Funfact, no one ever said that titanic was outright unsinkable. Harland & Wolff (the shipyard that built the ship) stated they made her as unsinkable as they could.
A small important note, the way people viewed lifeboats back then was very different. Peopled figured there was so much Atlantic traffic that a rescue ship would be able to come fast and the lifeboats would just be used to ferry passengers. The issue was titanic sank at night and too a massive ice fields. Ships on the other side of the ice like the Frankfurt couldn’t get through and a nearby ship the Californian only wireless operator was asleep
One of Titanics wireless operators, Jack Philips, had actually told the Californian to shut up when the Californian was warning them about ice. The Californian was also stuck in an Icefield, so they couldn’t have really done anything
They had the wrong color flares so instead of thinking they were in distress, ships in other lanes thought they were just celebrating something or just having fun, it was all a setup to kill all the powerful wealthy people opposed to the federal reserve act of 1919 such as John Jacob Astor and many more men, which is also why there weren't enough lifeboats, and this short is absolute garbage, especially for even daring to use propaganda movie scenes as fact is that nobody called it unsinkable because any boat can sink and everybody knows it.
@@dsprocks What an insane and completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. If that was a case then why did rich people get lifeboats first meaning they were far more likely to get on ones while the poors were screwed. Good thing the iceberg cooperated as a secret military asset to ram the boat.
Also to note, at that time lifeboats were only there to ferry people from a disabled ship to a rescue vessel, not to keep people afloat as the boat sank
@@plantcitycouponing not necessarily, the aft four could flood as well, and there are some scenarios where three compartments could be flooded and titanic would survive
I live in Northern Ireland. We had to do so much research on this topic when we were 11. They started with 64 lifeboats, wanted more space so they cut it down to 32 and then wanted even more space and cut down to 16. I think the rule was that there had to be enough lifeboats to save at least half the people on board.
It's not that they didn't put enough lifeboats on board because they saw the ship as "unsinkable". In fact, it was never said to be unsinkable until after it sank ironically enough. Back then, lifeboats just weren't seen as a means to evacuate people from a ship, but rather to transfer people from one ship to another.
It actually was referred to as unsinkable because of a quote that One of the builders had said saying they had made it as unsinkable as they could And the media I just kind of ran with it.What's interesting Is I wasn't really used.Ironically , until afterwards , the documents that we have which mind you , most people didn't keep copying Of newspapers for very long periods , so the articles that we have are From after the event because it was a dramatic event, kind of lake.Think the Other disasters that have happened at 3 19 50 or even pre archives
Lifeboats we’re viewed as boats to ferry passengers from the sinking ship to a rescue ship. They weren’t really thought of as a means to evacuate an entire ships population until after the titanic sank.
1909, the RMS Republic is hit by another ship and begins to slowly sink. Since the ship takes 9 hours to sink, a boat comes to the rescue and (almost) all of Republic's passengers and crew are ferried to the rescue ship using the lifeboats. This is what they anticipated what would happen in the case of a serious accident. Unfortunately, the route wasn't busy enough on the night of April 14th 1912 for a ship to come to Titanic's rescue in time.
Not a lie: She meant she will never let go of her promise not his hand! She promised him she would live! So she let go of his HAND and got the lifeboats attention and saved herself and her promise! ❤
Additional fact: At first, Titanic was planned to have 50 lifeboats. But it was then reduced to 32 to make more room for the passenges to stroll the top deck. It was then reduced even further to 16 lifeboats, plus 4 "emergency" lifeboats. Final fact: Despite the low number of lifeboats, they were very expertly designed. Each boat was able to hold about 30 - 50 passengers each (without additional luggage). Unfortunately, the crew were not aware of the durability of the lifeboats, and each lifeboat had about an average of 15 passengers.
one thing I hate about almost all titanic films/ anything really, is when 1st officer Murdoch puts the ship into full reverse then manages to turn the ship. the middle propeller (which is the one that the rudder uses to steer, by turning its propulsion) could revers meaning it could not turn in reverse.
Edward Smith said that he could not imagine anything sinking „this“ ship in 1907, when the Titanic wasn’t even thought of regarding another ship he commanded which didn’t sink. The unsinkable story was a public opinion and never actually officially marketed as unsinkable by the White Star Line.
