LIFEBOATS ON STEAMERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14972, 20 April 1912, Page 6

LIFEBOATS ON STEAMERS.

Among the lessons of the Titanic disaster the clearest so far is the necessity for the setting up of a new standard for the provision of lifeboats and other life-saving appliances on the large ocean-going passenger liners. The custom of the British Board of Trade has been to waive 50 per cent, of the requirements in the case of vessels divided into water-tight compartments passed ,by the Board's inspectors. The Titanic was theoretically unsinkable, and though equipped in excess of requirements, her boats, even if all had been got safely into the water, were admittedly insufficient to accommodate the whole of the passengers and crew, though the total number of persons on board was rather less than two-thirds .' of the steamer's carrying capacity. The terrible sequel suggests that too much reliance has been placed* on the efficiency of the bulkheads, and that too little allowance has been made for . the manifold dangers of the sea. Many questions will doubtless arise when full inquiry has been made into the; loss of the Titanic, and it will be strange indeed if public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic is not sufficiently roused to insist on a full provision of boats and life-saving rafts on all passenger steamers. It is satisfactory to be assured at. such a time that the New Zealand regulations ; make' no such exceptions as are permitted by the British Board of Trade, .and that the requisite numbers of boats and rafts -are invariably provided by, the owners of steamers trading in New Zealand waters. -