I would like to know something about the Titanic disaster?

Question

I would like to know something about the Titanic disaster.?
I saw 3D Titanic a few days ago and this one question keeps popping into my mind:

"Why weren't the lifeboats completely filled before they took off from the ship?"

I mean, seriously, I did a ton of research about it and this site says that the boats were tested with 70 people in Ireland and there was no problem.

If a boat capable of holding around 65 people can hold more than that (70), why the hell did some of the boats carry only 12 people as Titanic sank?? I really don't get it..

16 lifeboats with a maximum number of 70 is...how many people being saved?
Answer: 1,120 people.

According to historical data 1,500 and more people lost their lives..if the boats were full more than half of those people could've lived to this day and I really feel terrible at this insane loss of life.

For what reason were the boats not completely filled?
So many innocent people could've lived to enjoy more time of their lives...

Answer 1

They thought that rescue was imminent - so they were just going to ferry people over to the rescue ship(s) and return, they were very much mistaken.



BTW - the film Titanic is about as historically accurate as a Mel Gibson film. Cameron should be ashamed of this travesty, not proud.

Answer 2

Officers were wary of filling the boats to capacity at first due to the possibility of them buckling in the air and dropping everyone 70ft into the sea. They thought at first perhaps they could lower the boats, have them go under gangplank doors, and load more people on from ladders. However this proved to be impossible, both logistically, time wise, and the fact all of the boats immediately began to row away from the ship. That was really just a secondary concern though, you can tell as lifeboats become progressively fuller, the real issue was they couldn't get people to go onto the damn things. People did not want to go into the boats, many people at first thought this was just a precaution, having to follow company rules, ect. The list wasn't that bad, the ship was bright and warm, there was no sense of panic vs going into a small open boat in the middle of the ocean on a cold night.



Of course though this eventually began to change to the point guns had to be used to keep people from swarming the boats. Two of the later lifeboats were actually lowered beyond capacity, their gunwales being just inches above water level.



As for boat 1, the famous boat with only 12 people on it, that was a special circumstance. The surrounding lifeboats, boats 3, 5 and 7 had already been lowered. Everyone else was either on the opposite side of the boat deck or at the aft boats. The thing is, while the Titanic was obviously not a dark dungeon, the level of brightness most people assume from the movie is seriously over exaggerated. If you were further aft at say boat 15, you most likely would not have been able to really see what was going on at boat 1 and run down to it. They had to get the boats lowered as quick as possible, and there were only 12 people around, most of them in fact crew, so down with 12 it went.

Answer 3

It was a combination of poor training and confusion. There were no lifeboat drills (they were not required), and so the crew were unsure of how to act. Also, orders were interpreted differently. When ordered to lower the lifeboats, "women and children first", Second Officer Lightoller, in charge of the Port side, treated this as "women and children ONLY!", and so from his side, many of the lifeboats DID pull away half empty or less. On the Starboard side, most of the lifeboats were full as they pulled away. Ironically, Lightoller is always shown as a hero (which he was) but this major failure in his actions is hardly ever mentioned. There was also the feeling that the Titanic was "ALMOST" unsinkable, (note the rider), and would sink so slowly that she would in effect be a massive lifeboat herself, staying afloat until rescue ships arrived.

Can I amend your figures however. The Titanic was carrying 20 lifeboats. 14 "clinker built" wooden lifeboats ( capacity 65 ). 2 wooden cutters that could be used as emergency lifeboats (capacity 40) and 4 collapsible "Englehart" lifeboats ( capacity 47 ). This gives a total of 1178 places. If they COULD get another 5 in each of the main lifeboats, that would add another 70, giving a total of 1248.

Answer 4

The first answer is absolute rubbish ! The reasons are very simple -



Firstly, none of the passengers - and a lot of the crew - didn't know there had BEEN a collision with an iceberg. A surviving officer, who was in his bunk at the time, said he felt only a slight vibration.

The iceberg DIDN'T "cut a 180-foot gash in the hull", as was.thought for a long time - that was what was believed to have been needed to flood 3 compartments. The ship was turning away and "bumped" it sideways-on, which pushed in the turn of the bilges, buckling the plates, and "popping" the rivets. (If she had crashed into it bows-on, she wouldn't have sunk, because only 2 compartments would have flooded.)

When the passengers were told what had happened, and to go to their boat stations, the ship was still upright, with no sign of serious damage, and they believed that, in any case, she was "unsinkable".

In those circumstances, on a very cold night, many decided to stay aboard rather than get into the open boats. The officers couldn't force them to do so, and the boats had to be lowered right away, before the ship heeled to much, and so many left half-empty.



It has also been queried why, after the ship had sunk, the boats didn't pick up more of those in the water. Three reasons here, firstly, when launched, the boats would have pulled well away as far as posssible from the ship, to be clear of the enormous suction when she went down; secondly, there were very few men aboard them, and it takes at least 2 strong men to lift an inert body from the water, especially since the boats were quite high-sided - even more so because half-empty, and so picking them up would have been extremely difficult ; and thirdly, the water was so cold that those in it would have lost consciousness within a few minutes, and died within a few more.



I am only too well aware of this - we lost a small ship in our convoy - she capsized from stress of weather, not enemy action - in a North Atlantic gale with driving snow, and had the greatest difficulty in picking up any of the crew from the water in time. - it is an awful thing to see men die just a few feet away because your arms are too short. And of the 7 we did manage to pick up, only two survived, in spite of getting them into the warmth of the engine-room, and spending hours on resusicitation - they were just "too far gone".

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Answer 5

The crew wasn't told to fill the boats,they randomly put people in.They didn't think enough to fill them.

It was also standard to put 1st class people in first.Look up titanic disaster Wikipedia.

Answer 6

Everybody was panicking, so they were not thinking straight plus lunatics were pushing and shoving so lots of people fell overboard and some just jumped into the sea.

Answer 7

Because they didn't twang the boat to be all cramped, and because first class were aloud on first they didn't want to be squashed or want the third class with them, it was just all about who had most money,

Answer 8

Not many lifeboats on board = They thought the ship was unsinkable

Answer 9

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