Modern lifeboats are impressive vessels that can keep hundreds of passengers alive for up to a week.
Some people love cruises to the point where they actually choose to live their lives on a cruise ship, while others are totally turned off by the idea of being on a boat out on the open ocean. We've all seen Titanic and have more than enough footage of storms and shipwrecks to inform a fear of being stranded at sea.
However, scenes with half-filled lifeboats—little wooden rowboats that would definitely not survive a storm—give us a totally outdated picture of what being evacuated from a cruise ship in 2025 would look like. Thanks to the YouTube channel Cruising as Crew, we can see how modern lifeboats differ drastically from those of the past, and it's giving cruise passengers (and potential cruise passengers) a little more peace of mind about the prospect of using them.
Modern lifeboats are nothing like they were in the olden days.Photo credit: Canva
To be clear up front, it doesn't look like it would be fun to have to use one of these lifeboats. If you've got claustrophobia issues, most definitely not. If you have emetophobia issues, it probably wouldn't be a good time. But you wouldn't bake in the sun, you wouldn't starve or dehydrate, and chances are good you'd make it back to shore and have a whopper of a story to tell.
Modern lifeboats look more like capsules, and they are designed to hold a lot of people (close to 300 passengers per lifeboat on large cruise ships). Host Lindsay demonstrates how people are seated in three tiers of plastic benches, none of which look particularly comfortable but which allow for lots of people to fit into limited space. She also shows where the drinking water and food are stored. Each passenger would get half a liter of water per day—not a lot, but enough to keep you alive—and some high calorie dry biscuits. There's enough food and water for each person to survive up to a week on the boat.
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There's also other life-saving equipment such as torches, smoke floats, axes, rope, warming blankets, first aid supplies, and medicines. There's even fishing tackle, not necessarily to catch fish to eat but to give people something to do, as life on a lifeboat can be quite boring. Seasickness tablets are a must, of course—you literally have to have take them—and there are seasickness bags as well.
All in all, it's quite an impressive setup. People were happy to see a thorough explanation of what they should expect if they ever find themselves in an emergency evacuation.
"For my entire life I have thought that lifeboats are what I used to see in Titanic movie. These ones are luxurious compared to what I thought they would be. I can't imagine the maintenance cost - I mean the food, the medicine, the batteries, the diesel fuel they all gonna expire at some point so you have to keep replacing them with some time intervals."
"Best video ever! I can’t imagine sitting on metal that cramped for an hour, let alone days. I would imagine things would get tense fast. Maybe anti-anxiety drugs should be added!"
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"From the bottom of my heart, a huge thank you. I’ve spent 400 days at sea on ships and this was by far the most comforting video you have ever done. I had no idea of the lifeboats contents or that we could last a week. They should show it on the entertainment system in the rooms. Please thank your officers for allowing you to show this. By far the best public relations video ever! I can’t wait to get back on a virgin ship."
"I didn’t expect the lifeboat to be that big inside and also with all that stored supply, the only thing missing was a restroom!"
Many people inquired about the toilet—or lack thereof—and apparently how people relieve themselves depends on the lifeboat. Some larger modern ones actually do have a dedicated toilet room, but most do not. Some have the equivalent of bedpans that can be emptied into the ocean or tossed overboard, and some have holes on the vessel that empty out into the water. Theoretically, a rescue would usually happen within hours, not days, so hopefully the bathroom question isn't one many people have to answer with first-hand experience.
There is another ship evacuation system that passengers don't generally use but crew members might: the Marine Evacuation System (MES). This system is a bit more…mmm, exciting?…than the lifeboat toured above. With the MES, rafts are automatically deployed and inflated along with a long inflatable chute that you drop down into to get to the boats. That's right, a chute.
Watch the MES in action:
@cruise.spotting Marine evacuation system in action 🧐 #evacuation #marine #engineering #cruiseship #vessel #mes
Hmm, yeah, no thank you. Hopefully, neither I nor any of you reading this will ever be in a position having to use any of these life-saving apparatus, but it's at least nice to know they're there and how they work.
Happy cruising, everyone!
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