Procedures to Launch Collapsible Lifeboats

on Titanic’s Officers’ Quarters Roof

By Bob Read, D.M.D.
Introduction
The two Engelhardt collapsible lifeboats which were stowed on Titanic’s officers’ quarters roof
outboard of funnel #1 were never successfully launched from davits the night of the Titanic
disaster. On her sister ship Olympic these two boats were stowed along with the other two
Engelhardt collapsible boats atop one another inboard the bulwark where the davits were
located to service the port and starboard emergency cutters at lifeboat stations #1 and #2. This
was changed on Titanic and two of the Engelhardt collapsible boats were moved to the roof of
the officers’ quarters. The reasons behind this move and the evidence for how these boats
were intended to be launched will be discussed in this article.

Stowage of collapsible boats

On Titanic the four collapsible boats were given letter identifications rather than the number
identifications of the wooden lifeboats. The collapsible boats were designated A, B, C and D.
Figure 1 shows where these four collapsible boats were stowed.

Go to next page
 Figure 1

Stowage of collapsible boats

Where Titanic’s collapsible boats were stowed was different than early Olympic’s. Olympic had
boat A stowed atop boat C and boat B stowed atop boat D. In Figure 2 we see how the
starboard boats A & C were stowed on Olympic.

Go to next page
 Figure 2

Starboard collapsible boats stowed on early Olympic

What we can see in Figure 2 is that by stowing two collapsible boats atop each other that the
two of them are higher than the 4 ft. bulwark by the #1 emergency cutter. The emergency
cutters had to be ready and accessible on a moment’s notice in case of a man overboard. With
the collapsible boats stacked like this on Olympic, crew would have to climb over them in order
to board the emergency cutter in its outboard position. It is therefore understandable why it
was decided to move collapsible boats A and B to a location on the roof of the officers’
quarters.
Figure 3 shows collapsible boat A on the roof of Olympic’s officers’ quarters.

Go to next page
 Figure 3

Collapsible boat A on roof of Olympic’s officers’ quarters

Procedures for Launch

Moving the collapsible boats A and B to Titanic’s officers’ quarters roof required providing some
means for lowering the boats to the boat deck. The means which was provided on Titanic was
the incorporation of round links in shrouds #3 and #4 (as numbered from the forwardmost
shroud of funnel #1). These links provided a purchase point for hooks on blocks to be put
through the links. Figure 4 shows the port shroud links on Titanic.

Go to next page
 Figure 4

Port shroud links on Titanic

Figure 5 shows the placement of the shroud links on the Titanic Rigging Plan.

Figure 5

Shroud links on Titanic rigging plan

Figures 6 and 7 are drawings showing the location of the shroud links.

Figure 6

Starboard shroud links on Titanic

Figure 8

Starboard shroud links on Titanic

The first task to be accomplished in launching the collapsible boats atop the Titanic’s officers’
quarters is to rig the falls for the boats. This is done by placing treble blocks with hooks through
the eyes of the shroud links. Since there is a 50/50 probability of this needing to be done at
night, about the only practical way to do this is for a crewman to climb the shrouds and place
the block hook through the link manually. This procedure is shown in Figure 7. In this and
other drawings from this perspective, intervening structures have been removed for clarity.

Figure 7

Crewman climbing shroud to rig falls in shroud link

Figure 8 shows the falls rigged to the shroud link and to the collapsible boat.

Figure 8

Falls rigged to collapsible boat

Go to next page
Figure 9 shows crew beginning to hoist the collapsible boat with one crew member in boat to
fend it away from the deckhouse with a boat oar.

Figure 9

Crew beginning to hoist collapsible boat

Figure 10 shows boat being cleared of the deck house and a crew member fending it away from
the deck house with a boat oar.

