why ships sink

[happy daze john in oz]

Going back to the lifeboats in the war years the lifeboats and all the gear for lowering the life boats would be a lot different to later years in the more modern ships .I know on the Gloucester Castle they were of the old type but then then the ships had their lifeboats out board with a belly band ready for lowering manually . Would i by right in saying that in the modern ships lifeboats would be lowered by power ???

Right Lou by power. But what happens if there is no power? There should always be back up I know but there is also the possibilty that there could also be a failure there.

[robpage]

Lowered by gravity , raised by power

[Red Lead Ted]

But lets not forget to lower the boats even on a modern day cruise linner. When all power is knocked out you have to know what you are doing. And its a case of practice makes perfect?? As in lifeboat practice or drill food for thought lads Regards Terry.

[robpage]

to my best memory on U-Castle boats on the starboard side were lowered and launched in Southampton , and I think the Port side boats were lowered off somewhere along the Cape , cannot remember which port , so every boat was fully launched every fifth week . I would suggest that the deck department launched them despite a whole variety of lifeboat certificate holders from all departments . although gravity launched them , there was a need for a steady hand to lift the brake levers or there was a few problems .The thought that the dancer and comedian would launch a boat leaves me very scared ,

[Les Woodard]

Irrespective of who has a boat ticket. Who would you feel more comfortable with? A group of stewards in charge of lifeboats in an emergency or a deck crew that have practiced this regulary. Be the same as deck crew having a cooks ticket and working in the galley. Personally I reckon it would be like having our ambulances manned by people equiped with first aid tickets. Much prefer that they are manned by crews that have been trained for such purposes.

[John Pruden]

its safety over cost holiday makers do not want to think about what could happen so they go through the motions of putting a life preserver on and waiting to be told what to do but if half the crew speak another language or don't know what they are doing you hit a brick wall in an emergency. its time for a complete rethink of the launch process and procedure? the whole crew should pass a competency ticket. just my view JP

[Les Woodard]

JP I agree to a certain extent in theory. In practice is it not better to have a dedicated team that knows exactly where they should be and what part in launching lifeboats they play rather than having all crew members falling over themselves trying to do each others tasks.

[Captain Kong]

On my first trip, a London Greek tramp, and one or two others later they had the old radial davits. The same as we had on the Vindicatrix.
One man puts in the plug. Then two men release the chocks, two men forard and two men aft swing the davit round from inboard to out board, the forard one going anti clockwise and the after one swing round clock wise . push the boat outboard and push it forard round the davit and then push the boat aft to get outside the after davit, then it was lowered with the rope falls, on the staghorns, with one man forard and one man aft lowering with his feet against the staghorns, trying to lower together to keep the boat level. I remember it was a ten man operation, each man had his own job.
Then recovering the boats was a nightmare, heaving up a boat by hand, all hands heaving away. If you were lucky, on some ships , with a snatch block and a nearby winch it could be recovered the easy way.
.
Can you imagine if the davits or means of launching a lifeboat had never changed over the years, Chaos would reign supreme on those monster cruise ships. It would take at least two hundred men to launch them..
Happy days,
Cheers
Brian

[robpage]

Whoops Brian I forgot the Plug -- Glug Glu,,,g g....

[John Pruden]

i suppose passenger ships will get bigger but not better as regards safety?.JP