Lifeboats 13 and 15

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I don't own one and don't no wear to find one.<<

Just about anyplace which sells books would have some available.

When I speak of tradeoffs, what I'm talking about is compromise. In this case, achieving the best possible balance between what's as safe as possible, and what happens to be a practical possibility. The problem with a monohull design is that there are only so many places along the length of the ship where boats can even be hung and it's not long befor you run out of both available length to use and stability depending on how high up the boats are fitted.

Boats are heavy and so is the equipment to handle them. Place too many of them too high up, and you raise the ship's centre of gravity, and this leads to problems with the stability.

Put it another way, how much pitch and roll can you stand? And while we're at it, what about the righting arm of the ship? Screw that one up and you risk a capsize.

How do you avoid that?

You hang the boats down lower so your weight and balance doesn't get messed up.

The catch?

See Sam's illustration!

 

[Aly Jones]

Ok Sir, I understand you're post now

.I also know what you are getting at

point taken.

By law,pasenger's life's arn't aloud to be risked.If putting lifeboats that close to the sea and had sea trails and it was aceptable to pass by law. It sounds like a great idea.
If there was more than a chance of having life boats that close to the sea and causing lifeboats not being deployed in time and risking passenger's life's, why would they place the life boats in a dangous place? I thought the law change after Titanic sunk?
If it's a real big deal of having life boats being so close to the sea and dangous,all ships would be built smaller to have life boats in better places.
Or maybe the law did not change after Titanic!cause if it's true about lifeboats being in danger to close to the sea,it means the no body don't care about the passenger's,like it was back in 1912?

 

[Mark Baber]

Maybe you don't know these words cause you come from an upclass family.

What?

don't no wear to find one.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn't know where to find them.
Leave them alone, And they'll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them.

Just about anyplace which sells books would have some available.

There are several available online, too, and this message board has a spelling checker program available.

 

[Aly Jones]

>>What? <<

Well sir.
UM...like since you have been educated so well,that you can't understand me sometimes.

What does the Poem mean? about me? that's not nice!

Ok. I'll check some books stores out.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>If putting lifeboats that close to the sea and had sea trails and it was aceptable to pass by law. It sounds like a great idea.<<

Ummmm...it doesn't follow that it's a great idea, however it's probably the least of the evils.

>>why would they place the life boats in a dangous place?<<

Because there's no other place to put them or the alternatives are worse.

>>Or maybe the law did not change after Titanic!<<

Oh, the laws changed allright but Titanic's influance on the legislation and rule making is somewhat exaggerated. To see what I mean, read the article at https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-impact-on-maritime-law.html

 

[Aly Jones]

Yes I had a felling it was Titanic that made the lifeboat rule change.

So it is a great idea to put the lifeboats down bottom,i was trying to state that Michael sir

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Yes I had a felling it was Titanic that made the lifeboat rule change.<<

Not quite. The movement had been afoot for some time but what Titanic did was speed things up a bit. Some to the point of over reaction.

>>So it is a great idea to put the lifeboats down bottom,i was trying to state that Michael sir <<

Not quite. What I said was "Because there's no other place to put them or the alternatives are worse."

Least of the evils in other words.

 

[Aly Jones]

>>Some to the point of over reaction. <<

Michael sir. How can people over react about not enough life boats?

You're Quote sir- *The other alternatives are worse*

So it's a great idea to have life boats lower but higher it's much more perferred.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>How can people over react about not enough life boats?<<

The over reaction was in the provision. After the Titanic, the shipping lines were suddenly jamming as many boats as possible on the ships whether it would do any good or not. Some of the boats were in questionable condition and some like the collapsibles had something of a dubious record by this time.

>>So it's a great idea to have life boats lower but higher it's much more perferred.<<

Something like that. The higher up they are, the less likely they are to be damaged in rough seas. The problem here is that the higher up you go and the more you add, the more topweight you have to contend with. Topweight is no help to a ship's stability.

 

[Garth McDonald]

One possible reason for this mishap was a lack of control by the officers.

According to Beesley, an officer, who he thought was Murdoch, ordered 13 and 15 to be lowered, but immediately left that portion of the deck. According to Lookout Lee, an unknown person was supervising the loading down on A Deck, probably the 5th or 6th officer. Since we know Lowe had been busy over to the port side, it could have been Moody doing this.

