whoo boy, this is going to be a multi parter. :)

This is a tough one to answer because it involves something not encouraged on this sub- and that's opinion. Let me qualify this first by saying - you're about to hear my opinion. I'm going to cite why I think this, and give evidence for why I've reached that conclusion. What's confusing is that there is actually a direct, historical, primary source, three or four sentence quote, answer to this which really negates an entire post. I've included that here, but I'm also attempting to answer the "why?" of "why?". I'm confused already! Let's go!

First, a very quick overview. What you're referring to is SOLAS, the 1914 convention that regulated safety procedures at sea in order to prevent another Titanic disaster. Along with various other preventative measures, SOLAS re regulated federal lifeboat requirements and laws.

Let's clear some things up that you may have heard about Titanic. One, we often hear that Titanic went out without enough lifeboats but technically, and legally - this is actually false. Believe it or not, Titanic went out with more lifeboats than were legally required. Put simply, Titanic was constructed in the middle of a ship building boom fueled by a new demand for immigration to the US as well as a steady, reliable, relatively fast communication between North America and Europe which fueled what was the second Industrial Revolution. For perspective - let's put a very loose start to the SIR at around the 1860's (debatable of course, but that's fine for our purposes). In the 1840's, the biggest ship in the world was 98 meters about about 3200 tons. Ten years later, the biggest ship in the world was 110 meters and about 3500 tonnes. Aside from the anomaly of the Great Eastern this was a pretty good indication of the progress of shipbuilding.

Skip forward to 1902- ten years before Titanic. The biggest ship in the world was the Celtic at about 20,000 tons and 700 feet. 10 years later, Titanic would be more than double this - 46,000 odd tons and almost 900 feet long.

Let's back it up, the Olympic Class Liners were initially conceived (that is, the idea of them) probably around 1903 or 1904 - a time when the Cedric dominated the waves at 21,000 tonnes and 700 feet. So fast and competitive was the trans-Atlantic industry that lines were falling over each other to design bigger and better ships before their competitors even got draft plans out for the ones they were competing against. By the time WSL got wind of the new super liners "Lusitania" and "Mauritania", they already began plans to construct docks and bays to hold even bigger ships before those two even got their keels laid down.

Let's back to up even further, to the most important date. 1894- the Luciana and sister Campania being the biggest ships in the world at 12,000 tonnes and a little over 600 feet. It was also the last year the legal lifeboat requirements were updated - meaning that Titanic sailed under the same minimum legality as a ship one third of her size. To put it simply, bureaucracy is slow and industry is fast. The law did not, or could not, keep up with the boom.

Second thing, we need to be clear that there was no point when 1500 people all sat around with no hope of getting into boats. Titanic wasn't able to get all her boats away, her last two being cut free with one half swamped and the other overturned. It's really important to know this going forward, because there is enough pop history that has the idea of helpless people standing around waiting with all the boats gone. Not so, they were fighting to get boats off until literally the last second.

Which leads me to the key thing I think it's very important to remember - more lifeboats wouldn't have done Titanic any good.

With that very brief overview out of the way, let's skip all the rest and get to the immediate aftermath of Titanic. The world is horrified, the press is salivating and a society that loved melodrama was drunk on in, both real and exaggerated (or downright fabricated). We must remember that Titanic wasn't the Costa Concordia, that is, "big ship sink bad". Titanic was the 9-11 of its day, the most horrifying and earth shattering event before the war. Perspective here is crucial.

It is therefore, understandable, that no one wanted to sail- and shipping lines were scrambling to get passengers on board at whatever cost. The immediate answer to this was band aids, temporary fixes. The first Inquiry into the disaster recommended steps that the lines took themselves, so quick and desperate was the need to get people to sail.

White Star Line, obviously panicking the most, quickly stocked Titanic's sister Olympic full of lifeboats for her first voyage out post-sinking. Due to sail 9 days after the sinking, Olympic's voyage never left because all her crew went on strike. Why? The lifeboats. The collapsible boats WSL had stocked Olympic with were hastily pulled from wherever they could be found. They were old, they were rotting, and only 20 minutes before she was due to cast off, her firemen went on strike over it.

WSL insisted it would be impossible to replace these boats with fully wooden ones, and that the collapsibles were inspected and seaworthy. Didn't matter, off the crew walked, and those that stayed were unable to do their job anyway so.... they didn't. Olympic wasn't going to sail.

Every. single. crew. member. voted to strike. The WSL assured them the boats were tested by the Board of Trade, who said they would send a representative along with Olympic and they would test any of the boats they wanted.

The crew responded that the boats were a decade old, and some didn't even open, and were so rotten they were getting holes torn in them just by trying to move them. Nor had they staffed Olympic properly- four extra people to help work the 30 odd extra boats suddenly thrown on board.

They were threatened with lawsuits, jail, fines, mutiny charges. WSL tried to scrounge up non-union men but could only find 60. Passengers started refusing to sail because they knew the crew wasn't experienced. 300 people went ashore and waited in a hotel for a real crew.

WSL began to cave, agreeing to meet with the firemen and test the boats. They were allowed to choose four at random. Out of the four, three were leaking and one had a hole so big it was completely useless. The leaky ones were deemed "still seaworthy" - one was described as having a teaspoons full of water in it after testing. Still, no go.

Olympic sat in the water as passengers began booking other liners. The firemen wanted the non-strikers fired, first class passengers were offering to stoke the ship to Queenstown for a new crew, and the mutiny charges came to fruition when the strikers were all arrested. Their own union spoke against them, the town of Southampton, so traumatized from the Titanic disaster, spoke out against them- they all needed ships to sail, to make money, to support their families, to hold their union together. But the strikers didn't budge, and Olympic - officially- was docked. Her passengers were loaded on to other ships, including rival Cunarders, and sent to their destinations at the companies expense.

Two weeks later, the crew were bought before a court on charges of mutiny and were punished with ... nothing. The court decided it could not actually do anything about them in light of Titanic. The court, it seemed, felt they were justified.

Olympic eventually did sail, with those firemen aboard lead by Fred Barrett - Titanic survivor.

Seems good right? Crew and passengers refusing to sail on substandard, corporate band aids. Crew and passengers against performative safety and wanting actual change after the horror of Titanic.

Well, here's the rub. All of it was performative because lifeboats are performative

PART 2 BELOW