheads to just 3 metres or 10 feet above the water line and on that basis believing the ship to be ‘unsinkable’

2. Reducing the number of lifeboats based on its ‘unsinkable’ reputation.

I can’t find a better example of circular (or convoluted) thought process.

(“Circular thinking, also known as circular reasoning or "begging the question", is a type of informal logical fallacy that occurs when an argument repeats itself without providing new information or justification for its conclusion”).

“Circular arguments can appear logical at first, but closer examination reveals a lack of substance. They are marked by: 

• Redundant logic 

• A lack of independent evidence 

• Reliance on the argument's own assertions”

Meanwhile, how were the other companies - British and other European companies faring on the Lifeboat installation count? Their ships were also carrying passengers in excess of 2000.

33 of the 39 British liners of over 10,000 gross tons did not have sufficient lifeboats for all on board. (The six that had sufficient lifeboats for all were - presumably - Cargo Ships and carried, mostly, crew and very few passengers).

British ships had between 29% to 35% capacity of lifeboats for the number of passengers they carried.

Non British ships were slightly better off - they had a 55% ratio.

The French ship ‘La Province’ had the best ratio - 82%.

There were several misguided conceptions at play here, during those times.

One was - if the Olympic and Titanic increase the number of lifeboats beyond the statutory provisions, there would be a domino effect in the industry, forcing other owners to update their lifeboat capacity.

Second was - the very thought processes behind the provision of lifeboats to liners and ships. 

1. Passengers are likely to be disturbed and, ultimately, alarmed, fearful and nervous at the sight of so many Life Boats.

2. Lifeboats were thought of more as vehicles to ferry the passengers from one ship to another, even in an emergency - the ferrying being done again and again. The lifeboat was not thought of as the ‘last ditch’ effort in the rescue of passengers and crew, when a ship is abandoned.

The twisted logic was that any ship would stay afloat long enough for passengers and crew to be ferried to another ship before she sank.

Lifeboats, per se, did not play an important part in the safety consciousness of that period.

To add insult to injury there were 16 sets of davits, each set of davit capable of handling 3 lifeboats, making it a total of 48 boats had they been fully equipped, as part of the ship’s structure. But the decision was made to install only 16 lifeboats, which satisfied the law of that period.

It took the immensity of the tragedy of the Titanic to completely turn around the thought processes of that period. Even then, the reversal was slow and long in coming from official circles.

Post the Titanic tragedy, changes to laws were made that keeps reverberating even in modern times. (Dealt with in a later chapter).

It is a mystery why the Lifeboat Drill, scheduled for 11 am on 14th April, the same day as the sinking, was cancelled by Capt Smith. Rather, he tacitly avoided giving a reply to the Chief Mate when informed of the plan to conduct a Life Boat Drill.

Had there been a Boat Drill, passengers would have known where to go if the alarm sounds. The crew would have been more familiar with the equipment. For example, some of the blocks and tackles to be used for the Life Boats were lying in the forward part of the ship.

# 7 Lifeboat was the first to be lowered. It contained less than 50% of its capacity, 28 / 65. The crew who were working the boat did not want to overload it.

Life Boat Davits broken off

Titanic’s Life Boat davits  ready to be used - Note Block-and-Tackle

Lifeboat swinging out mechanism?

A Hypothetical Question about the Titanic: Even if there had been 48 lifeboats, as designed, could all have been launched before the vessel sank?

Time Line of Events:

11.40  pm (14th April 1912): Titanic crashes into the iceberg.

12.25 am (15th April 1912): Capt Smith gives the order to ‘abandon ship’ and launch the lifeboats.

12.40 am (15th April 1912): The first lifeboat (Boat # 7) launched, with only 28 passengers.

02.05 am  (15th April 1912): The last lifeboat (Collapsible Sides Boat / Raft) was launched.

The next collapsible boat launched turns over, but being a raft , still floats.

02.20 am (15th April 1912): The Titanic sinks

• The crew of the Titanic had less than two hours in which lifeboats could be launched, before the vessel sank.

• The last of the lifeboats - actually the collapsible one - was launched at 2.05 am (15th April 1912), hardly a few minutes before she sank. 

