Re: Titanic's 21st lifeboat -- Titanic

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Date Posted: 07:23:08 12/18/99 Sat
Author: Dave Shuttle
Subject: Re: Titanic's 21st lifeboat
In reply to: Steve Hall 's message, "Titanic's 21st lifeboat" on 05:17:09 11/02/99 Tue

>
> 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?

One slight change to the fascinating posting above, Lorraine Allison was the only first class child to die aboard Titanic. She is counted in among the total of 53 total children lost.
History tells us that all 16 wooden and 4 collapsible lifeboats were accounted for. Harland & Wolff is still in business and has never spoken of a 21st lifeboat having been installed. If it were inflatable, how would it have been inflated? By some sort of pump? Who would have had the time to do so while all the other events were taking place?
I have not seen the Scarrot remarks, but why did no others tell this story? Rostron makes no mention of retrieving people from an inflatable. Why would they have been transferred to a regular lifeboat unless they were losing airpressure from the inflatable? And why did none of the 20 others tell this story? Finally, what is a "raft of air boxes"? Is it wooden crates with some sort of bladder system installed inside? And how were these bladders then inflated? That's a lot of human wind power during an emergency. My purpose here is not to dismiss the idea, but to promote further response by anyone more familiar with the accounts of this story than apparently I am.

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