ARE SHIPS 'UNSINKABLE' TODAY?
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DeepFriedJello — 10 years ago(January 24, 2016 10:13 AM)
It was interesting that they seemed to know exactly how long the Titanic would stay afloat. 2+ hours I think. The disaster wouldn't have been so tragic if they had just had enough lifeboats, and a little training in what to do in an emergency. An "unsinkable" ship and no plan equals disaster. I guess the lifeboats were just there for decoration. Plus, if you are going too fast to avoid a collision, the captain is at fault.
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chimaera1249 — 10 years ago(January 31, 2016 08:45 AM)
There was a plan, but it just wasn't good enough for the situation. Prior to
Titanic
, there had never been (or at least not in recent memory) an incident that required evacuating the
entire
ship at once. Lifeboats were never intended to hold every person at one time. It was assumed that ships would be close enough to quickly provide aid and lifeboats would be used to ferry people to safety, then return for more people. Ships were designed with that idea in mind in order to keep them afloat for as long as possible to give crews the time to evacuate.
Titanic
, though, broke all those assumptions. While she had more time than originally thought (Andrews thought the ship had about an hour and a half after his inspection), didn't have the time, manpower, or rescue ships in the area to make that work (I know
Californian
was roughly in the area, but she wasn't nearly big enough to hold everyone, and likely would not have been able to arrive in time to do much).
This is also why the lifeboat argument is a little overblown. While I'm sure nobody would argue that having enough lifeboats is a bad thing, in a lot of cases, including
Titanic
's, they're not all that helpful. You have to have the time to launch them, crew to man and lower them, and a level enough deck to launch from.
Titanic
was extremely lucky in she sank more or less on an even keel, and her port list didn't seriously impede the boat launching. However, as it was, the crew barely had enough time to launch 18 of the 20 boats she did have, and each boat took more of the crew off the ship that was capable of lowering to boats (the deck crew was only 66 people, which includes the 7 officers, and you need 5-6 on the ship to launch a boat). More people almost certainly would have been saved by more lifeboats, but not all, and it more likely than not that some of those boats would have had to be cut loose and left the ship empty or even gone down with the ship.
This isn't to say that the evacuation was perfect. It definitely wasn't, but all-in-all, I think it went fairly well given the situation the officers found themselves in. -
lrdcharlton — 10 years ago(February 27, 2016 07:54 PM)
I often wonder why people keep stressing the number of lifeboats the Titanic had when they didn't even successfully launch all of them. The last collapsible floated away and the other overturned. Could you imagine the chaos if they had to deal with the davits that would have several lifeboats stacked up.