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carried enough lifeboats for 1,178 people—about half the number on board, and one third of her total capacity—due to outdated maritime safety regulations.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
First class facilities of the RMS Titanic from their main dining saloons. This was in imitation of the Ritz restaurant first featured on board the Hamburg-Amerika liner SS Amerika in 1905, which had proven to be enormously popular. The restaurant could accommodate 137 diners at a time. On the "Olympic" the room was sandwiched between the Second-Class promenades on either side, making it smaller than the version on "Titanic", whose restaurant extended to the port side of the ship and whose starboard-side promenade deck was converted to the Café Parisien. The restaurant was the preferred alternative to the main dining saloon and gave passengers the option of