I remember seeing a documentary about the Titantic and yes if it hit it head on it would have been OK, but I think they tried to turn but went too fast and scrapped the whole side of the ship
@@Cyanide_and_Loneliness we’re not talking a few we’re talking hundreds since stokers we’re at the bow and crew members we’re sleeping in there cabins which was at the bow plus in a head on collision more damage would’ve happened flooding more compartments
The Titanic was originally supposed to have (I'm pretty sure) 32 lifeboats. Mr. Andrews (the designer of the RMS Titanic) had originally wanted to equip it with this many so it could fit every passenger. However, J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line, said to remove many of the lifeboats because "it made the deck to cluttered." And, with the law that every boat must have enough lifeboats to accout for all passengers not in place yet, they were allowed to remove them. Also, Mr. Ismay (Who wanted fewer lifeboats) got on one, and Mr. Andrews (who wanted more) did not.
Another reason they didn’t add more lifeboats was because life boats back then were not seen as a boat that can support passengers for a long period of time, but rather a means of ferrying passengers from one ship to another in case of emergency.
The reason for this is that indeed, a large ship like Titanic is generally much more survivable in nearly all cases than the much smaller lifeboats. The point of lifeboats wasn't to save everyone on the ship. It was to allow survivors to be able to get help when the large ship beaches near land while most people stayed on the ship. Until then, it was very rare for a ship to end up in a situation where it would sink while the lifeboats would be fine.
@@AnarexicSumo that seems reasonable enough, I'm sure it was used for that purpose too. Point being, the lifeboats were not meant to be long-term survival crafts for the passengers
Actually the Titanic was meant to be "Unsinkable" cause it has sealed doors, the 4 flooded compartments breached, so on that very day on April 14th, 1912, it sank
No, it was meant to be as safe as possible, that's all. No ship is unsinkable, and they knew it perfectly well. Compartmentalization and watertight doors weren't new, and weren't perfect. That's how Ismay knew they were done for as soon as a fifth compartment flooded
Yes, so the idea was that even if 4 compartments were fully flooded the ship could stay afloat. But it was actually 5, and with the water dragging the front of the ship down the angle of the ship allowed water to spill into other compartments. This happened because the compartment's water tight walls weren't high enough, and above those compartments they did not have roofs. Titanic's sinking was mostly out of bad luck, the ship's throttle was set to stop and the wheel in the helm wasn't able to turn fast enough which allowed her to be hit. The ship would have actually managed to miss it but under the water the iceberg had a 'bump' which made it bigger underneath the water and allowed for the ship to be sliced. It was thought if the titanic could not have been saved, it would sink slow enough that nearby ships could aid the passengers from the sinking ship, and actually the nearest ship was only 10 miles away. It was thought that the ship would act as a lifeboat and the actual lifeboats would act like ferry's transporting passengers from the titanic to another ship. But that didn't happen. It took the titanic 2 hours to sink. A mistake by the crew was that they were travelling to fast in a known ice patch that they were aware of, and if the person at the helm had decided to stop the engines and literally ram the iceberg head-on she could have survived, although there would be lot's of dead.
@@likeablekiwi6265 if the person who was at the helm decided to ram the iceberg, the titanic would certainly not sink but they would have suffered serve consequences for their actions, it would make a good story just not for him
Which Incredibly ironic almost 40 years later; ships in the second world war were getting hammered into oblivion and staying afloat. Shells that could literally flatten buildings; bombardments below the water line, ammunition fires, fuel leaks, anything and everything, even scuttling charges, and ships stayed afloat for days sometimes. The Titanic hit one iceberg and dropped like a rock; USS Hornet was bombed into oblivion and didn't sink until the Japanese found her the next day and torpedoed her till she sank. Lifeboats or not; the engineering difference was massive.
Thank you for pointing this out also you have to remember there was a problem with the iron that they made the Titanic with. Another problem she had a coal fire that made the iron brittle the coal fire was where she got hit. A lot of times they could seal these especially a breach like that. They tried to get the burning coal out of the the area but what are you going to do with burning coal? They were able to make them watertight if they could have gotten to that fifth compartment and sealed. Unfortunately they could not empty that bunker. They have been working on trying to get it to stopped to get the fire stopped but the damage to the outside wall had already been done.
