# Why didn't the Titanic's personnel evacuate to the iceberg? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2012, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137 "2012-04-18T08:06:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/41 "2012-04-19T16:35:43Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Icebergs get wider under the waterline, but I don’t think they “flare out” as rapidly as some people seem to be picturing. > > . Many of [these photographs](http://www.hickerphoto.com/photos/iceberg-pictures.htm) would suggest they do. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/42 "2012-04-19T16:50:45Z")
One suggestion I’ve never seen made on these shows- cut the anchor chains. Suppose they had cut the chains and let the anchors fall away. That would have allowed the bow to rise slightly, easing the water pressure at the holes slightly, and the water would flood in a little slower. It would still sink, but perhaps this could have bought another half hour? ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/43 "2012-04-19T16:52:36Z")
I’ve stood on a glacier, which is at least on top of solid ground, and that was quite slippery and hard to get around on. I can only imagine how much worse trying to stand on an iceberg would be. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/44 "2012-04-19T17:01:21Z")
[The gross weight of the Titanic was over 40,000 tons](http://www.webtitanic.net/framefacts.html). The combined weight of the anchors was 30 tons. Maybe 5 or 10 tons more for all the chain. A drop in the bucket. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/45 "2012-04-19T17:04:44Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > The [actual iceberg the Titanic struck](http://io9.com/5901952/whatever-happened-to-the-iceberg-that-sank-the-titanic) looks a good deal worse in that respect. A sad tale of one of the forgotten victims of the disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/46 "2012-04-19T17:16:34Z")
To me a bigger question is why did they try to avoid it once they saw it. A recent television show had a marine engineer who says that had they simply cut engines they would have collided with the berg head-on and then limped home with a partially crumpled bow. The worst thing that could have happened is what happened. A glancing blow along the side of the ship. ---
**Author:** ![wheresmymind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@wheresmymind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheresmymind)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/47 "2012-04-19T17:36:10Z")
Even if the captain could have maneuvered the ship in right next to the berg without sustaining more damage, there is no way they could have quickly organized an efficient evacuation to the iceberg. In the “fog of war,” the crew didn’t even manage an efficient evacuation using the lifeboats at their disposal. Total lifeboat capacity was around 1200, you could easily squeeze in another 150 or so without them floundering when the seas were as glassy as reported that night. Yet they only managed to get about 700 people into lifeboats in the 2 hours before she sank. Despite all the outcry over the insufficient number of lifeboats, the weak link wasn’t the number of boats, but rather the unwillingness of the passengers to board them and the inability of the crew to organize an orderly evacuation. Of the people that died that night, at least 600 didn’t have to. If the crew and passengers couldn’t handle filing into lifeboats, what makes you think they’d be better at scrambling up an iceberg? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/48 "2012-04-19T17:50:11Z")
> [@Laggard](#): > > To me a bigger question is why did they try to avoid it once they saw it. A recent television show had a marine engineer who says that had they simply cut engines they would have collided with the berg head-on and then limped home with a partially crumpled bow. > > The worst thing that could have happened is what happened. A glancing blow along the side of the ship. Presumably, they thought they could avoid hitting it and doing damage to the ship. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/49 "2012-04-19T18:26:00Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > One suggestion I’ve never seen made on these shows- cut the anchor chains. Suppose they had cut the chains and let the anchors fall away. That would have allowed the bow to rise slightly, easing the water pressure at the holes slightly, and the water would flood in a little slower. It would still sink, but perhaps this could have bought another half hour? How would they cut the chains to the anchor? Unless there was some release mechanism that would drop the anchors and chains off the ship with a flip of a switch, I can’t imagine they would be able to break that chain without some serious time and blowtorch action. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/50 "2012-04-19T18:43:25Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > How would they cut the chains to the anchor? Unless there was some release mechanism that would drop the anchors and chains off the ship with a flip of a switch, I can’t imagine they would be able to break that chain without some serious time and blowtorch action. Cutting away an anchor is an age-old emergency procedure at sea. I don’t know how it would have been accomplished on the Titanic, but it’s not an absurd suggestion. Big ships typically have a lot of tools for heavy jobs of the sort; perhaps they had cutting torches of some kind. