page_title: Lifeboats of the Titanic
section_title: Collapsible Boat A (starboard)
hierarchical_section_title: Lifeboats of the Titanic / Launch of the lifeboats / Collapsible Boat A (starboard)
caption_attribution_description: Español: El bote plegable A del Titanic. Fue encontrado por tripulantes del RMS Oceanic el 13 de mayo de 1912, a 200 millas del lugar del naufragio y con 3 cadáveres dentro.
context_page_description: The lifeboats of the RMS Titanic played a crucial role in the disaster of 14–15 April 1912. One of the ship's legacies was that she had 20 lifeboats that in total could only accommodate 1,178 people, despite the fact that there were approximately 2,208 on board. RMS Titanic had a maximum capacity of 3,547 passengers and crew.
  18 lifeboats were used, loading between 11:45 p.m.–2:15 a.m., though Collapsible Boat A floated off the ship's partially submerged deck, and Collapsible Boat B floated away upside down minutes before the ship upended and sank.
  Many lifeboats only carried half of their maximum capacity; there are many versions as to the reasoning behind half-filled lifeboats. Some sources claimed they were afraid of the lifeboat buckling under the weight, others suggested it was because the crew were following orders to evacuate women and children first. As the half-filled boats rowed away from the ship, they were too far for other passengers to reach, and most lifeboats did not return to the wreck, due to fear of being swamped by drowning victims. Only lifeboats 4 and 14 returned to retrieve survivors from the water, some of whom later died.
context_section_description: Collapsible Boat A reached the deck the right way up and was being attached to the falls by Murdoch and Moody when it was washed off Titanic at 2:12 a.m. In the chaos, the canvas sides were not pulled up and the boat drifted away from the ship partially submerged and dangerously overloaded. Having given up her place in collapsible D, first class passenger Edith Evans was seen frantically running across the boat deck trying to board collapsible A, presumably because collapsible B was already overturned. She and some other women were able to climb in the boat (hoping to be floated off deck) but it became swamped shortly before being washed off deck. Many of the occupants climbed in from the water but many (at least seven or eight, including the first class passengers Thomson Beattie and Edith Evans, the third class passengers Arthur Keefe, Edvard Lindell and Gerda Lindell, and a couple of firemen) died of hypothermia or fell back into the sea. Only 13 people were left alive and the survivors were later transferred into Collapsible Boat D. Among them were first class passenger R. Norris Williams and Rhoda Abbott, who had lost her two young sons in the water, being the only female. Three bodies, including that of Mr. Beattie, were left in Collapsible A, which was allowed to drift off; they were not recovered until a month later, by RMS Oceanic, another White Star Line ship.
  Rhoda Mary Abbott
  Olaus Abelseth
  Edward Brown
  Carl Olof Jansson
  Oscar Wilhelm Johansson
  William Lucas
  William McIntyre
  William John Mellors
  George Rheims
  John Thompson
  Augustus Henry Weikman
  August Wennerström
  Richard Norris Williams
  Thomson Beattie (passed away)
  Edith Corse Evans (passed away, allegedly in the boat)
  Arthur O'Keefe (passed away)
  Edvard Bengtsson Lindell (passed away)
  Elin Gerda Lindell (passed away)
caption: The Titanic Collapsible Boat A, on 13 May 1912.
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