Why Have Lifeboats Killed More People Than They Have Saved?
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2022
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In this video, we investigate why is it claimed that lifeboats have killed more people than they have saved. We look at the on-load release mechanism, seeing how it works and some of the problems with current designs.
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Why does it say you commented 2 weeks ago? Lol
Why is this 2 weeks ago
NO.
So, the next big change to lifeboat technology is to require every lifeboat mechanism to be the same on every ship.
And this is why I'm not subed...the titanic had plenty of life boats but got a huge list at the start preventing half from being useful ...
easy to release in an emergency and hard to release accidentally seems to be a hard balance to strike.
Yeah. Sort of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation...
A good knot is easy to tie, easy to untie, hard for nature to force apart accidentally. just gotta figure out what that is for machines
That balance was struck with the handle + pin mechanism. The issue is that they want it to be easy for a person to release when they choose to release it (so it can be quickly freed from the sinking ship when it’s at a safe height), but also hard for them to release when they choose to release it (because ‘someone might panic and choose to release it too high’). It’s this logical contradiction that seems to be the underlying problem here.
IMO, you’ve got to choose people well and train them well, trust their training, and accept that there will always be some risk of a person acting irrationally and mucking up the works.
A possible solution would be to use AI to release the boat (as it doesn’t panic and can initiate a complex algorithm easily) - but I’d guess that gathering enough data to train and validate the model isn’t feasible under the current technology. Also, for an AI system to work, there would have to be no human operable failsafe - and people reeeally don’t like that.
Reminds of the forest rangers trying to design a bear proof garbage can that can still be used by the general public and saying something along the lines of "Turns out there is significant overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest people."
@@joeyoest1105 I suppose one way would be a DC battery electrical solenoid release mechanism where the sea water forms the vital link in the circuit, in a box with holes, attached to the lifeboat hull, so it won't operate or can't be operated too early. It could even be automatic. Easily tested on deck in the davits by hosing it.
I've been a Merchant Marine for 25 years and approve of this message 100%
According to SOLAS we have to lower the lifeboats once a month for testing.
As a comms guy, what kind of pictures are around those devices? Are they "airplane safety card" clear? While I'm sure you MM folks do well .. if the problem was people on crap boats aren't trained well, so then they add more safety equipment ... which requires more training ...You've kind of run in a circle. But spent a lot of money too. Not surprised a bunch of engineers tried to find a solution and created some stuff that made it more complex. But then I could be the hammer thinking everything looks like a nail.
@@Bigmar98, your absolutely correct. On the SOLAS vessels we spend about 50% of our time doing safety inspections. There's aolt of shit that can save your life but if you don't k ow how to use it it's a waste. SOLAS makes us do massive safety checks. non- SOLAS there are no checks or drills.
The weekly drills are to be taken seriously. Most think it a hassel but it's not. I've been in ship fires that was caused by a welder. It was in a Confined Space as well. I had to Don my bunker gear and scba but I couldn't fit with it on so I had to take it off and lower it with it giving me air. It was miserable but we saved the ship. That was due to training. I've been at sea for 25 years and have seen it all.
Sry about the ramble.
Every one complaining about the drills till they need to put it into practice
@@semperparatus678 That was one paragraph, you're fine.
@@westrim right? Wasn't too bad I've read more and learned less before 🤣 that was really informative and good real life association.
Am I the only one that thinks things like lifeboat releases should be industry wide the same so no matter who's on board the boats can be used efficiently and effectively to simplify things overall.
Sure but that is likely to take time. International shipping regulations arr a mess .
"We need one standard for everyone to follow!"
"There are now 17 different standards: the previous 16, and the new international one."
First we need to figure out an efficient and effective way to release lifeboats. Then we can introduce it as a standard.
The problem with the same standard is that if there is a flaw, suddenly every ship in the world is on standby
I appreciate the feedback you guys make some good points up for sure
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
Douglas Adams
Duggy AAAAAdams
Thank you
So what he's saying is to invite fools to try and fool your foolproof product
The thing is, people don't even need to be fools to mess this up. The design needs to be operable in an extremely high stress environment.
I prefer one of the corollaries of Murphy's Law... "By the time someone's refined a design to be idiot-proof, only an idiot is going to want it." ;o)
Fr
Reminds me of a comic strip where an engineer is presenting a two-step authentication system to prevent accidental release of (whatever), followed by another engineer presenting a one-step key that bypasses the two-step system in order to make the system more efficient.
Another example is the sinking of lusitania and Britannic, so many lifeboats failed to be launched properly, capsized and some were sucked into the propellers. Obviously it's very different now
Its more that the lifeboats were released too early and without permission while the engines were still running, rather than mechanical issues
@@richieThach And just two were sucked into the blades, while the rest were unscathed.
Yeah, around 34 people passed during the sinking of the _Britannic_ because they launched boats before given the orders. That's not even taking into account the huge list.
I'm guessing you meant the Britannic
The _Britannic_ sank in 1916 more than a century ago and only killed 30 when 2 lifeboats were launched early by panicking sailors and sucked into the propellers. Everyone else was evacuated safely in the other lifeboats, in fact, the lifeboats which “failed to launch” were excess lifeboats which weren’t required. Your argument makes no sense at all.
This episode is terrifying, because now I know if I ever have to use a lifeboat I'll have to figure around the "safety" features.
Every lifeboat will have someone that's trained for its operation. For example, on a cruise ship, each muster station has crew assigned to it and they perform lifeboat drills. Every crew member of a cruise ship has a secondary emergency position. Many will be stationed at key locations to direct guests. Some will board the lifeboats to ensure they're released properly.
The most recent major evacuation was the Costa Concordia. Once the captain finally gave the order for an evacuation, the crew did great. The captain OTOH was an idiot though and took far too long for order an evacuation despite the engines, generators and electrical boxes completely underwater.
@@krozareq Yeah, cruise ships are known for their well-trained crews that call for mustering, evacuation and stay with their lifeboats (assuming they are able and willing to get to them).
32 people died on the Costa Concordia and that was in _calm waters_ near the shore. Imagine swells off the Alaskan coast?
The cruise industry has a great reputation for having accounted for many dangers individually but it has also given them the hubris to believe that the *worst* situations are essentially impossible -- hence Captain My-Ship-Can't-Be-Sinking Schettino (and *all* his bridge crew and the corporate overlords he was consulting).
@@krozareq watch internet historian?
You can ask them to teach you about the life boats and I bet they'll teach you if you are polite. They love having extra capable passengers and they want you to feel safe.
