Page 195 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 14 - 18

extent to which we should increase them. 19139. (The Solicitor-General.) Amongst other things we want your evidence. I think the tribunal will want to use it too - in order to help us. Just return to my question. Look again at the boat deck if you will. You spoke of the danger of too great a number of boats interfering with the proper working of the launching and so on, did you not? - Yes. 19140. That is what you had in mind? - Yes. 19141. Now, take any one of those boats shown there on the model. In order to launch it what you want is sufficient and efficient help opposite the boat? - Quite. 19142. You do not want when you are lowering one of those boats shown there any people to work amidships? - No. 19143. Then what would be the difficulty in increasing the boats so that they lay along either side of the boat deck from one end of it to the other? - I do not think, so far as your question goes, that there is any real difficulty in increasing the number of boats under davits. The difficulty I have in my mind applies to the boats which you cannot put under davits, and which will have to be spread across the ship amidships. 19144. I quite see that is a different question. Let us first of all take boats under davits. We want your guidance about it. Taking your experience, what do you say as to the possible suggestion that davits might be provided and boats might be slung along the length of the side of the boat deck? - Speaking generally, I think they might, but before you take that as definite I should like to pass a word with our Nautical Advisers as to whether there is any part of the ship opposite which it is not wise to have a boat lowered. I do not know of any myself. 19145. I feel certain you must have been considering it, you and your fellow directors and managers, have you not? - We have. 19146. Who is the gentleman whom you would regard in your Company as the person who would express the best opinion about it? - The Marine Superintendent. 19147. Who is that? - Our senior marine superintendent is Captain Bartlett. 19148. Have you formed any estimate, or have you arrived at any conclusion as to how many additional boats could be put on the boat deck under davits if you used the intermediate space? - No, I do not think I could give you a figure. At the present moment, as I say, we have put a lot of extra boats on, and we are just maintaining that position until the finding of this Court is heard. 19149. You speak of the extra boats which you have put on in the meantime, and I understand it, but are those extra boats which you have put on under davits? - No. 19150. As I understand, they are collapsible boats of some kind or another? - Yes; not in all cases. We have also put a number of wooden boats on the ships’ decks. 19151. I should like to put it to you - I pass now from filling up the sides of the boat deck - what is your view as to the expediency, or the possibility if you like, of providing additional boat accommodation over and above that? - Generally speaking, I think we can prudently increase the accommodation over what the “Titanic” had. 19152. Where would you put the extra ones? - I should put them in the first place in the spaces you have referred to, and I think we might have a certain number placed inside or under the boats that were on the davits. The boat under would have to be a collapsible boat; the boat inside might be a wooden boat. 19153. You mean inboard? - Yes, I mean inboard, a double row. The Commissioner: Have you considered the desirability of using double davits? - I have never heard of a double davit, my Lord, and I do not know what it is. 19154. By a double davit I mean davits which would carry two boats abreast? - I am afraid I do not follow what that means. I could understand a davit being sufficiently high so that there might be two boats one above the other. 19155. Not abreast, but one above another? - I think I would like to be advised on that matter