"Home Guy" wrote in message ...
Ed Pawlowski wrote:

I always found it strange that there wasn't enough wood or other
light-weight materials onboard that could have been scavanged to
make ad-hoc rafts or other floatation aids.

The ship was carrying lots of cargo, so I'm sure there would have been
lots of wood crates, etc.

Weren't there enough bathtubs in the staterooms that could have
been used as one-person mini-boats?

I can possibly agree with the wood theory, but removing tubs,
plugging drain holes and getting them launched is quite the
fantasy.

I'm sure the tubs had plugs or stoppers as standard equipment.

And I'm sure there were plenty of axes and other tools on a ship like
that.

And I think the staterooms were on the upper levels of the ship (not far
below decks).

And I think there was enough time to hack or break out the tubs (didn't
the ship take more than 2 hours to sink?).

And - I would think there would have been enough life-or-death
motivation to make all this happen.

The only problem is that survival in arctic waters is a matter of a couple
of minutes
Most if not all of the people who ended up in the water, went down a few
minutes later.
Hypothermia is a very fast killer
http://www.startribune.com/local/146536735.html