What's ironic? 40 years is almost half a decade, believe it or not, things change and evolve, craftsmanship gets better. Crazy thought right? Titanic wasn't a warship (might've been a military passenger ship had she not sank, but that's not important) and hypothetically if a modern carnival like or something was hit with artillery, I bet that ship might sink in under an hour. Your argument makes no sense. And she did not "drop like a rock" went down very slow and steady. There wasn't enough life boats and honestly nobody had to die. It was sheer arrogance, and once the crew was faced with that reality, all they cared about was protecting the rich and famous.
@@owenconenna7532 I would like to point out that you forgot about the sinking of the MODERN cruise ship Costa Concordia, rolled over and sank in 30 minutes of hitting a rock. A near literal repeat of the Titanic in modern times. A modern ship; built to withstand compartment flooding on the same scale and principal as Titanic... Sure the technology changed; but the only valid point you are proving to me is that projects belonging to the rich and famous do not work. Costa Concordia is a modern cruise liner: not a warship, hit one rock, rolled over and sank on the shores of an island and is regarded as one of the worst cruise ship disasters since the Titanic. A modern cruise ship built using modern materials and "improved technologies" A warship from WW2 being built in facilities that made the same types of steels; metals and production types of ships in WW1, built ships that withstood WW2, the only difference was changes in the types of welding, armor used and compartments. You cannot tell me technology improves when a ship like Costa Concordia; a ship worth 1 billion dollars, crashes and sinks on a rock... When a ship like the USS Hornet, made with only slight differences in craft and quality of WW2, gets hit by multiple strikes, fires, hull breaches and even a below the water line strike, stays afloat for a day and finally sinks to a torpedo strike. The only point here that I see is correct; is that projects of the rich and famous are garbage and people who use money should not be in charge of ship making, because it's not a quality issue, it's who has the money and who's doing the building that is the issue.
You're comparing warships, which simply have to sink other ships, to an ocean liner that has to turn a profit and isn't expected to be repeatedly hit by shells and torpedoes.
@@foxymetroid 733 merchant ships were sunk during the second World War; most of them were unarmed vessels without escorts or protection During multiple battles throughout various parts of the Atlantic and the Pacific; civilian cruise liners were being used as transport ships by the military to carry troops and personnel between battlefields and other locations During the opening hours of Dunkirk there were cruise ships being used to try to get soldiers off the beaches as the Germans were attacking There were also vessels that were involved in the White Star line that were used during the wars that were both hit by torpedoes and mines Do not tell me that I am comparing warships to civilian vessels when throughout the wars civilian vessels were being hit just as frequently That's not even counting civilian ships being turned into warships by the United States who were desperate and short on vessels
The thinking back then was that lifeboats were just for ferrying folks to and from rescue boats in an emergency. So having enough for everyone at once wasn’t thought to be necessary.
The real reason is because back in the 1900s, there was a law where the amount of lifeboats were based off of gross tonnage. (as i remember) After the Titanic sinking, the British Inquiry changed the amount of lifeboats depending on how many passengers.
And it failed cause the people he was doing the experiment with actually found a way to keep both of their cores out of the water at the same time on the same door and both survive LOL
The reason is that life boats weren't meant to evacuate all passengers at once. The routes these ships sailed were so busy that it was thought that there would always be another ship close enough that the life boats could be used to transfere passengers between the ships.
There was another ship very close by(can't remember it's name) but its transmitter guy had gone to bed and no one else was watching for emergencies. And yes the Titanic is also why all ships must always have the emergency transmitters turned on and attended
@@lordlawris5985 Though SS Californian was probably only visible due to the atmospheric conditions and was likely about 25 miles away and still wouldn't have reached titanic in time had it been alerted.
@@TLO129 it wouldn't have reached the ship in time to rescue the passengers before they were in the water But it almost certainly would have reached them before they you know fuckin drowned
@@GodbornNoven Passengers died of hypothermia in 28 degree Fahrenheit water. They would lose consciousness in about 15 minutes of being in that water, dying shortly after. They did not drown. Californian wouldn't have been able to save any additional lives.
