In the Royal Navy, boats were carried in the open, throughout the war. On capital ships and cruisers, they were positioned on a 'boat deck', an open space with cranes to lift them into the water and cradles to hold them in place. The boat deck was typically near the centre of the ship, within the superstructure. On smaller ships, with no space for a dedicated boat deck, they were left on davits, or on chocks on either side of the superstructure. This open placement for the boats left them exposed to damage from shrapnel and the like. This was a fairly frequent occurrence, as a result. When HMAS Sydney was sunk by the German raider Kormoran, autocannon fire and shrapnel from heavier shells riddled Sydney's boats, leaving them in no fit state to be launched; of the seven boats aboard, all show evidence of damage to them (or, where they are not present on the wreck, to their cradles). Other cases saw similar damage. A near-miss bomb hit on the cruiser Neptune in the Mediterranean riddled her boats with shrapnel. During an engagement with the German raider Thor, every one of the AMC Carnarvon Castle's boats was rendered unseaworthy. Prince of Wales suffered two hits to the boat deck during the Battle of the Denmark Strait, which caused significant shrapnel damage, including to the boats. During the Battle of Narvik, the destroyer Punjabi suffered a direct hit to one of her motorboats, while other hits destroyed the boats on her starboard side. Even carriers were not immune. In February 1943, a Grumman Avenger crashed while landing on HMS Victorious. Leaking fuel caused a fire which spread to the boat deck; this did serious damage to the ship's boats. A bomb hit on Illustrious in early 1941 put all the boats on her port side out of service.

Beyond damage to the boats themselves, other factors could render them useless. To get boats off the boat deck into the sea required the use of a crane. If this crane was damaged or destroyed, then the boats would be stuck aboard. This happened aboard Sydney; even if any of her boats had survived the German fire, they could not be launched due to the damage to the crane. Boats on davits could only be safely launched if the ship was on an even keel, or heeling over towards the side the boat was on - otherwise, it would just hit the side of the ship. This proved to be a problem when HMS Glorious was sinking. An RN report on her sinking described:

This incident emphasised the need for the boat hoists and winches to be modified and sufficient rope to be provided to enable boats to be lowered when the ship has considerable heel.

These problems and vulnerabilities were known, but were not deemed to be a significant problem. It was rare that ships would be steaming alone, especially battleships. There would need to be an escort to protect against torpedo craft, submarines and aircraft. These escorts could provide their own boats, or pick up survivors directly. Cruisers might steam alone, to hunt for merchant ships or raiders, but were not expected to fight ships that could sink them in these cases - the case of Sydney was fairly unique. Ships also carried life rafts. The RN's 'Carley floats' were stored so that they could be easily launched from a sinking or heeling ship. They were fairly resilient to gunfire and shrapnel. Carley floats had an oval metal buoyancy chamber, surrounded by cork or similar materials, and covered in canvas. The buoyancy chamber was divided up into a number of sections, a majority of which needed to be flooded to sink the raft, while the cork/kapok outer layer was very resilient to fire. Two of Sydney's Carley floats were picked up after her sinking. However, due to the heavy fire being kept up on Sydney's deck by Kormoran, only one person made it aboard either raft, and they did not survive until the raft reached Christmas Island.