Figure 10

Collapsible boat clearing deck house

Figure 11 shows the collapsible boat lowered to the deck. In this drawing four obstacles to
moving the boat to either the first or second starboard davits are shown. Obstacle #1 is the
crew stairway surround. Obstacle #2 is the #3 starboard shroud of the first funnel. Obstacle #3
is the Kelvin sounding machine. Obstacle #4 is the #4 starboard shroud of the first funnel. To
move the boat to the first davit would require dealing with obstacles #1, #2 and #3. To move
the boat to the second davit would only require dealing with obstacle #4 so this would be the
most logical destination for the collapsible boat. There is evidence because of the vertical
forward davit arm of lifeboat station #1 on the Titanic wreck that they tried to move collapsible
boat A to this davit position. It may have been possible that the sounding machine was not
bolted to the deck but rather had pins which were placed in sockets like the boat chocks. In
that case, it would be just as easy to cut the lanyards of shroud #3 and move the boat to the
lifeboat station #1. However, we do not know the precise method of securing the sounding
machine.

Figure 11

Obstacles to moving the collapsible to a davit pair

To eliminate obstacle #4, the hemp lanyards between the thimble eyes must be cut with a
knife. In the event that the roof top collapsible boats would be needed, the sinking of the ship
would be a certainty. Removing one shroud attachment would introduce no undue stability to
funnel #1. Figure 12 shows the hemp lanyards at the deck level which would be cut.

Go to next page
 Figure 12

Hemp lanyards to be cut to clear shroud from path of collapsible boat

Once the obstacle of the shroud was eliminated the aft davit falls could be attached to the
collapsible boat and four crew members could haul it under the davit where the forward falls
could be attached. The chocks for the 30 ft. boat would also be removed from the deck. Once
under the davits with falls attached, the boat could be made ready for launch and loaded with
passengers. After loading, the boat could be launched. Figure 13 shows the boat being hauled
into position under the second davits.

Figure 13

Collapsible boat hauled into position for launch under davits

 Analysis
In looking at the addition of the collapsible boats aboard Titanic, a basic question arises as to
why they were added to the lifeboat complement at all. Both early Olympic and Titanic
satisfied the statutory lifeboat requirements with their 16 wooden lifeboats. The stowage of
the collapsible boats illustrates that it is doubtful that the designers ever really thought that
there was much possibility that they would ever be used. For that reason, their stowage is less
than optimal for them to be used effectively.
In the case of Titanic, there was no problem with the stowage of boats C and D on the boat
deck. They could easily be attached to the falls of the emergency boat davits which had no
chocks on deck where these boats were stowed. The stowage of boats A and B atop the
officers’ quarters is another matter. These two boats were never able to be launched from
davits during the disaster. As the procedures I previously outlined show, launching collapsible
boats A and B from davits was highly improbable. If the ship had sunk much more slowly as
happened during the RMS Republic sinking, there would have been time for rescue vessels to
arrive and all the passengers could have been ferried from Titanic to the rescue vessels by
multiple trips of the wooden boats. A more rapid sinking like that which happened with Titanic
showed that there was insufficient time or crew training for lifeboats A and B to be successfully
launched from davits. Some of the reasons are:
1. Complex procedures to rig falls to lower the boats to the boat deck.
2. Lowering the boats to the boat deck required more crew than it should have.
3. There was no training or drills carried out to launch collapsible boats A and B. As a
consequence, none of the officers appeared to know where the falls were located to rig
them onto the shroud links.
4. There was no clear path for the collapsible boat from where it was lowered to the boat
deck to any particular davit pair.
5. If a path could be cleared to a particular davit pair, the boat would have to be pulled
across the deck by the davit falls. This would be no easy task because Engelhardt
collapsible boats of the size used on Titanic weighed approximately 1200 lbs.
With the need for crew to attend to the launch of the main wooden lifeboats, it is easy to
understand why the A and B collapsible boats would have considered a “last resort”. Neither of
these boats were able to make it to the rescue ship RMS Carpathia. All their passengers had to
be transferred to main wooden lifeboats before the collapsible boats were cast adrift.

Conclusion
This article has examined what reasonable procedures would be required to be able to launch
the two Engelhardt collapsible boats which were stowed atop Titanic’s officers’ quarters. From
this examination it is not difficult to see why this exercise was destined to fail on the night of
the Titanic disaster. After the disaster during Olympic’s 1913 refit, more thought was given to
how to stow multiple collapsible boats which could be easily launched from davits. The inability
to successfully launch Titanic’s lifeboats A and B was almost certainly guaranteed when it was
decided to stow them atop the officers’ quarters.