The biggest problem with the number of Titanic's lifeboats, was strangely, likely Lusitania. The lifeboat requirements were based on tonnage, and not passenger capacity. And, the largest ship build in the U.K. (and therefore the largest that the specific lifeboat requirements applied to) before Lusitania was built, was around 22/23 thousand tons. Suddenly, that number would skyrocket with Lusitania being built, the first true superliner. And Titanic, part of the Olympic class, being a direct response to Lusitania, would jump another 10/15 thousand tons in size. These massive leaps in size occured over a short time period, less than ten years, so the laws that would have had a ship as stocked with lifeboats as a ship could've possibly needed, just a few short years ago, suddenly couldn't have given titanic anywhere near as much as it needed. And given that she was one of the second class of superliners ever made, there really wouldn't be any pressure in Parliament to change the laws, since there weren't enough ships of her scale to warrant changing the laws yet, until she sank.
Interesting tidbit this exact same thing happened in the 1970s except with oil tankers. They became so large their central spine would snap under flexing loads.
Actually, it was because the lifeboats were seen as just a way to transport people from the stricken ship to one rescuing them, not for chilling out in the middle of the ocean waiting for rescue. It was thought that another ship would be able to reach them before a ship the size of an ocean liner could sink. Plus when the other ship arrived then they could also use their boats to ferry people across.
It wouldn’t have mattered if there were more lifeboats, the crew didn’t have enough time to launch the last two boats anyway, both were getting hooked up to the davits when the ship plunged.
The real reason she didn’t have enough boats is bc back then they thought that a ship would be close enough and the lifeboats would just be used to ferry the passengers from the stricken liner to the safe liner ex: the sinking of the RMS Republic
Fun Fact - The Water tight compartments weren’t actually water tight. The compartments were meant to be taller but were moved down to give the 1st class passengers more room.
Ship owners were confident that other ships would provide provide timely aid, as had happened in the recent past. Also, that a modern liner might sink, but would take a long time to do so
Back in the day, lifeboats weren’t originally meant for getting the whole ship out in case of an emergency they were used for ferrying passengers from a sinking ship to a floating ship. They were meant to fairy passengers, not get everybody off.
Also, the “watertight” compartments were far from watertight. The water came over the top of each and passed into the next one, eventually filling up all of them.
Fun fact: Jack actually couldn't fit on the thing, because it would be too heavy and sink, thus causing hypothermia. There is literally a scientific study on this.
You’re also forgetting that ships traveling during that time were frequent and it was believed that if a ship took on water, there would be another ship to come to the rescue and lifeboats were intended to ferry passengers from one ship to another. And it was true, there was a ship close by that could’ve saved the titanic, however mixed signals along with a cold weather mirage skewed things
As has been pointed out in the comments section here, too, one reason RMS Titanic (and for that matter all ships before 1912) didn't carry enough lifeboats, was because it was assumed that there would always be enough maritime traffic to effectively rescue everyone from a sinking ship without ever having to need enough lifeboats for the total ship's capacity. Overconfident as that way of thinking is, that's what was thought at the time.
It’s close, but one important fact, you forgot was that the waterway was kind of like a highway. You had ships passing all the time and so the lightbulbs were designed to fairy passengers to another ship. But yes, she did have extra lifeboats and required and she was built to the most modern standards , and exceeded those standards of the time.
The real main reason, was that ship builders had the idea that lifeboats would be used to ferry passengers from the sinking ship to a rescue ship, they would go back and fourth. this proved faulty after many shipwrecks where that was not possible. And after Titanic sank, ship builders were quick to add enough lifeboats for everyone.
The lifeboats were never intended to carry people to shore. There were other ships along that route, and the lifeboats were to take passengers to the rescue ship.
Prior to Titanic, a ship sank generally because the weather was bad. In those cases, you’d die even if you could get into a lifeboat. Titanic’s lifeboats were only intended to ferry passengers to a rescuing ship.
