Titanic's 21st lifeboat -- Titanic

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Date Posted: 05:17:09 11/02/99 Tue
Author: Steve Hall
Subject: Titanic's 21st lifeboat

The Mystery Of The Capsized Lifeboat

Allowing for the reported 5 women (1st Class) who elected to stay aboard the ship with their husbands or for other reasons, than all 1st Class women could have been saved. However, there was 15 women (12%) lost from 2nd Class. It would be safe to say that these women had made it to the boat deck when you consider the percentage of 2nd Class female passengers that were scattered amongst the various lifeboats.

Allowing that the first lifeboats launched contained on average only 25 people, and considering that on average each lifeboat had a qualified seaman in charge (normally a AB) and three other men provided for manning the oars, could they have been lowered in a lifeboat that for some reason was capsized at the time it was launched. After all, 1st Class passenger Marian Thayer did see a capsized lifeboat in the water from lifeboat No 4 which was lowered at 1.55am from the port side. (Both Captain Lord of the Californian & Captain Rostron of the Carpathia also later sighted a inverted standard lifeboat, and it was not either collapsible A or B)

Could the lifeboat seen by Marion Thayer have been the inverted collapsible B, impossible, collapsible B was still secured to the roof of the officers quarters at the time lifeboat No 4 was launched. (yet if this mysterious lifeboat did not come from the Titanic, than were did it come from?

uNote: All of the Titanic�s 16 standard lifeboats were accounted for as well as the 4 collapsibles.
If this had been a lifeboat capsized earlier while being launched it could have been easily hauled back up to the boat deck, emptied and than reloaded. Could this explain why the loading of the starboard side lifeboats was completed 25 minutes earlier than those on the port side. Could this also explain the reason why fifteen 2nd Class female passengers were lost? (no children were lost from either 1st or 2nd Class, however there was 53 lost from 3rd Class)

As a further mystery surrounding the Titanic�s life boats, 1st Class passenger W Sloper described how he seen from lifeboat No 7 a number of passengers afloat on a inflated pneumatic life raft. (not a standard or collapsible lifeboat) The fact that the Titanic did not carry any such life rafts therefore raises the question, were did this life raft come from. However, J Scarrott on lifeboat No 14 described how they picked up approx 20 people from a raft constructed of air boxes, which could therefore easily explain the above mystery.

This does at least tell us one thing, not all people sat by idly and waited for the ship to sink beneath their feet. It also shows that those responsible for the construction of this raft, (which eventually would save 20 people) had sufficient grey matter (brains) to think of it, construct it and than launch it, than was it the only one constructed, or was it simply the only one lucky enough to be sighted?

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Replies:

Re: Titanic's 21st lifeboat -- Dave Shuttle, 07:23:08 12/18/99 Sat