Talk:Berthon Boat

Corrected some major issues.

First, the four collapsible lifeboats carried by Titanic were Englehardts, not Berthons.

Second, no sources were given to indicate that the Berthon Boat was "increasingly popular" because of its design (or for any other reason).

Third, to say that Titanic was the first large passenger ship to be lost to an iceberg is very misleading. For example, many historians believe that the Collins Line steamship Pacific was a victim of icebergs in 1856 (see Collins Line article). At 3000 tons, she was much smaller that Titanic- but one of the largest passenger ships of her day.

Omhseoj (talk) 02:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and a fourth (left uncorrected): Although Mr. Ismay may have been a new (and late!) convert to the idea of lifeboats-for-all, the article doesn't link that fact to the topic at hand, which is the Berthon Boat. Did Ismay stock his ships with Berthons? Did later changes in international law (1914) lead to more ships stocking Berthon Boats? Or did they use regular lifeboats? Englehardts? Some combination thereof?

Omhseoj (talk) 02:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Berthon boats were fitted to Olympic immediately after the Titanic disaster. They were the subject of great argument. It was claimed they were ancient boats formerly used on Boer War troopships and that holes could be poked in them with the fingers. Englehardt boats were more popular and were used for many years after until the practice of having more than one boat per pair of davits was banned in the 1960s.

Berthon boats were actually pretty useless. I know of no case where they saved anybody

Dave Gittins — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.223.52 (talk) 03:17, 29 April 2015 (UTC)