RMS Titanic and for the ship's operational use. Although "Titanic" had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, it only carried enough lifeboats for 1,178 people—about half the number on board, and one third of her total capacity—due to outdated maritime safety regulations. The ship carried 16 lifeboat davits which could lower three lifeboats each, for a total of 48 boats. However, "Titanic" carried only a total of 20 lifeboats, four of which were collapsible and proved hard to launch during the sinking. After leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, "Titanic" called at Cherbourg in France and
Wreck of the RMS Titanic US and the UK. Only a few days after Ballard's discovery of the wreck, Jack Grimm – the author of the unsuccessful early 1980s attempts to find "Titanic" – claimed ownership of it on the grounds that he had allegedly been the first to find it. He announced that he intended to begin salvaging the wreck. He said that he "[couldn't] see them just lie there and be absorbed by the ocean floor. What possible harm can [salvage] do to this mass of twisted steel?" Titanic Ventures Inc., a Connecticut-based consortium, co-sponsored a survey and salvage operation in 1987 with