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Oh, you are quite right. At first the logical place to launch your raft would have been towards the bow since she began to sink by the bow and depending on where you got started building your raft you could have easily found yourself amidship, where she broke in two. If you were building your raft aft of midship, by the time the boat deck met the waterline the angle would have been too steep for you to anything other than swim. All around a pretty helpless situation.
Anyway:
A couple of fascinating articles specifically about the launching of the lifeboats based upon the official inquiries and eyewitness testimony.
The Wiki article gives the figures of passengers aboard each lifeboat, which is quite illustrative of the incompetence of their launching. Lifeboat had #11 had 70 passengers while Life #1 had only 12. The total survivors for all life boats was 705. If you add up the missing based upon the 70 passenger capacity of lifeboat 11, another 691+/- passengers could have been saved.
One of the reasons the boats were not filled faster is the importance of class. Higher class women expected to be seated first. Men would wait until the women had been taken care of. When water appeared in the hallways the lower class passangers panicked and tried to get to the deck, but in some instances doors were deliberately LOCKED so they would have to wait. By then they were dead. Based on the expectations of the ship company, they should have had MUCH more time to board. When it was evident they had to launch the boats as the ship was listing to the side, they launched with whoever was in them. A lot of people jumped with the intention of swimming to a boat, but the coldness of the water killed all but a few of the jumpers quickly.
But the ship sailed with only enough seats for I think half the passangers to begin with. I think the assumption was they were for first class. Given the ship was crammed full, the lifeboats at full capacity would have left more to die than they could take.
Given that in the recent wreaks the largest problem besides incompetient captains was lifeboats which could not launch or crew which left the passangers to their own devices, be sure to take out a good life insurence policy before you go.
As a professional woodworker, I would say the idea that 'nailing together doors and coffee tables to make lifeboats' in the time between hitting the iceberg and the sinking is preposterous.
To start with, a rigid, nailed craft would fall apart within minutes. Then, although wood floats, in order to be seaworthy, it must displace water without leaking. It takes days to build even the simplest type of boat in a shop designed for boat building stocked with the proper materials much less a ships carpenter (who is usually not a ship wright) supplied with doors, wall panels and some nails. I am guessing most of those suggesting this is possible have never built a birdhouse, much less a boat.
The best one could do is build a raft by lashing floats, such as airtight barrels, to a platform to create a simple raft. But one would also have to have a means to propel this raft at a good speed to avoid getting sucked down with the ship.
Even then, there is no guarantee of the structural integrity of the raft. Even in the calm waters of a backyard pond it may fail without some trial and error.
Just for comparison's sake: I live in the Coastal Mountains in British Columbia, a spectacular area hosting dozens of glacier-fed lakes. These lakes are always a degree or two above freezing, so not unlike the temps in the North Atlantic when Titanic sank (on November 12th, 1912).
At one time, we rented a house that fronted on to Green Lake in Whistler, and I used to like to sit on the dock and dangle my feet and legs in the water. The most I could leave them in there for was seventeen seconds, as the pain, by that time, was unbearable (and I've had nine kids)!
I come from the North of Scotland and have swum in both the North Sea and the North Atlantic in the summer months, and neither one was cold enough to cause pain at that time of year, but bear in mind that I was swimming close to the shore.
My point here is that I couldn't stand more than seventeen seconds in a glacial lake, and that was only my feet and calves. I wouldn't be the first volunteer to test the waters only yards away from icebergs. I doubt that those in the water that night would have suffered long prior to losing consciousness. Search and Rescue teams have to wear thermal wet suits when trying to recover the bodies of people who've gone overboard in Green Lake, and each rescue swimmer can only stay in the water for twenty minutes at a time.
There was plenty of wood on board, panels, chairs, tables. They could have just nailed a bunch of planks and made simple boats for all the underclass and crew.
I dunno, just spitballin' here but, after about the first thirty minutes, the whole ship probably knew something wasn't quite right. Symptoms include:
1) lots of screaming in the middle of the night, worse than a black Friday padded bra sale at Walmart.
2) a noticeable list forward as the first 6 compartments near the bow flooded
3) no knowledge that there were not enough lifeboats to begin with
4) the majority of the passengers were steerage well down in the decks and basically locked out of reaching the main deck in seqrch if a lifeboat
5) the ship had only 2:40 minutes to live after being struck and this was not known in the first thirty minutes.
6) after the first hour, or next thirty minutes, panic, chaos started to take over as well as a now, 8 degrees or so down at the bow was clearly visible and felt....