@@krozareq
Saying 32 ppl died doesn't really mean anything. You also have to look at the average age and health of customers of cruise ships... I'd be that most of them were older people, overweight ppl etc, died from panicking, from acting to late. For example the statistic of people reacting to an alarm (which is thr stage before abandoning a ship) is 10 percent.. add to that the people not believing that there is an issue because of the holiday factor, then people arguing, having to regroup families. The crew actually did a pretty good job considering they had no one on the bridge leading which we normally rely on heavily.@@x--.
I think another huge issue with smaller vessels are “life crafts”.
The self inflating ones. My friend lost his brother and 2 other crew who were on a trawler that flipped and sank, they escaped from the ship and made it to the surface to see the life craft blowing away in the wind.
how do you know what they saw if they died?
@@GigsVT presumably the friend was on a steady liferaft and saw the events
@@GigsVT perhaps by they is was meant this friend and not his beother
yeah I'm guessing singular they in "they escaped", referring to the friend.
@@GigsVT because they found the boat a few days later the captain was drowned in his cabin but the 2 deck hands were not found and there cabin window was smashed out, the life craft was released and found empty miles away, like 50 miles away..
Them seeing it was a presumption, but nevertheless. They escaped, the life craft was deployed and they didn’t get to the life craft.
Im always shocked to see the lifeboat design that drops off the stern of the ship. Unless you’re buckled in (may not be possible in a quick escape) you’re falling several stories, seems very fatal.
Free-fall lifeboats are designed to cut into the water, so it attenuates the impact. And they try to make sure everyone's buckled in before launch, but either way it's intended as a last resort when the alternative would be worse. :-)
An example: ua-cam.com/video/e6wTn-xx11Y/v-deo.html
I've seen those designs on oil rigs, and they are designed to torpedo into the water. While it does look violent and I'm sure it's a shock, if the alternative is being on a burning rig I wouldn't care if the thing did a Tony Hawk 2 Sick Combo on the way down.
I don't think free fall boats are used for passengers. The crew on merchant ships is trained, so yeah I hope the driver doesn't panic and everyone is buckled in.
The ones on oil rigs are scary though 40 m seems to be the record for a manned drop, I only did the 3 or 4 Meter training drop, wouldn't want to do 30 unless I really have to
@beef business water cuts metal when you move it fast enough
reminds me of the old adage, "you can try to make it idiot proof, but they will just make a better idiot."
You bring up a good point with the coloring.
In the US we view green as something is going or energized or ready to be used.
In Europe they use green as safe or something is not in use, not going, not energized etc.
This first came to light when I worked as a plant operator.
The system we used was either of European design or build. It was so confusing to many of us at first. To us the color indicators we're backwards. With red being the color used to indicate it was being used or energized or not safe. Almost without fail every time we got a new mechanic or operator they would be just as confused by the seemingly opposite color scheme.
Red = danger / emergency;
Green = Safe / Safety.
Even when you’re at a traffic light 🚦
@@SportyMabamba Green means the machine is on, to safely work on it I need to hit the Red button to make it safe.
If there is an electrical issue you pull the red lever. to make it safe.
If the pumps are on fire, you press a big red button to turn off the gas.
In an emergency you'll often want to head to red coloured fire doors, or pull a red lever to open an emergency exit.
@@lunaticbz3594 Europe interestingly generally has green emergency exit signs on doors as well as the green buttons.
Realistically, either approach works fine, it's just going to be weird to use one if you're used to the other
It's like the small nightmare surrounding firearm safety levers (sometimes a visible red dot means safe, other times a visible dot means unsafe, or a lever in the up position means safe, except when in the down position), and why I generally don't use them apart from he fact that the safety lever is often just but of a placebo (I had a rifle discharge upon disengaging the safety).
@@fsociety6983 In the US, both red and green exit signs are common.
I was told a story regarding oil rig life boats when I attended an offshore survival corse for oil and gas workers in the late 1980s. A safety instructor on a rig always gave the release lever a push and pull to show the new arrivals to the rig how release the life boat. Eventually, this demonstration reached the number of push-pulls needed to release and it dropped the boat 20 metres without anyone being strapped into their seats. Many injuries resulted.
He was intentionally tempting fate by operating the mechanism and relying on the safety or some other stupid choice?
@@x--. I believe that he didn’t understand how that particular hydraulically assisted release worked and assumed the pressure built up during his demonstrations was vented somehow. Alas, it wasn’t.
@@NotALot-xm6gz omg. Priceless. Slowly pumping himself to doom.
I'm a service engineer that works on life boats and Davits and I have to say great video. Very through and accurate. Good job! There is alot that goes into keeping LSA equipment safe.
Put the release lever outside the boat and halfway down the side. If you are still 50 feet above the water, the fear of height will prevent people from reaching over the side. If they do, staring at the height will make you realize how high you are going to drop. Let fear be your safety.
But then you have issues of rough seas. If the sinking main ship is bobbing on large waves, then the crew member might fall off the lifeboat.
There's always a "but"
That's really good advice about figuring out the lifeboats when you get on a ship. I never have because I always assumed I could figure it out, which I most definitely could. But to have a rundown on the systems before an emergency one could launch the boat without having to waste time looking into the process. You could even save others with the knowledge. Awesome video, as usual.
I imagine that not training passengers is intentional: You don't want anyone playing have-a-go-hero during a real emergency and dropping the lifeboat half-empty in a panic. Better to leave the passengers ignorant, and depend upon the properly-trained and -drilled crew to coordinate the evacuation.
@@vylbird8014 O but passengers are also in a way trained. in a lot of multi day cruises passengers will have to join the evacuation drill.
there task is often to just follow orders and know where they have to go during a evacuation.
they will even be asked to go in to the lifeboats who will be lowered to just toughing water or even a full release.
knowing what to do in a emergency even if it has been thought once can help when it is really needed.
You could figure it out, but could you do it in a high stress situation? I ask because stress can play tricks with your mind. For example, there have been cases where people couldn’t release their seatbelts when evacuating aircraft because, under stress, they forgot it didn’t work like a car seatbelt and were looking for the release mechanism in the wrong place. .
@@sirBrouwer It's a lot harder to instill a measurable level of "Don't release the boat until you've saved the maximum occupancy" that it is to just train usage of the device... That said, I don't know if crew training actually includes that effectively either. I think I'll ask a Coast Guard vet I know.
