Boat Deck Cabins

[Leigh Anthony Ross]

Is there in existance any photos, pictures, drawings, paintings, sketches of any of the first class Boat Deck cabins or officer's quaters? If anyone has any of these (if there are any, which I doubt) could you send them to me? Thank-you.

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Hi Leigh,

Deck plans showing the furniture arrangements for the 1st Class Boat deck rooms indicates fairly small spartan like rooms in comparison with most other 1st Class rooms.

 

[Jeremy Lee]

>>Deck plans showing the furniture arrangements for the 1st Class Boat deck rooms indicates fairly small spartan like rooms in comparison with most other 1st Class rooms.<<

Because of the lack of space on the Boat Deck for cabins?

 

[Leigh Anthony Ross]

Thanks Lester and Jeremy. Is there any pictures of them or just the furniture layout on the deckplans?

 

[Brian R Peterson]

Hi Anthony,

Unfortunately there are no known photos of Boat Deck cabins on Titanic or Olympic.

The furniture plans show the Boat Deck cabins being almost half the size of an A Deck cabin to give you an idea of the spartan nature of these rooms. And there are A Deck cabin photos of Olympic I believe, so if you take into consideration how small an A Deck cabin is, and basically cut it in half, this gives you an idea of what a Boat Deck cabin would be like.


Jeremy,

>>Because of the lack of space on the Boat Deck for cabins?<<

IMO, the Boat Deck cabins were small and spartan for the penny pincher who wants to travel First Class, but does not want to shell out 200 pounds for a B or C Deck Suite - in essence the beginning of the economy class.

The only known Titanic passenger to occupy a Boat Deck cabin was Stephen W. Blackwell who paid £35 10s for cabin T on the starboard side.

Best Regards,

Brian

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

Brian,

If Blackwell was a penny pincher, surely he would have rather paid the minimum 26 pounds for his cabins, which probably would have afforded him a cabin on either D or E deck. However he dished out the 35 pounds for a boat deck cabin! That is certainly not cheap.

Daniel.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

It's odd that Blackwell, who was a very wealthy man, chose that price and that location while his friend and travelling companion, Washington Roebling, paid more than £50 for A24 on the deck below. Maybe he liked the idea of travelling close to the control centre - 'T' was right next to the Marconi suite and the Officer's wardroom, and about as close as a passenger could get to the Captain's quarters and the bridge.

 

[Lester Mitcham]

The advertised rate for both T and A-24 was £60. - Both being Single-Berth Outside rooms.

 

[Brian R Peterson]

Hi Dan,

>>If Blackwell was a penny pincher, surely he would have rather paid the minimum 26 pounds for his cabins, which probably would have afforded him a cabin on either D or E deck. However he dished out the 35 pounds for a boat deck cabin! That is certainly not cheap.<<

I did not suggest Blackwell himself was a penny pincher, I am not privy on all the cabin prices and thought Boat Deck would be the cheapest lot due to its size and spartan accommodations.

Though after reading your post about the price differences, it doesn’t make sense to me that a Boat Deck cabin would cost more than a larger probably better appointed A Deck cabin.

Best Regards,

Brian

 

[Jeremy Lee]

A Boat Deck cabin was more accessible? Its like a small apartment in a prime district would cost more than a house in the countryside.

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

The boat deck cabins were actually quite decent, small but generally had all the usual furniture. The only "dodgy" cabins were X and Y, they only had the bare essential furniture.

Daniel.

 

[Brian R Peterson]

Hi Jeremy,

>>Its like a small apartment in a prime district would cost more than a house in the countryside<<

Not quite true IMO, where I live the price of a country house is much higher than a prime district apartment - I know, I live in an above mentioned apartment

Though it is interesting to note, as I said before that a Boat Deck cabin cost 11 pounds more than a basic A Deck cabin. I do think location has a part to play in that price difference, though I do not know if that is the actual reasoning behind it.

Best Regards,

Brian

 

[Jeremy Lee]

>>Not quite true IMO, where I live the price of a country house is much higher than a prime district apartment - I know, I live in an above mentioned apartment<<

I didn't know that, but here in Singapore it is definately true. To give you an example, my house which is 30mins away from the city costs US$127 a sq.ft., but in the prime district here, the price shoots up to a average of US$920 a sq.ft.

That's lots worse than the Boat Deck cabins!

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Brian, Jeremy,

The advertised rates for an Outside single-berth room on the Boat deck and decks A, B and C was £60. Exceptions were Y, which was £52; and A-7 and A-8 which like the Inside single-berth rooms on A-deck were £42.
If booked for only 1 passenger Z, was the same as A-34 and A-35 - £85; while A-3 and A-4 were £97.

Brian, On what basis have you arrived at: ".... a Boat Deck cabin cost 11 pounds more than a basic A Deck cabin."

 

[Jeremy Lee]

Thanks Lester,

So there was not much of a difference for Boat Deck or A Decks cabins!

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Can anyone explain the discrepancy between the advertised rate of £60 and what Blackwell actually paid for his ticket, which was £35 10s? Roebling paid £50 9s 11d for A24, which makes more sense. This makes me wonder whether Blackwell really did occupy a boat deck cabin.

 

[Jeremy Lee]

Could Blackwell actually LIE about occupying a Boat Deck cabin when in fact he didn't? Doesn't make sense.

He probably got his tickets through some 'backdoor' method.

 

[David F. Smith]

Well, the Titanic was certainly not fully booked, so perhaps Blackwell negotiated a better cabin? Maybe he had an inside cabin on E-deck originally and wanted to get up to a higher deck? I see no social benefit from being up on the boat deck. My thoughts were that those cabins were for non-paying White Star employees. Much like how Airline Pilots can travel for free using empty seats or even cockpit jump seats. The boat deck cabins were certainly not lavish nor had hot and cold running stewards at your beck and call.

David

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Jeremy, if Blackwell had lived to tell the tale I'm sure we'd have no reason to doubt his word. But for cabin locations of the victims we have to rely on recollections of those who did survive and on the 'Cave list' of 1st Class cabin allocations, neither of which are necessarily 100% accurate. As David has said, some people did switch cabins. Perhaps there is testimony or a letter which confirms the location of Blackwell's cabin?

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

All,

It's not impossible for Blackwell to have changed cabins, however all that could have occurred on board and thus would have been separate from anything mentioned on the Cave List. I'm still working on my Cave List paper, but as I will show, the Cave List was printed several days before April 10. With the exception of misprints or mistakes, all cabins shown on the list are what passengers originally booked. I can't see how "T" can be a misprint or a mistake for any other cabin on another deck, so he certainly must have at least booked that cabin to begin with.

The contract ticket list which shows how much passengers paid for their passage does not include any money a passenger would have paid on board (if this were necessary) for a change of cabin. Thus Blackwell's 35 pounds is how much he paid for cabin T.

Regards,

Daniel.