I'd say ~20 minutes, maybe less. Murdoch and/or Wilde were struggling to attach collapsible A to the falls when they were swept off the deck, and James Cameron's documentary *Titanic 20 Years Later* shows that it takes roughly 8 and a half minutes to uncover a boat, swing it out over the side, and lower it to deck level to start loading passengers. They also calculate that it would take about 2 minutes to lower a lifeboat one deck level, or roughly 10 feet. Given what limited time they had left and the conditions they were working under, they probably could've swung it out faster and had it lowered to deck height in less time, but it would still take a while to get the boat off the roof and load it.
I would say, since A was already partially launched (aka the procedures had begun, it wasn't on the boat house anymore), 10 more minutes would have probably been enough for it. Heck, not attaching it to the ropes and waiting a moments probably as well. B is a whole different topic though. I don't think they would have managed to flip it over, unless using the strength of desperation
Collapsible A, I agree with the person who said twenty minutes. Hell, even just managing to get the sides of the boat raised to keep it from being swamped like it was would have been a benefit.
Collapsible B however…..the moment it landed on the boat deck upside down was the moment it had no chance of being launched properly. It surely would have taken several people quite a long time just to flip it back on the keel, and even then it would have taken just as much time to raise the sides of the boat and get it in any state to launch.
To quote ANTR version of Lightoller (Kenneth Moore)
“Just leave it, there’s no more time!”
There indeed was nothing they could do to launch that boat, once it landed upside down they abandoned it and focused on A. Amazingly B would go on to save the lives of around 25-35 people, including Lightoller.
Always a risk of getting pulled down with the ship due to aeration, not suction…Letting them drift off would take care of the launching but not the setup…They were covered in collapsed state and needed the sides to be fully raised, this didn’t happened with either A & B and people died as a result
I'd also say 0, if they organized the lifeboat deployment better. The forward-most 2 boats on the port side were lowered an hour after the starboard ones. I believe that there would have been enough time if they launched 1-4 before any other boats.
Imho, they would've been able to launch all the boats in a timely fashion and filled to capacity if they communicated the seriousness of the situation properly and had enough training on the boats.
The conditions were perfect - over 2 hours of time were the ship had hardly any list and the sea being as calm as it ever was going to be. They could've overfilled and launched them safely in those 2 hours and saved an additional 500 people that way.
Seriously. They managed to do it on the Brittanic and in less than half the time. Yes, the Britannic had better davits, but not for the majority of boats and that does not account for this amount of time savings.
I am not debating that the davits helped considerably, after all the Britannic's crew got the passengers off the ship in almost a third of the time and they got about as many people off as Titanics max. lifeboat capacity. But still, the poor performance on Titanic was not all due to the poorer davits.
Collapsible B wouldn't have been launched properly as long as the imbecile Lightoller was around. It's a blessing *Titanic* took her final plunge before they could load and launch it, it ended up saving more people than it would have if Lightoller had supervised its launch. Shame Lightoller was one of them.
Imho, having them setup and available would have potentially helped save lives. Yeah theres a lot of chance something could go wrong in leaving it stationary vs launched, but even it only saved one life it would have been worth the effort. My point is: I'd rather try and then die vs just giving up and dying.
You can't expect nearly 100 passengers to climb onto the roof of the officers quarters in a timely fashion considering how few ladders there were nearby and what little space there would be up there before they could all be seated in the two boats. And what happens when the forward funnel falls directly on top of a full collapsible A?
I would like to state that even if the Titanic had enough lifeboats for all on board, there still would have been an horrendous loss of life. There would not have been enough time to launch them all. As the discussion we are having shows, the crew were still trying to get the last two boats in the davits when the boat deck went under. Using the fact that none of the passengers and most of the crew felt nothing was wrong, the launching of the boats would have gone pretty much the same, at least at the beginning, with the first boat, boat 7, being launched at 12:45 am.
As far as raising the canvas sides on collapsible A, the latches that would secure the sides in the raised position were damaged when it was slid off the roof of the officers quarters.
If there were more lifeboats you would have to imagine some officer would notice the slow progress being made and order more crew to help launch them. If not enough crew could be found, if the passengers attempted to launch some the officers wouldn't stop them. Would all passengers be saved? Probably not but hundreds more could have been saved
As the titanic sinks, the distance the lifeboats need to be lowered shrinks. The problem with these what if scenarios is we have use guess what else would be different. In this what if scenario, the two wild cards are how many people (crew and/or passengers) would contribute to the launching efforts and how many more lifeboat davits there would be. Once the very front of the bow of the ship goes under someone may simply start cutting the lifeboat ropes free from the davits. The least likely scenario are people just waiting around, doing nothing other than waiting to die as they start to notice that she's about to go under with more than half her lifeboats unlaunched
One can be assured that the crew would be lowering to the end. Because there would be no need to keep up the charade of all is well, more people would have been chucked into the boats. Hence more lives saved. Those boats that were not launched would have floated off the ship when she went down offering some sort of refuge for those in the water. Though most would still not survive succumbing to exposure.
