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The Titanic’s Best Lifeboat

Everyone grows up learning the same story about the RMS Titanic, that when the ship set out on its maiden voyage in 1912, the owners and authorities, confident that the ship was unsinkable, did not require it to carry a full complement of lifeboats. So when the Titanic sank in the frigid waters of the

Then, in 1785, a British carriage-builder named Lionel Lukin filed a patent for an “unimmergable boat”, the first known craft designed with the specific purpose of saving lives at sea. Tim Maltin, a historian, television presenter, and author of the book Titanic: A Very Deceiving Night, says these new ships could handle collisions much better than their predecessors. A hull would also have multiple compartments sealed with watertight bulkheads, so that any flooding from a breach could be contained to a small area, and the ship could stay afloat.

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