Titanic had lifeboat space for less than one third her passenger capacity, but it was still more than the law required. Written in 1896, the lifeboat regulations had not been updated despite the advent of such giants as Cunard's 30,000 ton ships Lusitania and Mauretania , and White Star's mammoth luxury liners Olympic and Titanic . These huge ships fell into the classification of vessels "10,000 tons and upwards". Titanic , with her maximum capacity of 3547 passengers and crew could have legally carried lifeboats with space for only 962 people.

Titanic had been equipped with 16 sets of davits (the crane-like devices that swing lifeboats out over the side of the ship and lower them down to the water) capable of lowering three boats each, and the original design had specified 32 boats. In the end, 16 boats were actually installed in the ship's davits. Of these 16, 14 were full-sized boats, each with a capacity of 65 persons, and two were smaller "emergency" boats - capacity 40 persons each. With the addition of four 47-person "collapsible" Engelhardt boats - semi-rafts with wooden hulls and collapsible canvas sides - strapped to the deck and the roof of the officer's quarters, Titanic had a total of 20 lifeboats with space for 1178 people, 22% more than required by law. Since it was the off-season for transatlantic travel, she was only carrying about 2200 people. The loss of life could, in fact, have been even greater than it was.

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