• It had taken almost 85 minutes for the 16 lifeboats and four collapsibles to be launched, with teams working on both sides of the ship, on port and starboard lifeboats.

• Luckily, the Titanic did not list too much, so it was possible to work both port and starboard lifeboats.

• (In most sinkings, the vessel takes a steep list, making it impossible to launch lifeboats on one side, sometimes both).

• It would have depended on the 8 officers and the more experienced of the crew to launch all the lifeboats.

• There were a total of 14 clinker built wooden lifeboats, 65 passengers capacity, 2 smaller wooden cutters that were meant for emergency use and 4 collapsible Engelhardt lifeboats. The Engelhardt collapsibles were actually rafts made of kapok and cork with collapsible sides that could be raised to form a boat. (Kapok is a lightweight organic fibre that comes from the seed pods of the kapok tree).

• All in all, the ship’s life saving equipment had the capacity to accommodate 1198 of the total of 2209 on board, the night it sank, 54%.

• Thousands can consider themselves lucky. The full complement of passengers that the Titanic could accommodate was 3320.

• The open lifeboats of those days were a handful when it came to launching time.

• They had to be picked up from their cradles. Being pretty heavy, blocks and tackles had to be used to pick up each lifeboat. 

• The lifeboats would first have to be swung to the embarkation deck 

• Using a tricing pennant and a bowsing tackle, the boat is pulled alongside to the embarkation deck.

• I am not sure if Embarkation Ladders were provided on the Titanic, the launching height being around 70 feet.

• Neither have I seen Hull Side Doors, through which passengers could go down an Embarkation Ladder of just 10 feet or so.

• With passengers boarding, their weights have to be distributed evenly. 

• Then the process of lowering begins.

Not sure if this is what the Titanic had, but the same explains the procedure of deployment

• Even with all the officers and crew being experts, I would think it would take an average of 7 to 10 minutes to prepare each boat, embark the passengers and lower away. Once in the water, the hooks have to be released. 

• In those kind of open boats, plugs will have to be inserted into the drains provided, before the boat reaches the water. Two of the boats were lowered without the plugs. The passengers, on finding water coming into the boat, had to stop the ingress by using parts of their clothing.

• The boat that is in the water needs to row away from the ship in order to get the next boat ready for lowering. Passengers, strangers to the sea, need to be taught how to row. Remember, the initial lifeboats had only women and children on board with, probably, 2 crew members to control the boat.

• It would have taken longer for the second and third boats to be brought to the davits.

• The Titanic was extremely lucky that the sea was calm. Lowering a boat with choppy seas and rolling ships, would have been next to impossible. 

• There was also the added danger of the lifeboat smashing against the ship’s side, with a rolling ship.

• All in all, my impression of the entire proceedings is that the ship’s staff did a more-than-commendable job in sending away 706 people in the lifeboats. 

• Perhaps. where they erred was not filling the boats to near capacity. They feared that the wooden boats would collapse and break with the weight of passengers. Although the fear was genuine, it was not based on fact. They were unaware that the boats were steel reinforced by design, to carry more than a ton of weight.

• One of the disturbing aspects to come out of the Titanic enquiry was that the lifeboats were not sufficiently provisioned with water and rations. The survivors in the lifeboats were lucky that they had to wait only a few hours to be rescued.

• From the time the ‘abandon ship’ order (12.25) to the last lifeboat that was launched (02.05) was a matter of 1h 40 mins.

• 100 minutes to launch 20 boats / rafts.

• That they took an average of just 5 minutes per is extremely commendable. 

• Had the ship been equipped with 48 or more lifeboats, it is very, very doubtful that the remaining 28 boats could have been launched before the ship sank. At the most, another 4 or 5 could have been launched.

• So, having the requisite number of boats for the entire complement of passengers and crew may not  have been of much use, if they were unable to launch.

• Hypothetically, perhaps if the entire crew, including the Engine staff were involved in the lowering on both sides of the ship, 48 of the originally planned lifeboats could have been launched in time, saving all lives on board.

One of the Lifeboats of the Titanic after launching

Survival in the open Lifeboats of the Titanic era:

• The Titanic survivors who were in the Lifeboats were extremely lucky on many counts.

The sea was relatively calm, which meant the vessel was not being tossed about.

