Lifeboats are only used for getting people off boats safely when they are sinking. Most big boats have about 30 lifeboats but RMS Titanic only had 20. They fully booked the boat and the lifeboats could have held all the people on the boat if they had 60 people in each of the lifeboats but they were only putting 20 or 12 in each boat  and that is how 1500 people died.