What if there were a ship to come to Titanic side in time

The problem with that idea Yana, would be herding people back below decks after going to all the trouble of getting them up on deck to begin with. This would have gotten even more difficult later on when it became obvious that Titanic was foundering.

P.S. Welcome to the board. Now go to your account settings and set them to show your full name next to your post.It keeps the mods happy =)
 
>>Now to go back on topic, the Titanic was labeled as "unsinkable" or at least that's what the majority of the crew thought at the time, so that's why I suppose they weren't in a hurry to load the boats.<<

I think it's more like the passengers were not in a hurry to get into the boats, and it's not hard to understand why. When you're on a nice warm, "safe" ship, getting into a freezing boat on a freezing night to be lowered into a yawning black gulf into freezing water can be seen as something of a leap of faith.

Especially for the ladies in their restrictive clothing.

We did an experiment to demonstrate this at the Titanic Symposium at the Maine Maritime Acadamy back in 2004 where all the instructor had to do was leap from one table to another while attired in a period dress. When the tables were a modest three feet apart, she understandably balked, and the floor beneath her was not 70 feet away.

>>So, were there something at Titanic that could have made the lowering lifeboats easier and faster.<<

Probably not. I've worked Welin style davits and while they were as good as anything you could get back then, working them was still done by way of manual co-ordination and muscle power. A very labour intensive and time consuming operation even for trained hands who know what they're doing.
 
Hello everyone!

It has been mentioned before but in case anyone missed it:

The deploying of the lifeboats from the stowed position to the ready-to-load position was, as Michael points out; very efficient. It was the bit that came next which was the problem... the boat- lowering arrangement. This consisted of two men.. one each end of the boat on the boatdeck beside the bow of the lifeboat. Each had a manila (natural fibre rope) to attend to. With this rope, they lowered the boat to the sea. The rope acted through a block and tackle. Obviously a man was not strong enough to just slaken the rope through the bolck himself so the in-board part of rope was would tound a crusafix -shaped post on the boat deck. it took the full weight of the boat and the man merely had to slacken the rope round the post. In theory this was OK but in practice, one rope sometimes jambed while the other was free; it often did so with a sudden jerk which put great stress on the rope holding the end of the boat. The more people on the boat, the greater the stress on the rope. It followed that if they had time, best practice was to lower the boat partially loaded to reduce the risk of breaking (old-time risk assessment) then fully load it when it was in the water or closer to the water.
Even if a rope did not jamb; it was very important to make sure the ropes were slackened evenly. Otherwise, one boat end would be tilted down with obvious risk to those in it!

Hello Yanna!

Most certainly the forward gangway doors would eventually be submerged and the after ones would be way-up in the air. However,I was envisaging the first hour and concentrating on Carpthia's gangway doors



JC
 
>>However,I was envisaging the first hour and concentrating on Carpthia's gangway doors <<

That just might have had a ghost of a chance of working too. The fact that there was a dead flat calm out there that night would have helped. Had the Atlantic been acting in it's usual caprecious manner however, fergedaboudit!
 
Michael H. Standart said:
>>If there were enough lifeboats at Titanic, would they have had enough time to load them with the passengers and safely lower them to the ocean? Thank you.<<

In my opinion, no.

The ship sank in two hours and forty minutes and of the twenty boats they had, they only launched 18 successfully. The last two floated off as the ship went down.

The thing is that if they had enough boats, there would have been no good reason not to fill them all with anybody who came along so it still would have resulted in more lives saved. Even more could have been saved if they had started to evacuate the ship sooner then they actually did.
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Yes, but is it not overlooking one probability? IF the Titanic was carrying enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew on board (as all ships did after the Titanic disaster enquiries) AND the crew had received proper training about loading and launching lifeboats (as it happened after the Titanic disaster) AND boarding passengers were given clear instructions that in the event of an accident they must follow the crew's instructions, then lifeboat launching would have started 15 to 20 minutes earlier than it did. Then, with 16 pairs of davits to launch from they could have launched 16 lifeboats in one round, even if it was not all at once. Therefore, properly equipped and trained, it might have been possible to rescue everyone on board.
 
Arun Vajpey said:
AND the crew had received proper training about loading and launching lifeboats (as it happened after the Titanic disaster)
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The crew had a drill on every voyage, standard practice on every ship before and after the disaster.
 
I've encountered a particular time factor several times already: "what if the evacuation started earlier?" This is based on the widely accepted statement that the first lifeboat was launched over an hour after the collision, because the ship hit the iceberg at 11:40 pm, and the first lifeboat was launched at 12:45 am.