Actually the real reason is that when most ships sink, they capsize, and very quickly so the boats on the opposite side would theoretically not have been able to be used, and therefore there wouldbe no point in piling two stacks of lifeboats. Lifeboats were used back then to transfer passengers from the sinking ship to a rescue ship nearby. Which there was, but they had turned off their radio.
Comment 1 of 3 Well, the Olympic and Titanic were both designed with revolutionary technology, allowing them to both flood the forward 4 compartments, and not sink. The amount of damage a ship could take for a head on collision was unimaginable to flood anywhere near 4 compartments.
And people were so overconfident that an iceberg hit wouldn’t breach more than 4 of their compartments, but when the Titanic hit the iceberg, 6 compartments were breached.
Moral of the story: DONT MAKE SHIPS THE SIZE OF THREE FOOTBALL STADIUMS UNTIL IT CAN BARELY TURN, HAVE A LIMIT FOR THE PEOPLE ON THERE AND PUT ENOUGH LIFE BOATS ON THE GODDAM SHIP!!!
another reason is because there was this one luxury boat that had sunk too but all the passengers had evacuated safely because the boat took 2 days to sink, so the people making the titanic thought the titanic would sink slowly aswell so they put half the lifeboats. Then the titanic sank in around 160 minutes
Creepy Fact- The Titanic was named after the ship in a book called "The Crash of the Titan" a book about a massive unsinkable ship that sunk during its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. When the author was interviewed about the strange coincidence after the Titanic sunk, he claimed to have dreamed that the story was told to him by angels and that he felt strongly compelled to write it down, the result of which became the book that he published.
There is a bit of a secret here. The metal was not top-notch on standards of today, but it was a state of the art steel back in the early 1900s, and it was strong enough to withstand a bump with a iceberg. But there is a problem, the boilers are on fire! Nit literally, but the Titanic used coal, and sometimes flares from the boilers lit piles of coal on slight fire, and workers just had to dump all the flaming coal in the boilers. That made the lower hull extremely hot and almost impossible to conduct practical maneuvers. Hot temperatires slightly weakened the hull and the steel plate, fullspeed and unable to steer. *And we see an iceberg ahead of us....*
Something people forget is how dangerous getting into a lifeboat back then was. Your talking about getting into a row boat to sit on the Atlantic Ocean with there being a good chance of it being during a storm serious enough to sink a ship. Previous experience with successful rescues were to use lifeboats for transferring passengers to respond ships once wireless became common with a successful example of this a few years before work on the Olympic class started. As a result the general view was that you didn't need enough for all aboard as lifeboats were best used to ferry to rescue ships and more work was best put in designing ships to be kept afloat as long as possible.
Just by the way the military did tests and found out that life boats were not as useful as you would think, ships rarely sunk slowly enough to evacuate everyone, 20-30 minutes, military personnel did an evac drill and got 1000 people off per hour, in fact the new laws added after the titanic may have been responsible for the sinking of a different ship, the SS estaland had stability issues, and the addition of all the weight basically made the problem way worse and she capsized
Fun fact the 5th boiler room wall was melting due to boiler temp and the water pressure of it rushing against that wall collapsed it which is why the fifth compartment had taken on water (I’m pretty sure im correct I do a lot of research into the titanic,Britannic and other ships type of history
Mamy have mentioned that lifeboats were viewed as ferry vessels. But in an emergency you also have to launch them. Titanic only managed to launch 18 lifeboats before it sank. So even if you had more, they would have been unlikely to save anyone.
The only reason it crashed like that is because it didn’t go head on, that’s the way the it was supposed to be unsinkable. The crew just saw it too late and didn’t want to freak everyone out so they tried to avoid it instead of going head on
the 5th compartment was also just barely grazed, they where quiet literally less then 1 meter away from being safe, but they would have been completely safe if they had instead aimed for the iceberg instead of trying to avoid it as it was much to late to even try.
Don't forget the fire in the coal storage which had been burning from before it left Ireland. The fire buckled the bulkheads and prevented them from closing, allowing them to be flooded easier.
Nonsense. A smouldering fire in one bunker had been detected in Southampton, and quickly dealt with. No stoker survivor ever claimed that any damage was done to bulkheads, only to paintwork within the bunker.
