When did we start using lifeboats? Ships usually had small boats on board that they could use, but they were not lifeboats. It was only after the sinking of the Titanic that it became the law to carry enough lifeboats for the number of passengers on board.
If we are lucky enough to go on a cruise or take a ferry somewhere, we assume that the ship will have enough lifeboats for all of the passengers and crew onboard. We also assume that the crew will be trained in how to launch them and that we will be able to get on one. Then, another assumption is that the lifeboats will be seaworthy and will have communication systems and supplies so that all of the people can survive long enough to be rescued by another ship. All of these assumptions and the existence of lifeboats themselves is a relatively recent concept. The first ship that was fitted with a boat purely for the purpose of saving lives was after the idea of civilian sea travel started in the 19th century.
Ships have obviously existed for a very long time. The first humans to use boats are thought to be the Homo sapiens that sailed from Asia to New Guinea and Australia between 50 and 60,000 years ago. There is no surviving evidence of these boats, but those islands were never completely connected to the mainland by land and there would be no other way of getting to them. The fact that people have been there for so long implies the use of boats. The oldest boat ever found is 10,000 years old. These boats were used to sail from one place to another and probably for fishing. Many communities developed around the sea and their use of boats. The Egyptians and the Mesopotamians had a wide use of boats. The Greeks and the Romans made heavy use of boats as well. However, none of the boats that they used had lifeboats. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is space. The boats that the Egyptians and the Romans used were large enough to carry people and stores, but not large enough to carry an extra boat. Most ships were used to ferry soldiers or for trade. They didn’t really travel long distances. Some cultures, such as the Polynesians, did travel long distances, but they didn’t have space for lifeboats either.
Ships didn’t really increase in size until the age of sail in the 15th century. By the early 15th century, sailboats became large enough that they could make the voyage across the Atlantic. When people realized there was a lot of money to be made ferrying goods back from the Americas, ships became bigger and faster. Once they were larger, it became possible to carry an extra boat or two, but those boats were not lifeboats. Many of the places these large ships sailed to didn’t have a port and the ship couldn’t sail to the shore because it would ground. Most ships had a smaller boat that could be used to carry people to the shore or bring goods back to the ship. If the ship sank, this could be used as a lifeboat, but that wasn’t its purpose, and there probably wasn’t enough space for all of the crew. These ships could have easily carried enough boats for all of the crew, but the more boats you carry, the less space you have to carry goods, and that was the reason they were sailing so far.
By the 18th century, ships were very large and many countries had significant navies. If a ship sank, there would be a great loss of life, but there was still no impetus to fit them with lifeboats. Navy ships needed to fight at sea, and lifeboats would get in the way and would reduce the number of canons the ship could carry. These boats were also very heavy and getting them on and off ships was not easy. They were usually towed behind the ship and might not even be taken on shorter journeys.
Another reason why lifeboats were not thought necessary was because there was no way to communicate with other ships. If a ship did have smaller boats and the crew could get into and launch them before the ship went down, they would then be stuck drifting in them. They had no way to ask for help and most likely no way of even knowing where they were or where to go. Quite often, a drowning death would be preferable to a death by dehydration in a boat on the sea.
Two things brought about changes. The first was the introduction of passenger travel. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, it became possible to travel for pleasure rather than necessity. Before that, most sea traffic was for trade, war, or to get troops or prisoners to another place. The idea of going on a boat for pleasure only came about with the rise of a wealthier middle class. People heard about far-distant places and wanted to see them. Once this happened, the idea of a boat to save these paying customers wasn’t such a strange idea. The second thing was the introduction of ship-to-ship radio, invented in the 1890s. This made it possible for a sinking ship to send out a mayday and other ships in the area could try to get to them to save people. This made the idea of a lifeboat practical because people on the ship would only have to survive for long enough for another ship to arrive.
However, despite it becoming possible, most passenger ships only carried a few boats. This sounds strange to use, but the companies that owned the ships at the time were coming from the point of view that it was unusual to carry more boats. It was also thought unlikely that a ship would completely sink before another ship could arrive to save people. This was proved wrong by the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The public outcry changed the law, and ships were required to carry more lifeboats. That many boats took up a lot of space, but the problem was solved by making the boats lighter and changing the way they were launched. Now we know that we have a good chance of surviving if the ship we are on goes down. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/do-we-know-when-ancient-humans-first-built-boats
https://rnli.org/about-us/our-history/timeline/1785-the-first-lifeboats
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_(shipboard)
https://markogroup.com/en/info/articles/the-history-of-lifeboats
https://www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/14.-Launching-the-Lifeboats.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_VHF_radio
Photo by Alexander Zvir: https://www.pexels.com/photo/orange-and-white-ship-on-sea-3699183/