FAQ: Were Titanic‘s Lifeboats Reused on Olympic?
No.
While nobody has been able to confirm for definite what did happen to the Titanic lifeboats which were recovered and taken to New York, we know that they did not end up being reused on Olympic.
Olympic received a number of temporary collapsible lifeboats in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, in April 1912. She completed her final round trip of the year between Southampton and New York in October 1912. At that time, Titanic‘s lifeboats were still in New York.
The reason that Olympic was withdrawn from service in October 1912 was so that she could return to Harland & Wolff’s Belfast shipyard for a major refit. This included a more permanent solution to her lifeboat apparatus, replacing the collapsibles which had only been intended as a stop-gap solution.
Above: Harland & Wolff blueprint reproduced in Olympic Titanic & Britannic: An Illustrated History of the ‘Olympic’ Class Ships (recommended further reading: below).
In February 1913, Harland & Wolff submitted a blueprint to the British Board of Trade confirming the new lifeboat arrangements and the additional davits which had been fitted to handle them. The Board of Trade had to give approval to permit the ship to go to sea with passengers and this submission was a key part of that process.
They included a ‘Summary of Boats’:
| Description | No. of Persons | Total No. of Persons | |
| 14 Open Lifeboats 30 x 9 x 4 | 64 | 896 | Boats Originally Fitted to Comply with Old B/T Regulations |
| 2 Wood Cutters 25 x 7 x 3 | 33 | 66 | |
| 4 Decked Lifeboats 28 x 8 x 3-8″ | 40 | 160 | |
| 12 Open Lifeboats 27-5″ x 8-6″ x 3-7″ | 50 | 600 | New Boats to Comply with new Board of Trade Regulations |
| 12 Decked Lifeboats 27-5″ x 8-6″ x 3-7″ | 46 | 552 | |
| 8 Open Lifeboats 29 x 8-6″ x 3-7″ | 53 | 424 | |
| 14 Decked Lifeboats 30 x 9 x 3-7″ | 52 | 728 | |
| 2 Decked Lifeboats 28 x 8 x 3 | 42 | 84 | |
| Total Number of Persons Boats Will Accommodate | 3510 | Total 68 Lifeboats | |
| Total Number of Persons on Board | 3450 | ||
| Spare | 65 | ||
Above: Olympic Lifeboat Configuration, February 1913. The ‘Description’ includes the number of each type of boat and then the boat dimensions (length x breadth x depth) in feet (rounded) and -inches (“) as applicable. Lifeboat capacities sometimes differ in different source material, depending on the method of calculation and whether capacities have been rounded up or down. The ‘Boats Originally Fitted…’ are Olympic‘s original lifeboats, which were identical to Titanic’s. (They illustrate this point well, because the capacities shown for the original 20 boats come to 1,122 persons whereas the usual figure is 1,178. See: Titanic: The Ship Magnificent [History Press; 2016] for further details on how lifeboat capacities could be calculated, including Stirling’s Rule.) The ‘New Boats…’ are those fitted in 1913.
All of the new, additional lifeboats were different in size and carrying capacity to Titanic’s lifeboats. Some of the new boats were also delivered late. On 11 March 1913 Harland & Wolff informed the Board of Trade that they would retain ten Berthon and six Henderson collapsibles on board as a temporary solution, while ‘doing all possible to expedite the delivery of the remaining sixteen decked lifeboats’ that would be ‘placed onboard at the earliest possible opportunity’. The orders placed and the delay in constructing or delivering these sixteen boats once again demonstrate that they were newly built.