7) by the end of the second hour it was "Baghdad, The Movie" for all intents and purposes
8) most soon-to-be-flotsam was still attached to something and a trip to the ships "home depot" was all but laughable at that point
9) passengers still had hope if for no other reason, an eerie unsettling feeling of nowhere to go, in the middle of the north Atlantic, at night, in 28 degree water, and no wetsuits, let alone dry suits anywhere to be discovered least of all in that time had set in. I would have kept climbing/buying time towards the stern...too?
10) that British sense of calm bought too much time
I think given all of these circumstances along with an ever increasing 30 degree down at the bow angle of attack in the last 30 minutes sealed their fate. So, from time of realization to trying out your best water treading stroke was an hour and a half, give or take. No time to grab some tools and get busy. I think one might have grabbed anything that binds and start tying some deck chairs together and picking a soft landing spot. Even with this enhancement, you were going to have to tread water that was 28 degrees. Below freezing. For four or more hours.
Hypothermia sets in less than 40 minutes after initial exposure. Hey, having Kate Winslet might help but even she would turn into an ice cube fairly quickly. You can always try this by doning your favorite evening attire, a coat, dowsing yourself in ice and water from a cooler with said ice this coming January. We'll time you. Turn some fans on for wind, some polar club members splashing around for effect and see how you fare.
Yeah, that might have had something to do with it.
One of the reasons the boats were not filled faster is the importance of class. Higher class women expected to be seated first. Men would wait until the women had been taken care of. When water appeared in the hallways the lower class passangers panicked and tried to get to the deck, but in some instances doors were deliberately LOCKED so they would have to wait.
The amount of online data parsing the events on the Titanic is pretty amazing. Regarding your comment, I found this.
The survivors were as follows:
Women
97% of first class (113)
86% of second class (78)
49% of third class (88)
Children
86% of first class (6)
100% of second class (25)
31% of third class (25)
Men
32% of first class (54)
8% of second class (13)
13% of third class (59)
70% of the sailing crew (obviously since they were needed to handle and man the lifeboats)
22% of the non-sailing crew.
Survivors according to time of boat launch.
The first six boats launched were for First Class only. Fifty percent of the first two boats launched were occupied by men as was the 4th boat. The first boats that held to the women only rule were boats 5, 6, 7 and 8.
Agree, this is why when I fly, I pack a few extra shirts in my carry-on. If the plane starts to go down, I can quickly sew a makeshift parachute and bail.
Thanks for making be laugh out loud. I've been grouchy today but this post made me smile!
There was plenty of wood on board, panels, chairs, tables. They could have just nailed a bunch of planks and made simple boats for all the underclass and crew.
2 hours and 40 minutes after the ship hit the iceberg, it was completely sunk. Gone. Bottom of the sea.
Do you seriously think anyone had time to even THINK about building lifeboats??
The chief baker had himself a few drinks before he went looking for a way off the ship. He was the last person to go into the water as he stood on the aft railing, just like Rose and Jack. He's actually depicted in the Cameron film nodding to Rose as they wait for the ship to go down. He basically stepped into the water as the ship sunk. He stayed in the water the longest, the last person to be pulled into a lifeboat, nearly two hours later. They attribute his survival to the fact that he drank the exact amount of alcohol at the exact time which helped him maintain his body heat. Any more and it would have made it worse.
He never felt any ill effects from his experience.
This entire thread is a sad example of what happens when Hollywood's fantasies run up against the realities imposed by both "hard science", and the laws of the marketplace.
The 1953 version of Titanic was much closer to what actually happened, but it didn't provide for either the technical gimmicks or the story lines that appeal to a market which is increasingly young, sheltered, and insulated from what can -- and can't -- be done in real life.
Care to expound a bit? The 1997 version was quite accurate. Other than a few small, small things..such as when Jack was in the front screaming he's the king of the world, well no one was allowed up there. But who cares about that?
There was plenty of wood on board, panels, chairs, tables. They could have just nailed a bunch of planks and made simple boats for all the underclass and crew.
Where would the rich, upper class have gotten a hammer or nails? They were too worried about how they looked and thought they were invincible to think they were going to become popsicles. What makes you think the steerage was allowed on the upper deck? Did you forget how terrified many people were? When people are terrified, they don't tend to have rational thoughts. Then again....sitting in the Atlantic for hours and hours they would have frozen to death anyway! They didn't have all day to build "simple boats".
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I've been grouchy today but this post made me smile! 