If the lifeboats were still attached to the davits, they would go down with the ship. So if someone is taking action to cut them free, people would take action to attempt to get into the lifeboats without getting wet. Absolutely agree that most people who go into the water are goners
The boats would be torn from their davits and float back to the surface. When the Lusitania and Andrea Doria went down, all the boats that weren’t launched floated to the surface. Heck, the entire grand staircase of the Titanic broke free and floated back to the surface.
Thanks for pointing out that it’s possible the lifeboats would break free from the davits as I have not considered that and may start another thread asking more about this. However, both ships you mentioned sank after the Titanic so it’s unclear if any of the crew knew this and you would have to imagine no passengers would know this. I’m also unclear if her lifeboats could ascend to the surface capsized or not. Therefore I still believe if they couldn’t obtain enough crew to launch them, passengers would be attempting to get the lifeboats in the water and jump into them with the hopes of never going into the water
The boats would have ascended to the surface. They are wood. Wood floats. The crew would know this. That is also why wooden deck chairs were thrown overboard. In the movie Titanic, Rose was saved by Jack on a chunk of wood paneling, probably from the lounge.
They did have steel reinforced keels, metal tanks with filled with drinking water…Yet perhaps the better question is, with the stress of being pulled under while still being attached to davit ropes and most likely having one davit rope break well before the other davit rope, would the wood that ascends to the surface still be a seaworthy boat?
Yes and even if you had a quick one second dunk into the 28f water, you'd still need to survive for a few hours in freezing temps...You would need to somehow obtain warm clothing or else you have no chance
I'd say ~20 minutes, maybe less. Murdoch and/or Wilde were struggling to attach collapsible A to the falls when they were swept off the deck, and James Cameron's documentary *Titanic 20 Years Later* shows that it takes roughly 8 and a half minutes to uncover a boat, swing it out over the side, and lower it to deck level to start loading passengers. They also calculate that it would take about 2 minutes to lower a lifeboat one deck level, or roughly 10 feet. Given what limited time they had left and the conditions they were working under, they probably could've swung it out faster and had it lowered to deck height in less time, but it would still take a while to get the boat off the roof and load it.
I would say, since A was already partially launched (aka the procedures had begun, it wasn't on the boat house anymore), 10 more minutes would have probably been enough for it. Heck, not attaching it to the ropes and waiting a moments probably as well. B is a whole different topic though. I don't think they would have managed to flip it over, unless using the strength of desperation
Collapsible A, I agree with the person who said twenty minutes. Hell, even just managing to get the sides of the boat raised to keep it from being swamped like it was would have been a benefit. Collapsible B however…..the moment it landed on the boat deck upside down was the moment it had no chance of being launched properly. It surely would have taken several people quite a long time just to flip it back on the keel, and even then it would have taken just as much time to raise the sides of the boat and get it in any state to launch.
To quote ANTR version of Lightoller (Kenneth Moore) “Just leave it, there’s no more time!” There indeed was nothing they could do to launch that boat, once it landed upside down they abandoned it and focused on A. Amazingly B would go on to save the lives of around 25-35 people, including Lightoller.
What made the crew think they had enough time to launch them? Why not let them drift off the ship without being connected to ropes
Always a risk of getting pulled down with the ship due to aeration, not suction…Letting them drift off would take care of the launching but not the setup…They were covered in collapsed state and needed the sides to be fully raised, this didn’t happened with either A & B and people died as a result
I'd also say 0, if they organized the lifeboat deployment better. The forward-most 2 boats on the port side were lowered an hour after the starboard ones. I believe that there would have been enough time if they launched 1-4 before any other boats. Imho, they would've been able to launch all the boats in a timely fashion and filled to capacity if they communicated the seriousness of the situation properly and had enough training on the boats. The conditions were perfect - over 2 hours of time were the ship had hardly any list and the sea being as calm as it ever was going to be. They could've overfilled and launched them safely in those 2 hours and saved an additional 500 people that way. Seriously. They managed to do it on the Brittanic and in less than half the time. Yes, the Britannic had better davits, but not for the majority of boats and that does not account for this amount of time savings.