@@jeremypnet I see that happen every year, when I'm supporting school exams. Otherwise-intelligent people become complete idiots when placed in the stress of an exam, where their entire future hangs upon getting a good grade. They end up writing their name in the box labeled date, things like that. The exams on computers are worse - last year I had one who had to call for urgent tech support because he'd hit the insert key and couldn't understand why his work was disappearing when he typed.
Thank you. I don't go to sea professionally, but this is great information to have in the back of my mind in any circumstance.
"General Aviation" aircraft have a similar design & operation issue --- smaller twin engine aircraft have a second engine for safety, but if you fail to respond to an engine failure properly you turn a dangerous situation into a fatal one.
I believe that piston twin pilots, when asked what the second engine is for, sometimes reply "it's to carry you to the site of the crash".
@@SolarWebsite Not true, I'm fully capable of crashing unassisted.
@@tihspidtherekciltilc5469 so true . I can even crash with out ever leaving the hangar. or more the crash will be me going out of the hangar with out opening the doors first.
Incidents happened where the pilot shut off the operating engine without realizing.
Normally you shut off the malfunctioning engine to reduce the likelyhood for it to turn into an engine fire or worse, explode or something.
To prevent a wrong (and fatal) shutdown, there is a 3 step process you have to know. It goes by basically confirming it is the dead engine ur shutting down by assessing the indicators and visually
I mean an engine failure is rarely fatal. Even in the most dangerous circumstance, an engine failure after V1, you always have a backup. In almost every checklist, it says for you to have a plan for an engine failure right after takeoff. And it's also just basic procedure regardless. So if you are a good pilot and follow that, you always have a safe plan. And if it happens during any other part of flight and you can't recover your engine, there are many spots to land that's aren't the runway.
General aviation is extremely safe, it just comes down to the pilot's knowledge
Engineer 1: “We think someone in a high-stress situation will make a bad decision and remove the pin and pull the handle too soon - what should we do?”
Engineer 2: “Let’s make a 17-step, unintuitive process where every step needs to be executed flawlessly in order to free the boat from the sinking ship. Surely the person who can’t think rationally about removing a pin will be able to solve this puz… I mean, follow these instructions.”
(Perhaps ‘engineer’ should be replaced by ‘regulator’ here depending on who demanded the changes.)
It is in fact a two step process once the boat is lowered. Pull pin, pull lever. If you must pull the lever ABOVE the water (rare event) it becomes four. Break glass, push switch, pull pin, pull lever.
It is important these things be safe, and learning better ways to design safety equipment is money well spent. Whatever "waste" is created can be easily regained by saving a couple lives, and the millions of dollars of PRODUCTIVITY they represent...
And uh... Moral reasons too. Not that this tends to count for much.
'engineer' wouldn't be inaccurate I think. I'm an engineer (not in marine industries). A lot of us, including myself are sometimes detached from the reality in the field.
If you involved bureaucrats, there would be a form that would have to be submitted in advance of releasing the life boat - signed and dated in triplicate, with separate copies sent to 3 different agencies, 2 of which don't have a mailing address.
@Evi1 M4chine the Industrial Revolution and it’s consequences have been a disaster for the human race
Professor Theodore Kaczynski
Geez I didn't know that to get out a sinking ship, I need to do Savage raids
Something as simple as the mechanism of a seat track that has three parts brings down aircraft and just happened recently. Every car I can think of that doesn't have power seats has the same track yet cause deaths. My point is no matter how simple and safe a mechanism is there's always a way to fail so adding more safety adds more possible failure points. I have no solution to either other than more frequent inspections and educating the people that may need to use said mechanism. It's like every time I fly watching people ignore the safety brief before pushback knowing who is putting their life and lives of everyone else at risk. Anyone that's ever rescued a person that can't swim knows what I'm trying to say. Be your own first responder pro-actively and educate yourself beforehand. Stay safe casual navigators.
I say Star Trek needs to get more realism here, we always see escape pods working just fine and dandy even though their much bigger cousins {the Shuttlecraft} malfunction every other week. I say show us pods that refuse to release, or release too quick, show us the not perfect nature, do it! Even Starship Troopers showed us escape pod chaos lol.
The escape pods and shuttle craft all work exactly as designed…
… by the script writers.
Have you seen scifi movie "Lifepod" (1993)? It's got that grim reality that you seek and there's a copy floating around lost in the depths of UA-cam
I do agree. It's why I enjoy episodes/movies/games where they show the chaos of people running towards the life pods only to find some malfunctioning due to one issue or another and a handful still in working order. My favorite is in video games when they show a very chaotic after scene near the life pods and you are able to piece together several instances where people got just plain unlucky.
In the video game prey, there are a few escape pods available for use.
But one is occupied by an enemy and another one is "in repair" because of a malfunctioning door. If memory serves, you can still use it but it will kill you.
Easy to imagine the technician having more pressing things to do, because "well ... there is no emergency right now".
Don't expect anything good with kurtzman in charge.
I never thought about it before, but if I ever take a cruise, the first thing I'm doing (without touching anything) is figuring out how the lifeboats work. Hopefully the crew would instruct us on this, but as a former flight attendant, I would just need to know the details.
I would focus on getting your life jacket on properly, that is actually something you have more control over.
@@scvcebc The life jacket will almost never save your life. It is the cold water that tends to kill you. Most normal people can stay afloat long enough for rescue in warmer waters.
Dude. It's impossible. I took a cruise once and having watched far too many catastrophe videos one of the things I did was go look at the lifeboats along with knowing where my life-vest was.
It's all covered up, inaccessible and designed to hold like 150 (now some hold up to 370). You have *no* hope of being in a position to do anything but pray that the crew doesn't panic and kill everyone.
It was scary, thinking about how the crew who is often being overworked would be called to remain calm and give directions (on our cruise, with a thick accent) to save your life.
@@jimj2683 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA if you think you’re gonna swim to safety in a storm that sinks a ship you’ve got another thing coming kiddo.
@@TheOriginalCFA1979 You do know that storms are not the only things that can capsize a ship right? You'll get there sport.
The last cruise I went on the life boats were being used in a training drill to train the crew member. I was obseriving from a close distance. I could see that all the pulleys and cables were rusted. It all looked hopeless and didn't work at all as intended. I just walked away and had a stiff drink....
I'm surprised they'd do a training course with passengers aboard in case it showed the incompetence and poor maintenance.
