Why wasent there enough life boats for the titanic?

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Lew

The original design of the Titanic had double the number of lifeboats but because the extra line of lifeboats encroached on the passenger space, only one line on each side was fitted. Not only did they save space but they saved money although the number of lifeboats carried complied with the maritime law of the time.

Jay W

They thought there was no way to sink the ship

chemmie_xrd

The titanic contained as many lifeboats as required by law at the time. That meant less places in lifeboats than people on board. They changed that after Titanic sunk. However if all the lifeboats on the Titanic were filled many more people would have been saved.

bolinger81380

Simple, the designers thought that any more lifeboats would have cluttered up the deck too much. Even if more people had gotten on the lifeboats, not all of the passengers would have lived. Back in those days, ocean liners(there are a couple still in existence today, but they are much safer) operated on a three class system. There was the first class, which was the best and where all the wealthiest customers were, second class, and third class, which was the poorest. First class passengers were seen by the lines back then as the most important passengers. Third class were pretty much neglected. This, fortunately, no longer exists today and no matter where someone were to book on the ship, the service and usage of the ship is pretty much universal. On some ships there is a VIP area for people in suites and penthouses that only they can enter, and one ship still has a class system, but other than that there are no exceptions to the treat everyone equally rule today.

Anja H

Below is some additional information on the lifeboats.
Also, since the Titanic had watertight doors, they thought they would be able to hold the ship for a longer time afloat. Yet someone did not calculate with the fact, that the ship could be ripped open like a can of sardines.

Lifeboats
At the design stage Carlisle suggested that Titanic use a new, larger type of davit which could give the ship the potential to carry 48 lifeboats; these would have provided enough places for everyone on board, but not enough for the number of people the ship could carry. However, the White Star Line, while agreeing to the larger davits, decided that only 16 wooden lifeboats (16 being the minimum allowed by the board of trade, based on the Titanic's projected tonnage) would be carried (there were also four folding lifeboats, called collapsibles), which could accommodate only 52% of the people aboard. At the time, the Board of Trade's regulations stated that British vessels over 10,000 tons must carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 5,500 cubic feet, plus enough capacity in rafts and floats for 75% (or 50% in case of a vessel with watertight bulkheads) of that in the lifeboats. Therefore, the White Star Line actually provided more lifeboat accommodation than was legally required.[13] The regulations made no extra provision for larger ships because they had not been changed since 1894, when the largest passenger ship under consideration was only 13,000 tons, and because of the expected difficulty in getting away a greater number than 16 boats in any emergency.[14] Carlisle told the official inquiry that he had discussed the matter with J. Bruce Ismay, White Star's Managing Director, but in his evidence Ismay denied that he had ever heard of this, nor did he recollect noticing such provision in the plans of the ship he had inspected.[15][16]

phoebe

At the time the Titanic was built, the law was that each ship could only have about 16 life boats. When the ship left, they had about 20 life boats, so they actually were carrying more life boats than they should have. I guess when the law was made they didn't have big ships like the Titanic.

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