Also worth noting a few things. 1-Sea lanes were very busy, and it was thought that ships would be close enough to rescue each other. 2- Lifeboats were not meant to actually hold people after the ship sank, they were meant to ferry passengers between ships. 3- There were mathematics behind the lifeboat restrictions, but they were never updated to keep in touch with the growing size of ships
Comment 2 of 3. The real reason Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats was because she was in the popular Transatlantic Route, meaning there would always be a ship nearby to help, and with The Wireless Telegraph, in need of such a disaster, there would always be help. The ship originally called for around 32 Lifeboats, but 16 was the minimum the law required, and It would be cheaper to install the 16 required, and with the Transatlantic Route I stated earlier, the boats can come back and pick up more
They were really just so overconfident that the Titanic and Olympic would never sink so they didn’t think they would need any lifeboats at all, but they sure were mistaken and the Olympic even stopped to pick up more lifeboats before returning to Southampton after her failed attempt to rescue people from the Titanic disaster.
The reasoning at the time was that lifeboats were needed only to ferry passengers to a nearby ship. The Atlantic was and still is a crowded place. There was a ship very nearby. The SS California. But the captain chose not to investigate. They could see the Titanic and Titanic passengers and crew could see the California. Cameron missed that fact in his movie..
Correction: 6 compartments where breached Edit: just incase people don't know which compartments where breached The forepeak tank, cargo holds 1-3, bolier room 6 and the coal bunker of bolier room 5
If titanic had enough lifeboats, not all of them would be launched because it took almost the whole time for the ship to sink for all the lifeboats to be launched on the actual ship
Fun fact: The titanic sank because of a little fire in the boiler room next to the wall. So thw Fire made the metal weaker and weaker. And since the iceberg hit that EXACT spot, it sank.
even if titanic had enough lifeboats for everyone, nothing much would of actaully changed. just think, if they just BARELY managed to ready the last 2 collapsible boats before they were floated off the deck, then adding 16 more boats would of just ended up with most of them being draged down with the ship. to put simply, even if they had more boats, they just didnt have to time to ready, load and launch them.
only thing is, the lifeboats could have held Everyone onboard, but the officers and passengers were scared they would buckle, so they loaded about 10-20 people per life boat, when they could carry 80 before they would buckle.
More lifeboats wouldn't have mattered. The crew took so long to load and launch the boats that the last one launched mere minutes before the Titanic was completely submerged. Also, lifeboats back then were essentially just glorified row boats. They were lucky the ocean was that calm, though rougher weather would have made the iceberg easier to spot sooner.
1Short answer, the maritime law before the disaster was ancient in its age, and it said that any ship with a 10,000 excess tonnage must have 16 lifeboats
It’s also because, with the invention of the wireless telegraph, the idea was that the titanic would stay afloat long enough for another ship to come and pick people up where the lufeboats would be used for transportation between the two ships
Actually its becuz lifeboats weren’t seen the same at the time. They weren’t seen as a means to evacuate everyone off a ship, they were meant to ferry passengers off the ship to another in case of an emergency As back then ships were everywhere and there would always be one nearby that could itself lower its own lifeboats and send them toward the damaged ship as it lowers its life boats to work like clockwork and get everyone safely off. Of course this changed after the disaster
Did you know: it wasn’t just ONE iceberg that sunk the titanic, it was actually a sheet of this ice that had been caused by a glacier that had fallen apart and caused a huge fleet of ice but it wasn’t visible at all because it was so dark. They could only see one giant iceburg. Fact check me if im wrong
When he said lifeboat, he really meant titanic would stay afloat until the rescue ship arrived, that never happened, if only Carpathia is closer and had arrived before Titanic plunged, then that could easily demonstrate Titanic being a lifeboat itself, you see, she remained upright duting the entire 3 hour of struggle against time.
y'all, the issue was that, after 3 or 4 are breached, the water level goes above the hull and onto the E-deck, and water easily infiltrated in spots on the ship other than the hull. If Titanic had been equipped with stronger hull, like a double-packed steel type normally used then, it would not have sunk, but the White Star line decided not to spend the extra money putting these stronger hulls on the ship.