As per solas passenger ships are required to drill once per week, with a full crew muster and abandon ship every two weeks. All lifeboats have to be lowered, driven and recovered by operating crew at minimum every 3 months. Even if there’s 24 lifeboats they’re all used and sent away every three months
How is it that on sailing ships hundreds of years ago builders in different countries had worked out how to lay out the hundreds of ropes so that on the darkest night, in a storm, a sailor from another country, speaking a different language, could instantly find the right rope? And now we have no uniform system for releasing lifeboats...crazy.
How do you know that it was like that?
@@Epaminaidosbecause it was written down , why do you types of people always believe our ancestors were dumb and had no records?
@@david-468 Please provide a source for the uniformity claimed by the OP.
Just listened to the audio book Adapt, by Tim Harford. He talked a bit about safety devices and how they can begin to offer new failure modes. Some of the stories, like the one in this video, began to sound like the little old lady who swallowed a fly - one solution leads to new problems that need new solutions that lead to their own problems, and the layering of safety features not only ends up decreasing safety, but confidence in them leads to behavior pushing the limits of the features.
To me, this sounds like an issue that needs to be standardized across the entire world. If ever life boat is different, a brain trust really needs to come together to try and find the best way to secure life boats and standardize it.
Standardized iconography would probably help a lot
@@SolomonUcko That's probably the most shocking oversight. It's easy. Shows how much the maritime industry doesn't value safety.
But who will pay to upgrade for all the old ones, and who will be held accountable if the standard turns out to be wrong?
@@joshuahudson2170 personally I'd be in favor of the gov't spending the money to develop an amazing standard (or set of standards depending on the environment).
Then just let the owners know they can adopt the standard or face full liability for any lives lost if they don't want the safest standard. They can pay up front or on the back end.
@@x--. That kind of liability shifting is very dangerous.
Yikes, I had no idea that releasing the lifeboats could be so complicated. If you have to depend on passengers knowing how to do that, you may be doomed. Even if the pins are released properly, only the crew knows how to operate the lifeboat. And don't forget that the Titanic's crew (presumably) kept the ship level so boats could be lowered from both sides. If a ship leans to one side or the other, half of the lifeboats are rendered useless.
Under proper conditions, releasing the lifeboats is a two-step process: extract pin, pull lever. The other extra steps are when you need/want/attempt to override the safety devices. The complications are in the maintenance and training to make sure the equipment is functioning as designed (of which there could be many different standards for very similar-looking lifeboats/safety equipment), since the sea is a pretty hostile place and erodes everything.
And with that erosive environment (plus the general difficulties of working on a ship) there's no guarantee the safety equipment will always be working as designed, so the crew need to be trained how to override it.
@@discipleoferis549 If I understand your comment and the system correctly, then "proper conditions" wouldn't include heavy sea states?
@@x--. Yes, proper conditions definitely belongs in air quotes, ha. There are a number of conditions that could crop up in an emergency that would require the operators to defeat the safety mechanisms.
Still, no one has really come up with something more reliable yet. Or at least not one that has seen any serious adoption. The ocean and ships are unforgiving places.
Not that I'm an expert on this matter.
Passengers aren't the ones who are supposed to operate these systems.
Amazing video and to the point. You catch all things that are important. Well done
This reminds me of an incident in my high school chemistry class. There was a fire extinguisher next to the teacher’s desk, and it had a safety pin to prevent the discharge handle from being accidentally pressed, and the pin was (aftermarket?) retained by a Zip-tie. I had idly noticed this, and thought to my myself that it was a bad design, but never said anything to anyone about it, trusting that the teachers knew what they were doing. One day there was an actual fire during a lab (someone had spilled a quantity of alcohol near a Bunsen burner, and the spill ignited) and as the teacher was going for the fire extinguisher, I was going for a pair of scissors so he could cut the Zip-tie and remove the pin. I suspect he could have torn the tie and removed the pin with brute force, so perhaps the design wasn’t _that_ bad, but I still think there could be a better way of preventing accidental discharge without possibly hindering use in an emergency.
Yeah, those Zip-ties can be easily broken. They don't seem as strong as normal ones.
@@fukkitful Agreed, those zip ties are designed to be broken easily. They are there to prevent an unintentional removal of the pin. One good tug and it is off.
Did you run with the scissors?
The zip tie is a tamper evidence seal. It's supposed to be extremely weak to not get in your way. If it is broken, then it's a visual indicator that the extinguisher needs to be recharged or reinspected. If it is intact, then it guarantees that nobody has attempted to use the extinguisher since it was last inspected.
You might be able to find similar seals on your house's electricity meter. They might even have unique serial numbers, so that the power company can verify that nobody has been inside the panel since they were there last time.
@@archerkid02 I was going to say that, if you're going to have one of these just sitting out, then you'd want something like that to indicate that it hasn't already been used that's independent of the typical gauge. If you've got a fire extinguisher that's in one of those boxes that are commonly used, then there's no particular need for a tamper seal as the box itself does that. At home, there's no particular reason to have a tamper seal as it's your place and you could replace the seal if you wanted to.
Video is great as always and I understand the allure of in-video sponsors, but please do not dabble into deceiving the viewers. The progress bar for the ad starts off at a rapid pace, suggesting the ad will be over in about 30 seconds, but the progress bar progressively slows its progress and the ad in fact takes over 70 seconds to complete. Which is over 15% of the total video time. The balance is not there this time, the ad either needs to be shorter or the video longer, but don't think you can fool viewers by making it look like a 30 second ad when it's not. Thumbs down this time.
Oh, that's disappointing. I wonder if sponsors have started demanding ad-view statistics as viewers get better at skipping? (The L key is your friend!). I agree, though, fast-bar ad progress bar is just a little too deceptive. Either have an accurate progress bar or no bar.
he needs to make a living, you can skip it, shush
Get sponsorblock browser add-on, automatically skips sponsors, 'pls sub', and other boring stuff
As a pasager, it's scary to think you need a trained member of crew to unhook the boat or you would sink with the ship.
Because if the alternative is a panicking, untrained, gung-ho fool prematurely releasing the thing while you are several stories above the water, I'd rather wait the extra thirty seconds for the trained operator to arrive and not kill me on the way down.
@@BrokenLifeCycle Except if there is no trained operator coming because he doesn't actually gives a shit about the pasagers and has already boarded another boat.
I would rather risk it myself.
@@roblacksnail8615 Better you operating it than the screaming hysterical banshee next to you, I suppose.
@@BrokenLifeCycle yea but still he is still not trained at the job that requires training so much that people even die in training.
I think his point is that it'd be better if the process is more intuitive that he can do it untrained.
