Lifeboats

Titanic had 20 lifeboats. There were 14 standard boats for 65-70 people, numbered 3 to 16. Then there were two smaller emergancy cutters that normally were ready to be lowered in case they needed to pick up unfortunate persons who fell overboard, that could take on at least 40 people. Those were numbered 1 and 2. An extra 4 Collapsible Engelhardt lifeboats were made specifically for Titanic, as Olympic had only 16 boats. They were marked A,B,C and D, and they needed to be folded out as part of preparation, capable of carrying 55 people.

These lifeboats were very strong, however the officers that launched them that night didn't know about the test that had been done in Belfast and feared overloading them, and worried that they may buckle or break in half when putting too many people in them.

Officially, 1178-1200 people could've been saved in them, at best even 1400 would also have been possible if you consider putting people underneath the benches and that women were much smaller of course. Yet the time that was given to them wasn't used efficiently so the last two lifeboats couldn't be readied in time for launch. All these factors cost an unnessecarily amount of extra lives.