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/51 "2012-04-19T18:55:14Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Presumably, they thought they could avoid hitting it and doing damage to the ship. Yes though one would have hoped that they would have had a better understanding of the ships capabilities. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/52 "2012-04-19T18:55:34Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Seems like an obvious enough idea: once they realized the ship was sinking, reverse course, find the iceberg and jury rig some ramps/ladders for people that can’t fit in the life boats to climb on to the berg to await rescue. My understanding is they had some two hours after the impact before the boat went under, so it seems like they should’ve had time to retrace their course even if they continued forward a good while after the initial impact. Two hours and 40 minutes isn’t much time if you’ve got to retrace course to find the iceberg again, jury rig some ramps and ladders over to the iceberg (something that no one on the ship has done before), and evacuate 1500 people to the iceberg via your jury-rigged system. Bear in mind that the ship is sinking as you do this, so you may need to make periodic adjustments to your system. The iceberg, being made of ice, is probably going to be slippery, so you will probably need to make adjustments on that end, too. Also bear in mind that it is a moonless night, so everyone who climbs to the iceberg via this system is having to do so in the dark. They’re probably going to need to go slower than they would in optimal conditions. And that assumes you decided to evacuate to the iceberg the minute the Titanic hit it. In reality, they didn’t start loading the lifeboats until about 40 minutes after they hit the iceberg. Evacuating people into lifeboats is something that had been planned for. Evacuating people onto an iceberg is not. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/53 "2012-04-19T19:14:00Z")
> [@postcards](#): > > Many of the passengers on the sinking Titanic didn’t even want to get into the _lifeboats_, how could you possibly convince them to get onto the damned iceberg? Tell them they would not run out of ice cubes before they were rescued. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/54 "2012-04-20T01:36:11Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Cutting away an anchor is an age-old emergency procedure at sea. I don’t know how it would have been accomplished on the Titanic, but it’s not an absurd suggestion. Big ships typically have a lot of tools for heavy jobs of the sort; perhaps they had cutting torches of some kind. my apologies if I dismissed this too quickly. I thought about it, and like you said, it certainly does make sense to ditch the anchors if they were stuck on something or were causing the ship problems. But the only think I could think about was the pictures of those massive chains that were used to drop and bring the anchors back up. If there was a quick and easy way to disengage the anchors, my apologies to **BobLibDem** for jumping the gun. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/55 "2012-04-20T01:45:43Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Cutting away an anchor is an age-old emergency procedure at sea. I don’t know how it would have been accomplished on the Titanic, but it’s not an absurd suggestion. Big ships typically have a lot of tools for heavy jobs of the sort; perhaps they had cutting torches of some kind. The only times I’ve ever heard of cutting an anchor is when a ship is anchored, and needs to be _not_ anchored, immediately, like a sudden storm blows up, or the ship is attacked. Can you give me an example of when an anchor was cut away for some kind of safety reason while a ship was already underway? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/56 "2012-04-20T09:12:17Z")
I’ve only heard of cutting anchors during the time of sailing ships, when ropes instead of chains were used and thus could be cut easier. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/57 "2012-04-20T09:54:53Z")
No no, what they should’ve done is lasso the ship firmly to the iceberg at the moment of the collision. It would plug the big hole and keep the ship afloat. Simple. If only I’d been aboard that night… ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/58 "2012-04-20T11:28:36Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > I’ve only heard of cutting anchors during the time of sailing ships, when ropes instead of chains were used and thus could be cut easier. Regardless of the material – _why_ cut them? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/59 "2012-04-20T11:50:19Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Regardless of the material – _why_ cut them? I believe because it is faster than casting it off. In some emergencies, it would be essential to get the ship free of the anchor as quickly as possible. I am thinking of sailing ships, but sometimes it is safer for the ship to be running free before the wind, rather than being anchored - less chance of damage to the masts and rigging. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/60 "2012-04-20T12:40:41Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I believe because it is faster than casting it off. In some emergencies, it would be essential to get the ship free of the anchor as quickly as possible. > > I am thinking of sailing ships, but sometimes it is safer for the ship to be running free before the wind, rather than being anchored - less chance of damage to the masts and rigging. > > Regards, > Shodan That part I get, as I mentioned in post #55. What I don’t get is why a ship already under power and moving would have any cause to get rid of its anchor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137.md?page=4)