Lifeboat Question

[DeafOnBoard]

I was looking at old pictures of ocean liners and cruise ships and saw that in the earlier pictures, the lifeboats were oftentimes on the higher outside decks (ie Titanic, Queen Mary, and the '90s Carnival ships). Now the trend is to place them deeper within the hulls of the ships (ie Costa Concordia and many newbuilds nowadays).

 

My question - why did they move them down? I would believe that having them on higher outside decks would give passengers more time to board the lifeboats, and keep them high and dry for longer should they not be able to board the lifeboats. (Lower deck would be indunnated quicker, thus necessitating people to climb inside to a higher deck, as opposed to crossing over to the other side if the lifeboats were on a higher deck and the ship is listing to one side.)

 

Could anyone shine any information on why this is so?

[CruiserBruce]

I am not sure that relatively, they were that much higher. The ships have gotten much taller.

 

Ships generally don't sink that fast, due to the watertight compartments and automatic doors. There should still be a reasonable time to get off given the current locations.

 

A more severe complicating problem would be tipping over. And higher or lower lifeboat locations don't matter much in a tipping situation. It will be difficult in either situation.

[chengkp75]

I was looking at old pictures of ocean liners and cruise ships and saw that in the earlier pictures, the lifeboats were oftentimes on the higher outside decks (ie Titanic, Queen Mary, and the '90s Carnival ships). Now the trend is to place them deeper within the hulls of the ships (ie Costa Concordia and many newbuilds nowadays).

 

My question - why did they move them down? I would believe that having them on higher outside decks would give passengers more time to board the lifeboats, and keep them high and dry for longer should they not be able to board the lifeboats. (Lower deck would be indunnated quicker, thus necessitating people to climb inside to a higher deck, as opposed to crossing over to the other side if the lifeboats were on a higher deck and the ship is listing to one side.)

 

Could anyone shine any information on why this is so?

 

The old lifeboat davits required a free overhead to allow the old crank out arms to be rigged. The new boats have the davit arms slide down a ramp by gravity, so the boats can be placed lower. The weight of these boats up near the top decks (as some of the older Carnival ships have them) places weight too high on the ship and increases the ship's natural rolling.

 

Also, it may seem counter-intuitive, but having the boats down lower allows them to be deployed at a higher angle of list than if they were higher. This is, of course, on the high side of the list. At any angle of list, the hull will project farther out from a point up high, then a point down lower.

 

The Concordia aside, and that was completely unconscionable in my opinion, the passengers should be in the boats and launched before any embarkation deck comes close to being submerged. And this is from a professional mariner who's main philosophy is "stay with the ship", it is the best lifeboat available.

[calliopecruiser]

I was looking at old pictures of ocean liners and cruise ships and saw that in the earlier pictures, the lifeboats were oftentimes on the higher outside decks (ie Titanic, Queen Mary, and the '90s Carnival ships). Now the trend is to place them deeper within the hulls of the ships (ie Costa Concordia and many newbuilds nowadays).

 

My question - why did they move them down? I would believe that having them on higher outside decks would give passengers more time to board the lifeboats, and keep them high and dry for longer should they not be able to board the lifeboats. (Lower deck would be indunnated quicker, thus necessitating people to climb inside to a higher deck, as opposed to crossing over to the other side if the lifeboats were on a higher deck and the ship is listing to one side.)

 

Could anyone shine any information on why this is so?

 

I believe it's for appearance -- tucking them away allows more cabins to have unobstructed views, which means that the cruise line can charge more (and have happier cruisers in those cabins).

[dsrdsrdsr]

I think if the water's reached the lifeboat deck, it means the ship is on its final plummet. The hull's full of water and there's no buoyancy left.

[mikewrit]

Lifeboats have been used for that purpose in one occasion n recent memory. The Costa Concordia. They are used frequently throughout the cruising fleet to lighter passengers to shore from anchorages. That long experience certainly has influenced the design and positioning of the boats in modern ships.

[PEB]

You also must take into considration that the ships today are much taller then the Titanic. The lifeboats today are probably close to the same distance above the water as they were on the Titanic.

[PennyAgain]

As was demonstrated on the Costa Concordia, if the crew are not trained to successfully load and launch the lifeboats, they may well fail to perform.

 

In addition to life boats, cruise ships have many inflatable rafts that can be deployed when needed and thus exceed the capacity of the lifeboats themselves in an emergency.

 

There have been successful removal of passengers and crew with officers from a modern cruise ship as when Holland American's older Princendam sank off Sitka Alaska more than a few years ago.

[chengkp75]

As was demonstrated on the Costa Concordia, if the crew are not trained to successfully load and launch the lifeboats, they may well fail to perform.

 

In addition to life boats, cruise ships have many inflatable rafts that can be deployed when needed and thus exceed the capacity of the lifeboats themselves in an emergency.

 

There have been successful removal of passengers and crew with officers from a modern cruise ship as when Holland American's older Princendam sank off Sitka Alaska more than a few years ago.

 

While I cannot comment on the training of the Concordia crew with regards to lifeboats, I will say that the USCG requires all senior deck and engine officers on US flag ships to have training in "Crowd & Crisis Management" and all deck and engine officers on passenger vessels to have training in "crowd control". Even with that, no one knows how they will react in an actual emergency. Even the best trained will never know until the moment they are required to do so whether they will run towards the fire or away.

 

Lifeboats, and lifesaving equipment, is the best available. SOLAS constantly requires updating equipment as technology changes. As you say, the equipment and training have worked well in past incidents.

 

One thing I should mention about the liferafts. Since lifeboats are very expensive, and rafts rather cheaper, and also much smaller to store until needed, only the paying customers (passengers) along with 3-4 crew are allocated seats in the lifeboats. The plethora of rafts you see around are for us poor souls who work on the ships for a living. And as horrified as most passengers are at the conditions inside a lifeboat (we used to have one at the rail after the muster drill so guests could look inside and ask questions), being in a raft in the ocean is much, much worse. The total capacity of boats and rafts is 100% of passengers and crew by law, and the ships nearly always have extra capacity in rafts, just in case.

[jcl410]

IMO regulations require that the lifeboats be both close to the passengers and as close to the water as possible. The idea being that it's safer to launch when closer to the water.

 

The general standard is 15 meters above the water. There can be exceptions; the Queen Mary 2 was able to place them higher to help avoid the larger North Atlantic waves. (Take a look at what happened to the Oasis of the Seas when she made her transatlantic passage from the shipyard; high waves damaged several of the forward life boats.)

 

Aloha,

 

John

[DeafOnBoard]

Thanks to all who have responded. It now makes sense re: the lifeboats.