The Titanic was a White Star Line ocean liner, built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, and designed to compete with the rival Cunard Line's Lusitania and Mauretania. The Titanic, along with her Olympic-class sisters, the Olympic and the soon to be built Britannic (originally named Gigantic), were intended to be the largest, most luxurious ships ever to operate. The designers were William Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and White Star, naval architect Thomas Andrews, Harland and Wolff's construction manager and head of their design department, and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager. Carlisle suggested that Titanic use a new, larger type of davit which could give the ship the potential to carry 48 lifeboats; this would have provided enough places for everyone on board. However, the White Star Line, while agreeing to the larger davits, decided that only 16 wooden lifeboats (16 being the minimum allowed by the board or trade, based on the Titanic's projected tonnage) would be carried (there were also four folding lifeboats), which could accommodate only 52% of the people aboard. Carlisle told the official inquiry that he had discussed the matter with J. Bruce Ismay, White Star's Managing Director, but in his evidence Ismay denied that he had ever heard of this, nor did he recollect noticing such provision in the plans of the ship he had inspected.