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conditions prevailed that night for launching boats from the decks of the
Titanic: there was no list that prevented the boats getting away, they could
be launched on both sides, and when they were lowered the sea was so
calm that they pulled away without any of the smashing against the side
that is possible in rough seas. Sometimes it would mean that only those
boats on the side sheltered from a heavy sea could ever get away, and this
would at once halve the boat accommodation. And when launched, there
would be the danger of swamping in such a heavy sea. All things
considered, lifeboats might be the poorest sort of safeguard in certain
conditions.
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Life-rafts are said to be much inferior to lifeboats in a rough sea, and
collapsible boats made of canvas and thin wood soon decay under exposure
to weather and are danger-traps at a critical moment.
Some of the lifeboats should be provided with motors, to keep the boats
together and to tow if necessary. The launching is an important matter: the
Titanic's davits worked excellently and no doubt were largely responsible
for all the boats getting away safely: they were far superior to those on
most liners.
Pontoons
After the sinking of the Bourgogne, when two Americans lost their lives, a
prize of 4000 Pounds was offered by their heirs for the best life-saving
device applicable to ships at sea. A board sat to consider the various
appliances sent in by competitors, and finally awarded the prize to an
Englishman, whose design provided for a flat structure the width of the
ship, which could be floated off when required and would accommodate
several hundred passengers. It has never been adopted by any steamship
line. Other similar designs are known, by which the whole of the after deck
can be pushed over from the stern by a ratchet arrangement, with air-tanks
below to buoy it up: it seems to be a practical suggestion.
One point where the Titanic management failed lamentably was to provide
a properly trained crew to each lifeboat. The rowing was in most cases
execrable. There is no more reason why a steward should be able to row
than a passenger--less so than some of the passengers who were lost; men
of leisure accustomed to all kinds of sport (including rowing), and in
addition probably more fit physically than a steward to row for hours on the
open sea. And if a steward cannot row, he has no right to be at an oar; so
that, under the unwritten rule that passengers take precedence of the crew
when there is not sufficient accommodation for all (a situation that should
never be allowed to arise again, for a member of the crew should have an
equal opportunity with a passenger to save his life), the majority of
stewards and cooks should have stayed behind and passengers have come
instead: they could not have been of less use, and they might have been of
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more. It will be remembered that the proportion of crew saved to
passengers was 210 to 495, a high proportion.
Another point arises out of these figures--deduct 21 members of the crew
who were stewardesses, and 189 men of the crew are left as against the 495
passengers. Of these some got on the overturned collapsible boat after the
Titanic sank, and a few were picked up by the lifeboats, but these were not
many in all. Now with the 17 boats brought to the Carpathia and an average
of six of the crew to man each boat,--probably a higher average than was
realized,--we get a total of 102 who should have been saved as against 189
who actually were. There were, as is known, stokers and stewards in the
boats who were not members of the lifeboats' crews. It may seem heartless
to analyze figures in this way, and suggest that some of the crew who got to
the Carpathia never should have done so; but, after all, passengers took
their passage under certain rules,--written and unwritten,--and one is that in
times of danger the servants of the company in whose boats they sail shall
first of all see to the safety of the passengers before thinking of their own.
There were only 126 men passengers saved as against 189 of the crew, and
661 men lost as against 686 of the crew, so that actually the crew had a
greater percentage saved than the men passengers--22 per cent against 16.
But steamship companies are faced with real difficulties in this matter. The
crews are never the same for two voyages together: they sign on for the one
trip, then perhaps take a berth on shore as waiters, stokers in hotel
furnace-rooms, etc.,--to resume life on board any other ship that is handy
when the desire comes to go to sea again. They can in no sense be regarded
as part of a homogeneous crew, subject to regular discipline and educated
to appreciate the morale of a particular liner, as a man of war's crew is.
Searchlights
These seem an absolute necessity, and the wonder is that they have not
been fitted before to all ocean liners. Not only are they of use in lighting up
the sea a long distance ahead, but as flashlight signals they permit of
communication with other ships. As I write, through the window can be
seen the flashes from river steamers plying up the Hudson in New York,
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each with its searchlight, examining the river, lighting up the bank for
hundreds of yards ahead, and bringing every object within its reach into
prominence. They are regularly used too in the Suez Canal.
I suppose there is no question that the collision would have been avoided
had a searchlight been fitted to the Titanic's masthead: the climatic
conditions for its use must have been ideal that night. There are other things
besides icebergs: derelicts are reported from time to time, and fishermen lie
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