@@iwatchwithnoads7480 Sometimes I wonder why cruise ships don't just plaster do and don'ts of how to operate a life boat beside the bed. You know, where people might want to find something to read to go to sleep. Like airplane does with their safety placards in the seat pocket. Someone that's not the staff is bound to read it. in a 1000+ pax cruise ship, even if 50 of them read it it's 50 more people that know what the f they're doing.
Basically
1: Pull pin on hooks
2: Lower until the bar behind the glass goes up, if bar is down while touching water, break glass and move bar up
3: Remove pin on lever and pull
a 3 panel graphic instruction standardized would be effective here, alongside a standard handbook for maintenance and testing, especially in resetting after test
Seems fairly straightforward. Have it captioned with several of the most common trading languages, standardize the direction and color (where is the ISO?), and it seems like a major part of the problem, at least as defined in this short video, would be solved.
@@childofnewlight the main difficulty with this is how to explain malfunctions, maybe the relevant service panel can have text like 'DANGER : BREAK GLASS ONLY WHEN POD LOWERED TO MAXIMUM'
Did you remember to remove the safety rope outside the lifeboat?
Break glass??
That's not supposed to happen...
I remember one life boat drill, when I working on a car ferry in the 80's (during the summer). Firstly, it happened at the end of the season when all temp staff were about to finish. Second; 2/3 life boats tested failed, one the ballcock was missing, the other had it's release rusted. I happen to be on the good one :-) still it made me wonder, really hope more modern regs have improved things.
Heh, ballcock
Wait, your crew INSPECTED the lifeboats as part of a drill? Lucky guy. The company I worked for, the lifeboats were inspected once a year, and monthly abandon-ship drills consisted of hauling your immersion suit (which you had brought down with you when you responded to the fire drill just before, so you wouldn't have to go back to your stateroom) up to your designated lifeboat, and stand their jawing for a few minutes while the officers took roll call. That was it. One time I helped the officers out when they opened a lifeboat to inspect it, and it was full of trash that crew members had stuffed into it rather than walking down a flight of stairs to a trash can.
Captain: "ABANDON SHIP!"
Me (after seeing this video): "Oh my god we're all gonna die!"
Be. First.
Don't run anyone over but if you muster quickly, life jacket on, and watch your chances improve greatly. All you can do is improve the odds for you and your family. Swift, decisive action is well within your control. (aka know where the exit is on your aircraft, bus, train or ... boat).
Abandon ship is obviously code for running around like a maniac rioting and looting anybody that's knocked unconscious.
Off topic from the main vid, but you had Jim Al-Khalili as a professor??? Wow that's so cool! I love his Life Scientific podcast.
i have a way to fix this, you make the lines disposable, as in they are meant to be used for one boat one time, the lines will always be attached to the boat, but what will happen is each line will have a spool that gets mounted to a gearbox, the gearbox will only allow the line to fed out at a constant rate, once the boat is payed out all of its line you could have hang there in the water, or you can design a system that sends an electrical system on the line (say if you were using metal cabling) that once the electrical signal is no longer present will tell the boat to let go if the line only if a series of redundant water sensors sense water.
actually even simpler, leave the lines hooked to the boat, and have the gearbox and spools on the lifeboat.
The lifeboat can't hang there. It needs to leave immediately. When the ship fully sinks, it will create a temporary whirlpool, which will likely sink any lifeboats nearby.
For the same reason, you need to make sure the signal stops well before the ship actually sinks, so the it doesn't pull the lifeboat down with it.
Great video!
on the "speculating a better failsafe" line, perhaps a mechanism that requires one of the hooks to be unloaded, and then releases both hooks. I think only allowing a hook to release when unloaded would result in the boat swinging from one hook in heavy seas, but requiring a hook to be unloaded would have at least one end of the lifeboat afloat and prevent a full drop.
Good luck trying to get change. Essentially everything related to boats is stuck in the 16th century and they value tradition over practicality.
@@rubiconnn well, I have absolutely no connection to the lifeboat industry, so I have even less chance. it was speculative at best.
I think the freefall system is clever, and certainly worth looking into.
A while ago, I was moonlighting as 2nd officer on one of the cross-channel super ferries during the summer season. There are many different types of lifeboat launch systems, and it is quite normal to learn about how to operate a particular system from staff familiar with each set of peculiarities. Unfortunately, because of an archaic vertical management structure onboard, as is normal with the more established companies, many of the serving crew rapidly tire of the petty rules governing their lives onboard, resulting in an extremely high crew turnover. This left the ship staffed with few experienced crew and no one to pass on how to operate the launch systems onboard. During one drill, the lack of experienced staff meant that not one lifeboat was launched. I will admit, that I even documented in the logbook that the drill was carried out satisfactorily.
WHY?! .... why would you lie on the logbook? I don't understand, that's the one safeguard the people have against failure, that crew will honestly report failures. I don't get it, honestly.
@@x--. That's a really good question, and still applicable today. Most things written in logbooks are highly sanitised. There is even a culture behind the standard style and vocabulary used so as not to upset management, insurance companies, auditors etc. It is why anything controversial is discussed by senior vessel staff as to how it should be reported in a logbook. I would agree, the culture needs to change, and I wasn't helping.
@@ChrisTaylor-NEP I certainly appreciate your honesty here. I'm just genuinely confused. To me, lying should be a top violation if you want a culture of safety. It's a common issue. Do we need random inspections? Whistleblower protections? Heavier penalties?
@@x--. I think enforcement might play a role, but just honest dialogue is probably much more important. The fact that there weren't enough experienced staff onboard isn't really any individual's fault. In a perfect world, the Captain would have mentioned the incident to the vessel's company superintendent, who would then have a quiet word with the operations managers, who would then quietly discuss the shortcoming with the board and owners. They would then peacefully make changes to the vertical management structure to ensure all employees truly felt valued, which would, in turn, reduce the high vessel staff turnover. That particular captain gave me all sorts of opportunities and encouragement. In a million years, I'd never put his reputation on the line by reporting such an incident behind his back.
@@ChrisTaylor-NEP excellent description.
But also, impossible to fix because the board & owners are hiring company leadership to *make money* and capital investment in safety equipment makes *no* money. There is fault here -- either the company management for prioritizing cost saving over safety. And why not? They will _NEVER_ face consequences beyond a small fine or, at worst, bankruptcy. (The owners likely diversified & don't care)
Listen to the crew of the SS Faro and it's clear they know the opportunity for advancement (or to avoid layoff) is loyalty to their Captain. And the Captain knows costing the company money means no promotion, no transfer to newer ship, and maybe quiet layoff for a cheaper, less experienced mariner.
