Boats and Life-Saving Appliances on Ships

Abstract

AT the time when the Titanic was lost the standing Advisory Committee appointed by the Board of Trade under the provisions of Merchant Shipping Acts was engaged in the reconsideration of the regulations for boats and life-saving-appliances. A report had been presented by the committee recommending an extension of the previously existing scale for boats, so as to include the largest passenger steamers; and in the course of the inquiry by Lord Mersey and his colleagues an investigation was made of the causes of an apparently long delay on the part of the Marir Department of the Board of Trade in dealing with that report. Satisfactory explanations were forthcoming; but, in view of the great calamity that had occurred, it was obvious that the committee must reconsider the whole subject. That action was ordered by Mr. Buxton, and the committee received special instructions, its opinion being requested in regard to existing statutory regulations for boats and life-saving appliances on ships generally, and suggestions being invited in regard to “means calculated to diminish the risk or to mitigate the effects of accidents to vessels at sea.”