Yes, it was dark, nearly pitch black, adding to their fears.

Though all were not aware of the fact, the Titanic’s Wireless set was inoperative immediately on departure Southampton. Although Marconi protocol was that the Wireless Operators on board had to wait for a Service Technician at the next port of call, they broke the Marconi rules by repairing the problem. They had spent two days over the repairs.

At the time of the Titanic sinking, they were able to send out distress messages including the coordinates. The ‘Carpathia’ was one of the vessels that responded immediately and reached the site of the sinking in less than 4 hours to pick up all those who were in the lifeboats or were clinging on to the upturned raft. 

Had the distress calls not gone out, it is likely there would have been no survivors, unless a passing ship chanced on those in the boats.

What about those in the water? Would they have survived?

• The sea water temperature that night was around -2 deg C = 28.4 deg F.  Sea water freezes at around the same temperature.

• Those in the water would have succumbed to ‘hypothermia’.

• “Hypothermia means low body temperature. It's clinically defined as a core temperature below 95F (35C). (Your body core is basically your entire body minus your arms and legs.) It takes about thirty minutes for an adult of average size to develop hypothermia – even in near-freezing water. You have to survive both cold shock and incapacitation before hypothermia becomes an issue.”

• While a few were picked up directly from the water by the Titanic lifeboats, the Carpathia, which arrived more than two hours later, found none who were swimming.

All those picked up from devices other than lifeboats, were those from the collapsible rafts. Descriptions and numbers vary, but approximately 70 were rescued from the collapsibles.

• One was found floating on a door, rescued.

• There is a story of the baker, who was so inebriated that he survived the immersion in the cold waters.

Today’s regulations:

• Present day SOLAS Regulations - probably made after the Titanic tragedy (I’ll have to check) - state that a Life Boat and Fire Drill must be carried out if a fresh crew were to board the ship or even if more than 25% of the staff have changed.

• The Drills become extremely important when the ship’s crew have to deal with passengers. Passenger ships have corridors that can confuse even a seasoned sailor. Passengers, hence, need to be guided to their muster stations. How to wear their life jackets properly is the next step. 

• Further, a new joiner to the ship, whatever the rank, should be escorted and given a “Familiarisation of Safety and Security Protocols” within 48 hours of his joining a ship, as per the protocols in place today. This is as per the Safety Management System of the Company. The incongruity of this stipulation used to make me smile while I, on joining a ship, used to be escorted by a Third Mate who did not have even 3 months of service, holding a check list and seriously showing me the various extinguishers, CO2 rooms and other safety equipment when I was the assigned Fire Chief for the ship. But, I used to match his seriousness with my own seriousness, in order to keep him motivated.

• As per the latest SOLAS regulations, a Lifeboat should be capable of being launched in under 5 minutes - which is what the Titanic took, on an average. Mind you, they did not have the sophisticated launching equipment that we have today.

• In today’s ships, the ‘pins’ are removed, the ‘gripes’ are released and, just by lifting the  brakes’ lever, the boat is launched.

• Once the boat is in line with the embarkation deck, the boat is pulled in using a ‘tricing pennant’, the boat is filled with those to be rescued, the tricing pennant is detached and the boat is lowered to the water.

• Today’s boats are such that nobody is needed on the ship at the brake handle. All can board and the brake handle is remotely pulled using a wire system.

• For a well trained crew, this is done in less than three minutes.

Modern Survival Gear for cold water immersion:

• Immersion suits, mandatory for all crew members, allows the wearer to float and survive from hypothermia for at least a few hours.

  • Apart from the Life Boats, every cargo ship carries Life Rafts. These can be easily deployed. If not deployed, they have Hydrostatic Release Units.

  •  A hydrostatic release unit (HRU) will deploy a life raft when a vessel sinks at a water depth of 1.5 to 4 meters.

  • The capacity of each liferaft will depend on the number of crew and passengers. 

  
  

  

  Immersion Suit

  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Immersion Suits in icy waters

  
  

  

  A Life Raft shown with a Hydrostatic Release Unit

  
  

  

  A Life raft deployed

  
  

  Credits to

  Alamy

  Shutterstock

  OceanLiner Designs

  Britannica

  Google

  AR