So back to your first statement, "honest dialogue." The incentive is obviously for dishonest dialogue.
This is very useful! Thank you
This is a womderful video about the limitation of humans. Unbelieveable great explanation, because it does apply to other industries too in a similar way.
Wasn't it a Costa ship years ago where a lifeboat fell or partially fell during a training exercise?
For Aprils fools day you should make a video based on the "the front fell off" clip and the fictional incident the clip is about.
It's not based on a fictional incident.
There was a real oil tanker in 1991, off Western Australia, that had its bow tear off in rough seas.
The sketch is satire based on that incident.
If you want to look for it the name of the ship was Kirki
Not fictional, but an interesting topic. Kirki was a poorly maintained Greek-registered tanker. The ballast tank lids had holes rusted through which were covered with painted canvas to "fix" (hide) the damage. When they hit rough weather the tanks filled with water. The extra weight caused the bow to tear apart, rupturing the forward storage tanks. ~19.7 million litres of oil spilled 30km off the coastal town Cervantes in Western Australia.
Not fictional, it was one of a string of structural failures among the then-new "superships" that somehow managed to pass their insurance inspections despit the fact that nobody knew if they were going to be seaworthy long-term, especially if maintained in the poor fashion that's standard among large, penny-pinching, corporate owners. The early ones often weren't.
This is insanity. In nearly two centuries of lifeboat manufacturing, they still haven’t figured out a fool-proof design? It shows a total lack of priority.
the manufacturer label is a problem that happens when you leave an engineer to do a designers job. a solvable problem that’s really cheap; it does require groups to think and plan…which doesn’t happen in these sort of scenarios
I only partially agree - it seems to me like some standardization would've helped even better than good designers. Having to retrain your crew for every ship seems like an accident in the making.
But yeah, a lever doesn't strike me as something that's very natural to "releasing the lifeboat". To me (a complete layperson) using a lever suggests a reversible action. Maybe a seal that's broken on its proper use, maybe a mechanism that mimics the action of cutting/releasing the hook? Maybe enough redundancy and quality control where "glass falling out of its frame, causing crew to poke their fingers where they shouldn't" wouldn't happen?
Definitely sounds like a regulator issue, Engineers are designers, but they also know how to calculate their designs to be physically valid and check that they are "up to code", so the issue is the code needs to be reformed to mandate 1 labeling scheme. (Building code exists for safety, so one would assume that a "building code" equivalent should exist for ships to ensure safety and this is what needs to specify proper labels)
@@wojtek4p4 yep. it’s clearly a complex problem with many many cooks
@@jasonreed7522 yep. While a designer could write a label that made sense and also make sure that it’s the same way around on different lifeboats; the actual solution would be regulation to make sure everyone is hitting a standard. from this video, it would appear like no one has the answer though
a designer would just come up with yet another appearance for the label, the solution is legally enforced enforced standardization
we don't leave it up top label designers to come up with warnings for chemical hazards, we have international standards for warning labels
I was expecting a few stories about ships such as the SS Eastland that capsized after taking on more lifeboats making her top heavy.
. You're absolutely awesome thank you for your hard work very educational and look forward to other videos you're awesome have a great day
really enjoyed this video
This is reminding me of some of the Soviet WWII grenades which required three steps to arm them. They would fall in the German lines and the Germans would complete the last step and send them back to the Soviets.
@Account NumberEight It would have been better if the Germans defeated the communists and then the Nazi situation was addressed afterwards.
Guess I'll just swim to land after all.
Good things to know. Thanks.
From your explanation, first solution seems the best by far. The way to solve the problem of removing the hook, should be simply to give a sufficient extra length of rope, so that even in case of waves the lifeboat will still float and not hang.
I am sure this was considered as solution. Why was it discarded?
It is incredible that a simple solution to this problem has not yet been designed. Someone, somewhere must have an idea that will solve this.
Anything that is simple to do under stress in a hurry is equally easy for a rational person and a panicked person. The only solution is to withhold instructions of use from passengers and select and train crew that don't panic.
@@KimonFrousios and then you have an issue of those crew aren't available for some reason
That person is being kept down by the world oligarchy and the public “school” brainwashing system into doing nothing but being just another corporate slave
I think a solution if not a perfect one has been around since the 1940's at the latest. Did any of the Iowa class battleships have life boats? No, they didn't. They were equipped with a few small boats but these were for ferrying crew to shore for leave and such. Think about it davit launched boats are slow and cumbersome to launch. Plus any event likely to sink an Iowa class battleship would most likely see any life boats as flaming piles of splinters.
The solution self inflating hydrostatic released life rafts and lots of them. I sure there is some reason why civilian ships use a combination of davit launched life boats and life rafts instead of all life rafts. Probably something having to due with increased survivability either long term or in heavy seas but that is just a guess.
It's not a trivial problem. Some cruise vessels are so large that they are developing 370-person "Mega Lifeboats." Then you take into account the variable sea-states, the listing of the vessel, the training regime, and the wide variety of people who need to board the craft. You have a lot of factors to account for in design.
But setting aside large passenger vessels, I think the lifeboat drop approach is a better solution for vessels with a smaller crew. Assuming you are doing weekly training and cross-training.
The catch: Leaving somebody behind would be easy when the instinct is to get away ASAP but the nature of an emergency means some people are waiting till the last possible moment to evacuate.
On warships they're just hazards to the crew. They're more of a liability when it comes to combat in that reguard, thus is why Bismarck, Arizona, & countless other ships didn't have lifeboats at the time of there foundering.
Lifeboats wouldn’t have helped the Arizona.
Almost the entire crew of the Bismarck died, many of them in the water.
we had that exact problem in our academy, one of the life boats almost did that, and our instractor explaind to us how dangerous it was, scary stuff ! thats why you should alwas keep up to day with your training
Your best video yet
I am thinking a ratcheting mechanism could probably do better here.
Pull the lever once and a bunch of non-blocking checks occur, such as is the lifeboat in the water, is it level, etc.
If a check fails, an alarm goes off, red flashing lights and all, with a recording playing back the reason for the alarm discouraging the operator from doing something silly like pulling the lever again.
If all checks pass, a pleasant ding will sound and a green light will come on. A message will be played back telling the operator to repeat the pull two more times for the craft to release fully.
