The Lifeboats They Chose Not to Build

Name: The Lifeboats They Chose Not to Build
Genre: Documentary

Titanic met the legal standard for lifeboats while still leaving roughly half of everyone aboard without a place.

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Transcript

Titanic followed the lifeboat law—and still left roughly half aboard without a place.
On April 10th, 1912, Titanic departed Southampton bound for New York.
Titanic carried 2,228 people aboard—the largest, most luxurious liner in the world at the time.
Its 20 lifeboats could hold only about half of them.
Several lifeboats left the ship with empty seats.
Owners and builders had rejected plans for as many as 64 lifeboats.
Yet the final 20 boats exceeded government standards then in force.
The arithmetic was legal. The danger was human.
On the fourth day of her maiden voyage, Titanic struck an iceberg.
At 2:20 a.m. on April 15th, she sank into the North Atlantic.
GovInfo reports 703 rescued; more than 1,500 people died.
On April 19th, 1912, Senate hearings opened at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Senator William A. Smith chaired testimony from 82 witnesses.
The inquiry examined inadequate lifeboats and how passenger classes were treated.
It also examined ice warnings, Titanic's speed, and unanswered distress calls.
The Hydrographer wrote that Titanic had transmitted the report of the iceberg that caused its sinking.
The Hydrographer wrote that heeding the warning Titanic transmitted would probably have saved the ship.
The hearings came later. On the water, there had been no verdict.

With too few lifeboats, the people who escaped watched Titanic vanish—and waited to learn whether rescue was coming.

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