LIFEBOATS
There were 20 lifeboats on Titanic, enough for only 1178 people. There were 2208 people on board. The ship had a maximum capacity for 3327 passengers.
 |
| Titanic's Lifeboats |
Each lifeboat had a capacity of 64 people but that didn't happen, because when the lifeboats were finally put in use, they only seated 28 people (or less) in each lifeboat possibly because the crew was in a hurry to get as many people as possible off the ship.
LIFEBELTS
There were enough lifebelts for each of the 2208 passengers and crew aboard the Titanic.
 |
| Cork-filled lifejacket |
Chicago physician Dr. Frank Blackmarr, a passenger aboard Titanic's rescue ship, the RMS Carpathia, helped Titanic's survivors who were suffering from hypothermia, exposure, and shock. He saved the above Titanic cork-filled life belt as a souvenir.
Before 1900, life belts were not only made from cork but also of balsa wood. Kapok is a vegetable fiber found in tropical tree pods, resembling milkweed, and it was used as fill material.
The waxy coating covering the kapok fiber provided the necessary buoyancy. Titanic's lifebelts were covered in white canvas, a material that resembled ship sails.
Even though cork lifebelts were known to cause injuries, cork was guideline-acceptable, which is why Titanic's lifebelts were not taken out of circulation. However, newer ships chose to not use them. The danger was if one jumped into the water, they could break a rib or collarbone. For all the money White Star Line spent on Titanic's luxuries, they skimped when it came to the lifebelts and lifeboats.
In a book about the RMS Empress of Ireland called "Fourteen Minutes," it was suggested that many of the recovered bodies from that ship had broken necks, which they attributed to the lifebelts riding up their bodies as they struck the water.
This same problem was experienced by the stuntmen who worked on the movie "A Night to Remember," based on the sinking of the Titanic. After several injuries, they replaced the cork in the lifebelts with another material for the rest of the filming.
You are here:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment