The still-unfolding story of the Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise ship run aground off the coast of the Tuscan island Giglio, has reminded us of dangers, and remedies, nearly as old as seafaring itself. The many questions about the thousands of passengers’ struggle to escape made us think of John Stilgoe’s Lifeboat. Available now at a special sale price (see details below), the book is the definitive study of one of the fixtures of survival at sea. Stilgoe took a few minutes from his duties as Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at Harvard to answer our questions about the sinking ship and the enduring role played by the smaller boat you never thought you’d have to use.

Q: Apparently most of the Concordia‘s lifeboats could not even be launched, due to the way the ship listed. Nonetheless the captain managed to escape in one of the lifeboats, claiming he tripped into it and was somehow unable to get out. Is there no “women and children first” rule—or at least “passengers first” rule—during such an evacuation? And what constitutes abandoning one’s ship?

A: Merchant seamen have followed the unwritten law of the sea for well more than a century: passengers go first into the lifeboats, usually women and children and the infirm and injured first, in part because it is easier to board lifeboats before a ship begins to list, in part because if there are not lifeboats for all (if some have been damaged by fire or collision, for example), physically fit men have the best chance of surviving atop floating wreckage.  ”Abandoning ship” means everyone leaves the ship in lifeboats:  the master leaves only after making certain everyone else is off.

Q: If a listing ship cannot launch many of its lifeboats, are they much use outside of those situations where the sinking ship remains relatively upright as it goes down?

A: Typically merchant-ship masters order lifeboats boarded and lowered before lists become so severe as to prevent launching:  in extreme cases lifeboats can be launched empty and people can swim to them.  But lifeboats can be launched efficiently even from listing ships:  those on the lower side are kept close to the deck with lines until filled and once filled those on the upper side are skidded down the hull slowly.  Lifeboats and related safety systems are designed to work in emergency situations, most of which involve ships on less than even keels.

Q: What is one likely to encounter in the 21st century lifeboat?

A: A modern lifeboat often carries more than a hundred passengers, is enclosed, provisioned with food, water, medical, and other supplies, and nowadays fitted with a diesel engine:  it has seats and open, flat spaces in which injured people may lie down.  Unlike the old open boats fitted with sails and oars, it is not expected to go very far, but instead stay near the site of the sinking and await rescue forces.

Q: Passengers climbing into lifeboats and fleeing a sinking ship has a distinctly 19th-century (or, at best, early 20th-century) ring to it. Is today’s lifeboat a mandated but never-used ornament (like the airline seat that is a “flotation device”)?

A: Modern lifeboats are used more than contemporary Americans suspect.  Recent cruise-ship disasters off Alaska (the Prinsendam), the horn of Africa (Achille Lauro), and other places I describe in Lifeboat involved everyone abandoning ship in lifeboats and awaiting rescue. The freighter Hawaiian King rescued the thousand Achille Lauro castaways after they spent twenty-four hours in lifeboats. While it will take a Court of Inquiry to explain what happened to the Costa Concordia, it appears that a 150-foot-long gash sank the ship. Consider a similar ship striking, say, a nearly submerged derelict ship floating upside down, which is a very real hazard in the mid-ocean: if it were to sink as quickly, you would have all those passengers boarding lifeboats and requiring long-distance rescue.

The cloth edition of John Stilgoe’s Lifeboat is available for a limited time at its paperback price of $18.95. This large-format (7 x 9 1/4) book with 21 period illustrations is an engrossing read or a great gift. Grab one by emailing or by calling or faxing to our toll-free numbers and mentioning this special offer.