But this is not true. The origin of this is the fact that the crew read "11:40 pm" on the bridge clock when the ship hit the iceberg, and passengers read "12:45 am" on their clocks (I prefer to say 12:40 am) when the first lifeboat was launched. But, there s an important difference between this bridge time and the "actual" April 14 time. At 10 pm, the bridge clock was retarded by 24 minutes, back to 11:36 pm. When the bridge clock hit 10 pm again, it was actually already 10:24 pm. And when the ship hit the iceberg, the bridge clock displayed 11:40 pm, while it was actually 12:04 am.

Suddenly we see that the time between collision and launching first lifeboat was actually much smaller than previously thought. The time gap is just 36 minutes. The first 20 minutes of that were spent in realizing the ship was sinking. Boxhall, Smith & Andrews all inspected the ship for damage and concluded 20 minutes after the collision that Titanic was sinking. 15 minutes later, the first lifeboat was launched.

There is barely any room for improvement in this sequence of events. The question "what if the evacuation started earlier" is clearly irrelevant, because it was not possible to start launching lifeboats much earlier than it happened that night.
 
Christophe Puttemans said:
But this is not true. The origin of this is the fact that the crew read "11:40 pm" on the bridge clock when the ship hit the iceberg, and passengers read "12:45 am" on their clocks (I prefer to say 12:40 am) when the first lifeboat was launched. But, there s an important difference between this bridge time and the "actual" April 14 time. At 10 pm, the bridge clock was retarded by 24 minutes, back to 11:36 pm. When the bridge clock hit 10 pm again, it was actually already 10:24 pm. And when the ship hit the iceberg, the bridge clock displayed 11:40 pm, while it was actually 12:04 am.
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Actually clocks were set back after midnight on WSL ships (and I think others as Cunard were the same). The clocks would have been put back at 12:24 a.m. and then again at 4:23 a.m. There was no clock set back before the collision and the time 11:40 p.m. was the right time. Despite what some people like to claim the crew members (especially the 12 to 4 watch of the black gang) show it also Haines and especially Pitman were very clear about it, to repeat Pitman, they had other things to think about.
 
OK, even if the launching of lifeboats on the Titanic had started exactly when it did, IF the scenario was where there were enough lifeboats for all we can assume then that White Star Line, the crew and even the passengers to some extent were aware of the need to start evacuating once the order was given. If that had been the case, the passenger round-up would have progressed more efficiently and by 12:45 a sizeable number would be ready and waiting to board. Then 16 lifeboats could be launched, if not at the same time, at least in the first 'round'. Even if this took 30 minutes, by 01:15 the second round of 16 lifeboats could start to load and by 01:40 or thereabouts the entire operation could nearly be complete.

I know this sounds over-optimistic but since this is a "What If" forum of hypothetical situations, I am asking if evacuation of all present could have been successfully performed on the above lines within the time available IF there were enough lifeboats and IF all passengers and crew had generally co-operated.
 
Alright, let's see...

During the US inquiry, Senator Smith conducted an experiment with the lifeboats of the Olympic and concluded that 18 minutes were needed for one lifeboat; that is preparing, swinging out, filling with passengers, launching and taking back up. Conclusion: all 16 lifeboats can be launched with passengers an hour after the order "abandon ship". Those 16 lifeboats can hold 990 men in total.

Titanic hit the iceberg at 12:04 am. The order for evacuation was given at 12:25 am. Now hypothetically, all passengers are awakened and put in the 16 lifeboats and the first round is gone at 1:30 am.

What happens next completely depends on the "what-if" scenario we're dealing with. If there were more lifeboats, more time would be needed to launch those lifeboats.
 
Christophe Puttemans said:
Alright, let's see...

During the US inquiry, Senator Smith conducted an experiment with the lifeboats of the Olympic and concluded that 18 minutes were needed for one lifeboat; that is preparing, swinging out, filling with passengers, launching and taking back up. Conclusion: all 16 lifeboats can be launched with passengers an hour after the order "abandon ship". Those 16 lifeboats can hold 990 men in total.
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Who will row the boats?

Can you imagine heavy loaded boats, 62 people in each? Ladies? Children? They did not trained to row. Full disorder of rowing.

Night time. None vessel at night would come closer than double length of the ship. What was the Titanic length? 200 yards? Or more?

Who will row the boats back to the Titanic?

Congestion at gangways... What time takes to discharge 62 people? To place the boat alongside, to keep it, to move it out...


Jim Currie said:
An undermanned ship's lifeboat would make about 2 knots in conditions of flat calm... that's 101 feet a minute, meaning it would take about 6 minutes to make the trip between ships. Each lifeboat would be unloaded as it arrived at Carpathia. This would take about 5 minutes. So in theory; a sort of conveyor system could be quickly set up. Boat leaves Titanic and is back alongside her for more passengers about 20 minutes later. They could also have rigged an endless line between the two ships and used Carpathia's winches to pull boat-loads of people across the intervening space. Empty boats being attached to it for the return journey. Lots to play with here!

BR
Alex

JC
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