Page 162 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 23 - 26

24609. As you told us, you have a Shorthand Note of the Proceedings. I do not want to trouble my Lord with it, but you can verify these statements by reference to the Shorthand Notes, and I have no doubt you have looked up the Shorthand Notes to enable you to give this evidence? - I have been carefully through them. 24610. Mr. Carlisle told us this, that your Sub-Committee had arrived at certain conclusions with regard to boats before his appointment. Is that right or wrong? - If Mr. Carlisle means that we had arrived at certain conclusions on the particular points we were then considering, he is absolutely wrong. We had previously had to advise the Board with regard to types of decked lifeboats such as the Englehardt boat. We there had had a Sub-Committee, and we had made tests of the boats at sea; on other occasions we had had to advise the Board as to the stowage of boats, and there we had had a very careful Enquiry, and we had obtained a great deal of information. If Mr. Carlisle is referring to the fact that at this Sub-Committee we stated the conclusions we had arrived at on these other points, then he is right; but if he states that we had arrived at any conclusions in regard to the scale, he is absolutely wrong. 24611. Mr. Carlisle also told us that his view was that it would not be fair to force an extended scale on existing vessels? - Mr. Carlisle has said what? 24612. That his view, as stated to the Committee, was that it would not be fair to force an extended scale on existing ships, but that you ought to legislate or make Rules for would be future large vessels? - Mr. Carlisle made that statement during the discussion three or four times. It was raised first by another member of the Committee right at the beginning of our sittings, and I said that it appeared to me that whatever we thought was necessary for the safety of life would have to be enforced on all vessels, whether they were built then or whether they were going to be built. The Committee generally accepted that view, and I think the only member who raised the question again after my statement was Mr. Carlisle, and he, on two or three occasions, raised the point that it would be neither reasonable nor fair to extend any new Rule to existing vessels. 24613. I believe Mr. Carlisle submitted plans for a special davit to carry four boats, did he not? - Yes, he put in two plans; I have them here. 24614. I think we have seen them; they have been before the Court? - He explained those plans in detail to the Committee; we went over them - I am speaking now from the Shorthand Note, because I could not pledge my own recollection. We went over the plans with Mr. Carlisle twice, and the Committee, as a whole, were not satisfied with them; in fact, they preferred the arrangement which they have embodied in their report, of stowing boats, such as decked lifeboats, under the ordinary type of open lifeboat. They thought that was infinitely preferable to Mr. Carlisle’s plan of having nothing but open decked lifeboats to be launched by rotation from one set of davits. And I think, my Lord, I may add that at the end of the discussion, when we were getting to close quarters with our report, I asked Mr. Carlisle did he recommend his four- boat davit - did he press it; and his answer to me was, “No, I think you are right in sticking to the 16”; that means the eight a side which we embodied in our report. 24615. In the event, did your Sub-Committee come to the view which is embodied in the report dated July, 1911? - That is so. I would like to explain the basis on which we arrived at the scale we embodied. 24616. I was coming to that. I wanted to ask you that. You arrived at this conclusion, and we find the report presented to the Committee, and eventually reaching the Board of Trade? - Yes. 24617. Was any pressure brought to bear on Mr. Carlisle with regard to that report? - Absolutely no pressure. We showed the greatest deference to Mr. Carlisle throughout the whole of the discussion, having regard to the fact that he had had more experience than any man on the Committee with regard to building this big type of ship. 24618. Now to pass to another matter which I was coming to. You wish to put before my Lord your reasons which induced you to arrive at the Table, the scale which is to be found in that