The ratchet is a three stage safety and each pull releases one set of barriers on the hooks. On the third pull, the idiot that pulled at the wrong time deserved to die.
And the idiots that didn't stop him also deserved it before you ask.
It'd have to be in multiple languages, given the international composition of the high seas.
Can't do. It has to work without power. Your electrical safeguards will be off when actually using it.
@@joshuahudson2170 There's this thing called a battery.
There are batteries that will last basically forever (until you "activate" them) so nope, you are incorrect.
@@RealCadde Sure there is, but the more complex you make it, the more prone it is to failure.
@@wopmf4345FxFDxdGaa20 And if you make it too simple, an idiot will kill himself and any innocents in one fell swoop.
There needs to be a chance for the less stupid to prevent stupid from doing it.
I always have a lazy bag when I travel with ship, peace of mind.
I wear all natural materials when I fly after seeing the results of electrocution from a job training video as burning is burning no matter what causes it. I wear a belt too, normally never, to use as a tourniquet if needed as I saved a friend's life using a belt after a head-on car accident.
These vids are interesting,,, subscribed..algud bro
You got my like at the "my plea to you" part, brother.
Question: How long or wide that the ship can be constructed or built?
Currently there is no legal limit, depending on what type of ship is being built and the likely voyages that the ship will use will depend on the Lenght over all (LOA) and beam (width). Certain passages like pannama and suez canal will limit the ship size/construction, other then that there is no hard and fast rule or law stating what the maximum size can be.
Hard to understand question. Are you asking if there is a rule or law about what the maximum width and length a ship can be?
@@magus104 Well yes, because ship are getting longer and wider but if it’s too long the ship will snap. Like Aircraft carrier and Large container ships that is almost 330-500 meter long at least.
And wide
If a ship was made of segments connected by narrow bridges that can pivot on both ends, there wouldnt be a limit on ship length. Kinda like how trains can be any length, only limited by practicality. Sea trains are the future! (at least in my ttrpgs)
Idk about width
It is amazing hoe things can be and get so little notice. My mother nd father went on a trip last year and in the 3 2eeks they were abord ship there were 3 sepeate accidents involving lifeboats. Although nobody was killed, 2 men that were part of the lost arms and a womsn passenger lost most of her left leg. What shocked my parents the most was thst it barely got a mention on the ships news and one in the local or national press as it was common enough to not be newsworthy.
Do you know what ship it was? Sounds really interesting.
What country if you don't mind me asking?
The modern on-load hooks, while better in many ways than the old “Rotmer Releasing Gear” with it’s handled labeled “Lever drops boat” it was very easy to know if the Rotmer hooks were back in safe position for lifting.
During a classification society inspection, myself (3/m), an AB and the 3/E were launching, operating, and recovering a fully enclosed boat in port. All went great until the engineer tried to reset the forward hook. I heard a splash and a bad word, I thought he must have dropped his channel locks overboard. Then I hear the captain on the walkie, “Hey Steve, go help the engineer back into the boat!” 😮
What I caught happening twice on the Maasdam: the hydrostatic release lock lever at the main control for bent, so that the entire hydrostatic release mechanism was basically not functioning at all.
This didn't get picked up by my colleagues, but did present quite the danger.
So here my kind request:
Please pay attention to this one!
Great video however it was about 7 minutes too short. I was expecting you to segway into freefall lifeboats since although they have short comings of their own, they are inherently safer than davit launched for maintenance and using in anger. Not so good for passenger ships though.
He usually aims for this time range, so it's his standard but the drop boats would be a great topic.
Passenger ships seems like the tough nut to crack. The drop lifeboats seem relatively safe assuming people remember to prep them for launch AND don't prematurely launch. The premature launch thing is scary and can only be mitigated by train-train-train and maybe a bit more training.
I always think these life boat release mechanisms are over complicated designed
It is a reason why we have weekly and monthly inspections in accordance to SOLAS on the boats for launching and under launching making sure the green indication is in center on the aft and fwd pins , the center is not to be released before the boat is on water and the pins fwd and aft is removed when the boat is 1 meter above water and after the engine is tested.
That's so cool Jim was one of your profs.
There must be a better way. It all sounds convoluted and dangerous. Moreover when each ship is different. It can't be so hard to design a safe system. Electronics may help.
It is in fact that hard. The fact is there are thousands of boats with tens of thousands of people on them... With so many coin flips, even very safe devices will lead to deaths.
You're trying to make a system simple enough for a person to use in a panic situation they almost by definition have never been through before, but which is safe enough to be sitting out all day every day without anyone being able to make one fatal mistake.
Typically, people want to blame "idiots"... But statistics declared all of us idiots some of the time. We just get lucky that our idiot moments don't happen next to life boats. With so many people human nature must be considered.
Electronics and salt water aren't a good combination and add another layer of maintenance that would cost much more than a simple mechanical intuitive design.
Fail safe needs to be mechanical, not electronic.
Agreed. It would be interesting to know how many designs/approaches have been tried. Is the current design the best we can have? I am a total ignorant on this topic, but I know sometimes it's about trying harder / putting more time, effort, money.
I’m new to shipwreck videos but I had already noticed a pattern of lifeboats being the final nail in the coffin. They work great except when the ship tilted or in bad weather, which is of course when you need them
How about an interlock (edit: FPD) at the hook that, instead of having to be removed manually as in the examples given, releases when the hook is unloaded. The 1st time the swell takes the weight off the hooks, the interlock releases, then the hooks can be released by the lever anytime after that. Some sort of shear pin or cam mechanism that releases when the weight of the tackle block (those must weigh 10+ lbs) is pushing down on the hook.
I like where this thinking is going but how would it handle variable sea states and positions of the ship? Would really have to look at the failure modes (common and uncommon) that would be expected.
Sometimes the best solution is an older simpler approach or a redesign of the old way. The original method lost fingers, perhaps a mechanism to do the release in the lifeboat once it reaches bottom and forget the mad idea of dropping them before floating. Or just stay on dry land until this statistic is improved by some engineer.
I'll never forget nearly being killed by a lifeboat. We had a training refresher on a few things that aren't covered on the drills. About 10 people had climbed in and all sat on one side, and as I put my foot on the sill of the lifeboat, it swung away from the side of the ship. I had one foot on the ship, one foot on the lifeboat, and a three foot gap between my legs where I was looking 5 decks down at the sea. If it had swung any further I'd have fallen and most likely died. I hated doing the drills and lowering them down. Anything lifeboat related makes me feel sick. I couldn't even finish watching this video.
