Name
Lifeboat from Titanic
Lifeboat to Carpathia
Confidence Level
Davis, Miss Mary
13 (8 votes)
14 (5 votes)
13 (8 votes)
14 (5 votes)
3.63
3.30
Ridsdale, Miss Lucy
13 (8 votes)
14 (5 votes)
13 (8 votes)
14 (5 votes)
3.63
3.30


Marietta Daily Times, April 24, 1912, Lucy Risdale account:
    "It aroused me and then I heard someone give an alarm.  People were hurrying in every direction, I saw officers and passengers manning the lifeboats and loading the women into them, and was soon helped into one myself. I don’t know which boat it was but I was thankful to be in any. It was cold and with the water in the boat, I suffered greatly with cold. After a long time, seemingly many hours, we were picked up by the Carpathia.....''

Miss Ridsdale did not specify which boat she entered, nor give details about how she reached the lifeboats. It has been established that Miss Ridsdale shared a room with Mary Davis.

Audio account of Mary Davis
August 1977, recorded by Josh Basar
     "Well, finally we got, made our way to the hurricane deck, and you know we had to climb up the side of the ship, on a ladder up to the hurricane deck. It was pumped up against the wall, all night, and we had to climb that to get to the hurricane deck. That’s where the lifeboats were put out from. Well, we finally got up there and we had to take care of our turn. We all stood along the rail and I think that the lady was last, and I was next, and there was two or three more and they were loading a lifeboat. And, we stood there and waited and finally he came along and I should have been next, but I said, “Oh, you go along,” and I got back of her and he didn’t seem to see me. He took this other big lady and got her into the lifeboat and he turned around and he saw me and, oh, he had given the signal to lower away, and oh, I guess they were about six feet down from the ship and he just looked and saw me standing there, and he just picked me up like that and leaned over and he said, “Look out below,” and he dropped me hoping that I would.. I almost hit the boat, but my knees hit, you know, the top of the lifeboat which was all steel, you know. And of course, I went back into the water. And I was in the water with my lifebelt, of course, but they all dragged me in and that boat was loaded so..
     There were so many people in the boat and you know every time you moved you got further down and, well, I didn’t suffer at all. But of course, we were in that lifeboat all night, and I can remember it well, and the band was playing, people hollering and shouting and they got deck chairs and everything that would float…  "

Miss Davis indicates that she climbed a vertical ladder to reach the boats. A number of other passengers who described the same experience, including Marie Jerwan, the Becker and Quick families and the Caldwell family found themselves on the starboard side of the promenade deck, and entered either boat 11 or 13. This is not conclusive proof that Miss Ridsdale or Miss Davis did the same.

Miss Davis, in the Perth Amboy Evening News, April 20th 1912, said that,
    “With a number of other women she was put into a lifeboat. The boat had to be cut from the davits and it dropped to the water. Miss Davis fell overboard and was fished out unconscious and placed in the bottom of the craft. When she came to, she said women were sitting on her legs and almost crushing her.”

To the Syracuse Herald Journal, July 30th 1987, Mary recounted that
    “After the ship sank the crew sang, 'Pull for the shore, sailor', so that they wouldn’t have to hear the cries.”

Mary Davis' description of the boat falls being cut and it dropping to the water match what happened to boat 14. Here's the other similarity - all her life she said she was in a boat that rowed among the bodies. Like Edith Brown and her mother, Mary Davis may have been in boat 14 and not transferred to another.

The group were divided as to whether the ladies entered lifeboat 13 or 14. In favor of lifeboat 13 was the evidence that the ladies climbed the vertical ladder to reach the deck, and that the people in the boat sang, ‘Pull for the shore,’ which was confirmed by Lawrence Beesley, who was in boat 13. Yet it must be stated that people in other boats made the same claim.

In favor of boat 14 there is the evidence that the falls of the boat were cut, causing the boat to strike the water hard, and leading Miss Davis to claim she fell overboard. Miss Ridsdale mentioned that there was water in the boat. Both these pieces of evidence are true of lifeboat 14.  Also in favor of #14 is her statements that she was in a boat that rowed in among the bodies.

In the absence of further evidence, the group felt that it was not possible to identify the boat which Miss Ridsdale and Miss Davis entered with certainty, though #13 and #14 seem the most likely.