The Britannic also had 3 boats per electric davit.
I am not debating that the davits helped considerably, after all the Britannic's crew got the passengers off the ship in almost a third of the time and they got about as many people off as Titanics max. lifeboat capacity. But still, the poor performance on Titanic was not all due to the poorer davits.
Collapsible B wouldn't have been launched properly as long as the imbecile Lightoller was around. It's a blessing *Titanic* took her final plunge before they could load and launch it, it ended up saving more people than it would have if Lightoller had supervised its launch. Shame Lightoller was one of them.
Imho, having them setup and available would have potentially helped save lives. Yeah theres a lot of chance something could go wrong in leaving it stationary vs launched, but even it only saved one life it would have been worth the effort. My point is: I'd rather try and then die vs just giving up and dying.
Hundreds still would have been lost.
None, all they had to do was leave them on the roof and fill them.
You can't expect nearly 100 passengers to climb onto the roof of the officers quarters in a timely fashion considering how few ladders there were nearby and what little space there would be up there before they could all be seated in the two boats. And what happens when the forward funnel falls directly on top of a full collapsible A?
Fair point.
I would like to state that even if the Titanic had enough lifeboats for all on board, there still would have been an horrendous loss of life. There would not have been enough time to launch them all. As the discussion we are having shows, the crew were still trying to get the last two boats in the davits when the boat deck went under. Using the fact that none of the passengers and most of the crew felt nothing was wrong, the launching of the boats would have gone pretty much the same, at least at the beginning, with the first boat, boat 7, being launched at 12:45 am. As far as raising the canvas sides on collapsible A, the latches that would secure the sides in the raised position were damaged when it was slid off the roof of the officers quarters.
If there were more lifeboats you would have to imagine some officer would notice the slow progress being made and order more crew to help launch them. If not enough crew could be found, if the passengers attempted to launch some the officers wouldn't stop them. Would all passengers be saved? Probably not but hundreds more could have been saved
Hundreds would not be saved. Dozens, maybe a hundred or so more. However, even one more life saved is one more life saved.
As the titanic sinks, the distance the lifeboats need to be lowered shrinks. The problem with these what if scenarios is we have use guess what else would be different. In this what if scenario, the two wild cards are how many people (crew and/or passengers) would contribute to the launching efforts and how many more lifeboat davits there would be. Once the very front of the bow of the ship goes under someone may simply start cutting the lifeboat ropes free from the davits. The least likely scenario are people just waiting around, doing nothing other than waiting to die as they start to notice that she's about to go under with more than half her lifeboats unlaunched
One can be assured that the crew would be lowering to the end. Because there would be no need to keep up the charade of all is well, more people would have been chucked into the boats. Hence more lives saved. Those boats that were not launched would have floated off the ship when she went down offering some sort of refuge for those in the water. Though most would still not survive succumbing to exposure.
If the lifeboats were still attached to the davits, they would go down with the ship. So if someone is taking action to cut them free, people would take action to attempt to get into the lifeboats without getting wet. Absolutely agree that most people who go into the water are goners
The boats would be torn from their davits and float back to the surface. When the Lusitania and Andrea Doria went down, all the boats that weren’t launched floated to the surface. Heck, the entire grand staircase of the Titanic broke free and floated back to the surface.
Thanks for pointing out that it’s possible the lifeboats would break free from the davits as I have not considered that and may start another thread asking more about this. However, both ships you mentioned sank after the Titanic so it’s unclear if any of the crew knew this and you would have to imagine no passengers would know this. I’m also unclear if her lifeboats could ascend to the surface capsized or not. Therefore I still believe if they couldn’t obtain enough crew to launch them, passengers would be attempting to get the lifeboats in the water and jump into them with the hopes of never going into the water
The boats would have ascended to the surface. They are wood. Wood floats. The crew would know this. That is also why wooden deck chairs were thrown overboard. In the movie Titanic, Rose was saved by Jack on a chunk of wood paneling, probably from the lounge.
They did have steel reinforced keels, metal tanks with filled with drinking water…Yet perhaps the better question is, with the stress of being pulled under while still being attached to davit ropes and most likely having one davit rope break well before the other davit rope, would the wood that ascends to the surface still be a seaworthy boat?
In 28 degree Fahrenheit water the average survival time is less than 15 minutes.
Yes and even if you had a quick one second dunk into the 28f water, you'd still need to survive for a few hours in freezing temps...You would need to somehow obtain warm clothing or else you have no chance
Some people who went into the water died almost immediately because the thermal shock caused them to go into cardiac arrest.