The Strange Disappearance of Titanic's Lifeboats

[Music] the huge loss of life in the Titanic disaster in 1912 was caused by outdated regulations that did not provide enough lifeboats for passengers and crew but what became of the Titanic's lifeboats how did they simply disappear from the story of the Titanic disaster most importantly are any remaining in existence today we know everything about how each boat was filled with passengers lowered and what happened between it leaving the ship and meeting the rescue ship Carpathia this film is concerned with what happens after the Carpathia the ultimate fate of these boats is shrouded in mystery and rumor could any still exist several boats have appeared in recent times have fit the description but no one has yet proved their authenticity or provided a paper trail back to Titanic firstly let's deal with what we know the lifeboats 16 Klinker bill rowing boats and 4 collapsible boats were all launched in some fashion of the sinking Titanic most made it to the Carpathia the exceptions being collapsibles a and B collapsible a was set adrift during the night when its passengers were transferred to lifeboat number 14 he still contained three dead bodies when it was set adrift collapsible B had floated off the officers quarters roof inverted during the final minutes of Titanic's life and had been used as a raft until its survivors were rescued by lifeboats number four and twelve it was then set adrift the Carpathia only had room on deck 413 of the lifeboats that reached her these thirteen boats were hauled aboard and delivered to the White Star Line's berth in New York on the 18th of April 1912 workers removed all identifying features from the boats that linked them to Titanic these plates stated the name of the ship Titanic pause of registry Liverpool the lifeboat number a White Star Line Burgi which is a small metal flag emblem and the lifeboat capacity rating these items have surfaced in auctions and private effects down the decades at this point the stories starts to get murky some sources suggests that the boats were stored in a second-floor loft between piers 58 and 59 until December 1912 it appears that souvenir hunters removed some artifacts from the stored boats a list of the lifeboats and their equipment was prepared for the u.s. civil court compensation case day two the 27th of November 1912 and that still exists which indicates that the lifeboats were still in New York at that date however in light of the Titanic disaster the White Star Line rushed to equip the Titanic's sister ship the Olympic with enough lifeboats for all aboard it's long been suspected that Titanic's 13 surviving lifeboats was simply refitted with new identification plates and put aboard the Olympic indeed the shipping Gazette and Lloyd's List day to the 24th of April 1912 published the following two sentences quote the Olympic which leaves Southampton today has on her boat deck a number of collapsible boats at New York the Olympic will take on board the boats of the Titanic unquote the collapsible boats referred to in the magazine article were 40 collapsible lifeboats hastily brought on board the Olympic when the crew realized that many were rotten and leaking they went on strike refusing to sail to New York therefore the published intention of Olympic to collect Titanic's boats was not fulfilled when planned on the 27th of November 1912 court document also shows that the Olympic did not collect Titanic's boats once normal service resumed being clinker built boats storing them for months would have caused the Timbers to dry out and shrink and they would have leaked badly if used this has led some to surmise that Titanic's boats were scrapped sometime in early 1913 were at least sold off to some third party but what if the boats had been reused by the White Star Line it made sense there was a shortage of lifeboats following changes to lifeboat regulations and Titanic's boats were almost brand-new if we discount their use of all the Olympic what the Titanic's other sister Britannic the Britannic was sunk from World War one while employed as a hospital ship but we can discount her for her 48 lifeboats were larger than the Titanic's requiring different launching davits it is conceivable that Titanic's boats were distributed among other smaller White Star Line vessels and sold off or scrapped when these vessels went out of service the fact is not one piece of documentary evidence has surfaced in over 100 years giving the boats location beyond November December 1912 in New York they simply disappeared into history in fact we only know the fates of two of Titanic's lifeboats the aforementioned collapsibles a and B set adrift on the night of the disaster the first of the two missing collapsibles to be found was B on the 23rd of April 1912 the boat was found upside down by the Mackay Bennett one of several ships chartered by the White Star Line to recover bodies crewmen tried to recover it but gave up it is said that they later chopped a hole in it to try to sink it this would be no mean task as collapsible boats were full of cork and virtually unsinkable collapsible a was spotted by the White Star liner RMS Oceanic on the 13th of May 1912 adrift 200 miles from the wreck site of the Titanic the decomposed bodies of three passengers one and full evening dress were still inside her the corpses were taken aboard oceanic wrapped in canvas and buried at sea after a religious service the lifeboat was also hauled aboard the liner collapsible a was taken to New York by the oceanic and placed in the same loft with the other Titanic lifeboats that still left six Titanic lifeboats adrift on the open ocean numbers for 1415 and collapsibles B C and D several of these boats were recorded as being seen by steamers crossing the Atlantic including one report in July 1913 that a steamer had passed a lifeboat covered in barnacles for these adrift lifeboats their fate would have been relatively simple Aveda sunk or washed ashore somewhere but neither type was easy to sink as I mentioned already the collapsible lifeboats were mostly made of cork and canvas and the regular type lifeboats the clinker built boats were fitted with special buoyancy tanks so they could float even when hold the only way these would sink was when the Timbers rotted sufficiently that the entire craft broke apart or it was smashed to pieces by a storm or thrown up onto a shoreline it's not beyond the realms of possibility that some fishing boat perhaps found one of these at sea and reused it but this is entirely speculation on my part there is literally no evidence but this is not the end of the story for many decades now boats have appeared all over the world that people have claimed have come from the Titanic the fact that six boats were set adrift and the remaining 14 ended up in New York has fed this possibility it was claimed that one of the prop boats used to film the Alfred Hitchcock movie lifeboat in 1944 was an actual Titanic relic at least that's what owners 20th Century Fox said this boat was auctioned about 20 years ago there are several replicas Titanic lifeboats and museums around the world and a few prop boats from James Cameron's 1997 film but what about a real one perhaps one of the most intriguing recent finds was in 2013 when a lifeboat was found abandoned in a hedge in England bought off eBay where it was described as a cabin cruiser the new owner thought it was a White Star Line lifeboat of the Titanic period it had originally been bought in Liverpool where effects of all White Star Line ships were disposed of and is the same size shape type of wood and build quality of life boats in service with the White Star Line in 1912 the only authenticated White Star Line lifeboat in existence today belongs to Titanic's passenger tender the SS nomadic in Belfast the lifeboat one of two examples that survived the ship's conversion into a floating restaurant in Paris was bought from a museum in France in a rotten State the other example was burned by museum staff today no Maddox lifeboat is being restored so in the end we are left with a tantalizing historical mystery six of Titanic's lifeboats drifted away into the North Atlantic and 14 was stored in New York and disappeared have any survived unidentified to the present day it's not impossible but proving a cast-iron connection to the world's most infamous ship will be the test it's a case of watch this space I hope you've enjoyed this little mystery if you have please do subscribe and also share many thanks [Music] you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 418,863

Rating: 4.913785 out of 5

Keywords: The Strange Disappearance of Titanic's Lifeboats, Titanic, Nomadic, RMS Olympic, Sinking of the Titanic, Mark Felton Productions

Id: W_ek9z0Ljvc

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 17 2018