As said above, the pump discharge caused 13 to float backwards, right under 15. Lack of enough supervision from above, being the lowering was done on the Boat Deck, but the officer on A Deck (probably Moody) could easily cause 15 to lower before it was known things were clear below it.

Surely we need to sympathise with the entire situation happening at the time and respect that everyone was under life threatening duress and execution of text book lifeboat lowering at 1:00 am in the middle of the Atlantic may have proven problematic

 

[Arun Vajpey]

According to Beesley, an officer, who he thought was Murdoch, ordered 13 and 15 to be lowered, but immediately left that portion of the deck. According to Lookout Lee, an unknown person was supervising the loading down on A Deck, probably the 5th or 6th officer. Since we know Lowe had been busy over to the port side, it could have been Moody doing this.

Sorry to resurrect an old post but it seemed like an ideal one to discuss clarification of officers and crew during the loading and launching of Lifeboats #13 and #15, the statements about which are rather confusing. Of particular interest to me was whether Chief Purser Hugh McElroy was involved with those two boats.

As far I have understood, Moody lowered port Lifeboat #16 at about 01:20 am and a few minutes later crossed over to the starboard side aft, arriving there around 01:25 am. Did he first go to where Murdoch (and McElroy?) was loading Lifeboat #11 or proceed directly to #13 and #15? As far as I understand, at that stage both those lifeboats were still on the boat deck and Moody supervised their loading.

Murdoch completed loading of and lowered Lifeboat #11 at around 01:32 am from the boat deck and went aft to where Moody was loading #13 and #15. I think it was at that stage that the partially loaded Lifeboat #13 lowered to the A-deck for further loading and Murdoch presumably went to A-deck to supervise loading from there. This would have been around 01:35 am, perhaps a minute or two after. But as Beesley said (see Bill Wormstedt's quote above), he left soon afterwards, presumably to cross to the port side where Lifeboat #10 had just started loading.
According to Lookout Lee, an "unknown person" took over continued loading of Lifeboat #13 from the A-deck; who could it have been? Murdoch would have left someone responsible if he was going to the other side and the logical answer seems to be that it was McElroy, but I have not seen any statement placing the Chief Purser being there (willing to be corrected on this). But Leading Fireman Barrett, who arrived on A-deck just as Lifeboat #13 was about to be lowered, said that there was no 'officer' present there but he could hear one issuing orders above on the boat deck. That could only have been Moody supervising continued loading of Lifeboat #15 on the boat deck. But Barrett also said (in his interview with Ulster Echo) that he saw Boatswain Nichols helping with Lifeboat #13 and the latter ordered Barrett to get into #13 and "pull an oar".

But could McElroy also have been there? He was not an "officer" in the true sense of the word but would Barrett have been able to recognize that from the uniform? AFAIK, Barrett was not on the Olympic before he worked on the Titanic (although he did work on the sister ship after Titanic sank) and so might not have known McElroy's rank. But Fireman George Beuchamp said that an officer was present when Lifeboat #13 was on A-deck which meant that he was referring to either Murdoch before the First officer crossed over or thought McElroy (assuming that he was there) was an officer.

In his article Whatever Happened to "Big Neck" Nichols? Brad Payne feels that Saloon Steward Alexander Littlejohn, who was rescued on Lifeboat #13, should have recognized Nichols on A-deck since Littlejohn had worked with the boatswain on the Olympic. The only reason that Littlejohn did not see Nichols could have been (again according to Payne) was because Nichols was one of the scouts gone out to gather more passengers for the lifeboats. I initially had thought that this was unlikely because Nichols would not have left his post if Murdoch had put him in charge of Lifeboat #13 before crossing over but if McElroy was also present, it would be quite all right.

Bathroom Steward Samuel Rule, rescued on Lifeboat #15, testified that when that boat was lowered to the A-deck, there was an officer present there. It could not have been Moody as he still was on the boat deck and Rule, who was on the Olympic, would have known Nichols and would not have mistaken the boatswain for an officer. But he could have considered Chief Purser McElroy as an "officer" despite the latter also having served on the sister ship.

In conclusion, could Chief Purser McElroy, who spent almost all his time on the starboard side during the sinking, have assisted with Lifeboats #13 and #15 from the A-deck? Is there any testimony to suggest it?