I’m watching a show that is speaking about ships sinking in storms at the Cape of Good Hope, and evacuating to lifeboats. If seas are so rough that a large ship goes down, how are lifeboats able to stay afloat? Are they able to bob in the waves easier? Or are they just a last ditch option that often capsize but are better than nothing?
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Lifeboats only purpose is to keep people afloat. The ship they were on had to carry people in comfort, be reasonably fast, and carry cargo.
Modern life boats like the ones you see on cruise ships are capsize proof because of the shape and for the fact they have a completely covered top.
They have greater buoyancy as they are designed primarily to survive in the ocean. Also being smaller they can ride up and down the waves
There are several reasons. It is much easier to build a robust small vessel then a robust large vessel. This is both because the costs involved are much smaller, the extra reinforcements do not cost as much on a small vessel compared to if you were to reinforce the entire big vessel. But the forces involved are much smaller. Larger vessels struggle in storms because the ship can be supported by multiple waves at once essentially making the ship a bridge between the waves which end up bending the ship in half. A smaller vessel will not have this happen to it as it is too small to span between the waves. So not only are lifeboats built much stronger but they also do not have to handle the same forces as the ship.
And of course if something is wrong with the ship causing it to not handle the weather and sink the chances that the lifeboat have something wrong as well is quite small. So just having two ways of getting through the storm is protection in itself.
When I went on my one and only cruise, the ship used the lifeboats to ferry people to shore for tours and things. This was a great idea and made sure the lifeboats were operational in case of emergency.
The lifeboats were totally enclosed (with a door) and had a motor, life jackets, water, first aid, etc. In a fierce storm, they could bob around with really no danger. The only danger would be if they were near shore and wrecked on a reef or rock. But with a motor, they could keep the lifeboat relatively stationary and in deeper water.
Generally a ship going down in rough seas has taken on water or sprung leaks between it’s metal hull plates because the waves caused the whole ship to flex. Longer ships get forced to flex more than smaller ones
The lifeboat is doesn’t need to carry a huge amount of fuel/cargo/water so the lifeboat is a lot smaller. It can be made small, strong, and give lots of areas filled with foam to ensure it cannot take on enough water to actually sink
Many are also able to be fully enclosed so there is no big open deck for waves to wash up on. Ships try to close their hatches in rough weather but there can be a lot of them and any leak matters. The lifeboat can put a ton into seals on it’s limited number which wouldn’t be practical for a full sized ship
Modern lifeboats are either inflatable (good luck sinking a baloon no matter how bad the waves are) or they are fiberglass, extremely buoyant and enclosed, which means that even if it capsizes due to a wave it will just flip back up. Obviously it would suck to be inside one during rough weather, but they are designed to be hard to sink. They look more like small spacecraft in generic sci-fi shows than wood rowboats.
The large ship prioritizes different needs than the lifeboat. If you need a big sturdy ship that carries lots of stuff, some drawbacks are that the ship isn’t as buoyant and the size makes it easier for waves to try to bend it, causing weak points.
Lifeboats are only there to keep people from drowning, so they are made very buoyant and are often flexible and smaller, therefore waves don’t damage them as easily. Even capsized, a lifeboat will likely remain floating, while a big metal ship sinks.
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