VERY VERY GOOD ! ! !
🙂😎👍
When you add enough measures to make sure people are guaranteed to mess up, instead of preventing the mistakes you set out to prevent
Two thoughts:
1: Go back to the old system where a lifeboat can only be released when there is minimal load on the cable. Change the procedure so that they always play out extra line so there is plenty of slack to release the latch. Also, redesign the system so that the operator can hold down the control, and when load comes off the cable, the latch releases.
2: Have a secondary release mechanism for situations where you DO need to release the raft without it reaching the water.
Park ranger on why we can't keep bears out of trash cans:
"there is considerable overlap in intelligence between tourists and smart bears"
thanks
A large issue with safety devices is that often the fail-safes are used as alternatives to proper training. It leads to a false confidence in the equipment making you believe that even if you make a mistake nothing bad will happen.
Another thing I have seen is that safety systems don't always take into account the nature of a high stress situation.
As a persons fight or flight response kicks in and start flooding the system with adrenaline two things happen that drastically affect your ability to operate in such environments.
You loose peripheral vision meaning spread out safety systems become more difficult to operate and you loose fine motor control meaning if it has fiddly bits it will be difficult to operate as well.
Are there simple step-by-step instructions written next to every release lever? Beginning with something like "check position of glass-covered lever"?
On some vessels sliding lifeboats are used does are made to slide of a rack and freefall to the surface, often going under for a short time due to the speed of the fall. If the occupants are not seated and strapped in when the boat is felled, and hatches secured
There will be serious conseves.
Truly the largest number of casualties caused by a ‘wrong lever Kronk’ event
During the Andria Doria rescue operation (1956 if i remember correctly), The Ile de France had launch 11 lifeboats with no issue. Si I think we need to return to this sort of ilfeboats and their systems of launching.
Havent watched the video, but just to answer the question of the title…. Because the titantic didnt have enough of them. It just hit me as i was scrolling through my feed. ✌🏻
Problem: Rope too short
Solution 1: an elaborate mousetrap mechanism to ensure it could be dropped if - and only if - just above the water.
Solution 2: make the rope long enough.
The thing that connects the lever to the quick-release mechanism is called "Morse cable" in the subtitles (English, automatically generated), and the narrator's voice also seems to state that. Is that correct? I googled "morse cable wikipedia" and got the link to Wikipedia's "Bowden cable" page, but "morse" is not mentioned there a single time.
Googling "morse cable" gives me some result, but I don't know if that's exactly the same as a "Bowden cable". *Is it* the same thing?
I'd try a "nuclear missile silo" option, and make it 2 levers. One locks the actual lever, and is like 12 feet from it. The life boats are designed for a whole lot of people, make at least 2 release the boat.
seems like need for radical chango of concept. Either redesign the lifeboat so passengers can easily survive a fall or redesign release mechanism so it works slower.
That's what I was thinking too! The whole point of a lifeboat is to help someone survive in an emergency situation, which sometimes requires jumping into it or having the lifeboat fall a long distance.
Which tool do you use to make those animations? they are cool!
A rope of length to the plimsoll line that pulls a safety pin on the life boat when lowered. Add some override mechanism on the life boat that needs a tool or 2 people to release.
Good video, though in one respect overall safety has progressed so the idea that most injuries occur in training scenarios would be consistent, out of curiosity I notice a lot of maritime equipment have lifeboats at an angle atop a launching ramp, how do they fare regarding casualty rates?
You're not allowed to test-drop them with crew aboard. Or anyone. The safety data comes from crash-test dummies and empty or empty-but-ballasted tests.
I just thought of bike break cable. If it is under tension you can't remove it ( boat lifted up ) when you release the tension you just push it away. And when it is up you don't have enough slack for it to fall out no matter how much it jumps around.
Appriciate animations, looks amazing !
As an Officer, I've always been afraid of the monthly lowering drill as well as the familiarization. I always check everything 2 to 3 times during drills to make sure everything is in place and everyone knows the correct procedures. Regardless, I'm still afraid due to countless records of accidents that even when precautions were taken.
Gad, monthly LOWERING drill? Double-checking everything? I wish I'd sailed with you.
Hmm, a slight change in channel name for this episode: Casual Navigation becomes Casualty Navigation - how many levels of indirection are necessary for a safe lifeboat deployment - infinity? - hopefully not.
Should be pbvious solution: remove the human component from releasing the lifeboat. You can already have an electric winch that lowers the boat. Have a cable follow the winch to a release mechanism on the boat's end. Program it to release either after a set amount of cable has been let out (can use physical backup) or when weight on the cable is significantly reduced for 3 seconds because the lifeboat is resting on something. Test the second release method by lowering the boat onto a table. Test the first by attaching a spool to the cable to keep the boat from moving and activating the winch. Test the backup by pulling on the failsafe cable. In an emergency, the failsafe can be pulled manually. The final release trigger is if either trigger is pulled, both will release. This way there is a manual backup if all else fails, you can test it without lowering the lifeboat, and the spool is the only test equipment that could prevent a safe release. 1 test kit on a ship means only 1 lifeboat can be tested at a time so even if they fail to secure a lifeboat after a test, there will only be 1 useless lifeboat.
So I'm not an engineer, never worked on a ship either. But an idea that comes to my mind are slide-like mechanisms that can be deployed somehow in an emergency. Perhaps they're normally held in a retracted position by a power lock. A button being pushed or a power outage causes them to extend. When the ship is sinking, you send the lifeboats down the slides. No release mechanism to worry about!
I can see one issue though, which is that hypothetically a slide could be damaged and unable to deploy...or even break off entirely. By definition a sinking ship is damaged in some way. So maybe that's why they don't do that.
How about just making the launch cables really long and adding a mechanism that keeps them unspooling until it reaches the end? And then designing the hook such that it automatically releases (or simply allows the cable to fall away) once there is no tension? Once the boat hits the water there won't be any tension on the cable, and the extra length of the cable ensures that it can't lift the boat back out of the water if it hits a swell, once it hits the water it's gonna stay in the water.
The only downside I can see is that the cable might not release, and could start to pull the lifeboat under with the sinking ship. But that can then be solved by adding a breakaway in the cable that is strong enough to support a loaded lifeboat but not strong enough to pull it underwater.
So, entirely automatic launch system. Can't be fucked up by panicking lifeboat occupants.
I think the largest problem is the one you didn't give weight to except at the end: Every ship is different.
Even under pressure, if there was a set type.. accidents would be reduced