[14] The Reformatory ship ‘Cornwall’ is at Purfleet. The three vessels are within sight of each other. We shall sail back to each of them in a future page, and have a more leisurely look on board.
[20] The after part of the well is rounded at each side, and it is all boarded up. In the middle is a seat on which a large cork cushion can rest, or this may be thrown over as a life-preserver or for a buoy, while the life-belt to be worn round the waist is stowed away under the seat, and an iron basin with a handle is placed alongside it just over the flooring, below which is seen, at p. 41, a wedge of lead-ballast, and in front of this the water-well, where water collecting from leakage or dashing spray is conveniently reached by the tube of vulcanised india-rubber represented as just in front. This pump hose has a brass union joint on the top, to which we can screw the nozzle of a pump with a copper cylinder (shown at the bottom), or a piston worked by hand (but without any lever), and when in use the cylinder rests obliquely, so that the water will flow out over the combing, and on the deck, and so into the sea.
[22] Several important suggestions for the implement of the lifeboat liquid compass were obtained during my use of it in this voyage, and these have been duly appreciated by the Lifeboat Institution.
[25] However good the glass, it is very difficult to make use of it for faint or distant objects on the horizon, and on the whole I found it easier to discern the first dim line of land far off by the unaided eye. A slight mark, that would not be observed while only a short piece of it is seen in the field of view, becomes decidedly manifest if a large scope is seen at once. The binocular glass was very valuable, however, when the words on a buoy, or the colour on the chequers of a beacon had to be deciphered.
[26] See page 44 and Appendix.
[32] In yet another, the fourth visit to this stupid shallow harbour (one of the most unpleasant to lie in anywhere), I fixed an oar out at each side as a leg, and could scarcely get rest from the fear that one or other of my beautiful oars would be snapped as they bent and groaned with remonstrances against supporting several tons of weight in the capacity of a wooden leg.
[36] I had lessened her ton and a half of iron ballast by leaving two hundredweight on Dover quay; good advice agreeing with my own opinion that the Rob Roy was needlessly stiff.
[42] The relative positions of all these articles had been maturely considered and carefully arranged, and they were much approved by the most experienced and critical of the many hundred visitors who inspected the Rob Roy.
[44] In the sketch at page 41, the cook of the Rob Roy is represented as he works when rain compels him to shelter himself in the cabin under a tarpaulin, and the hatch inclined upwards. But usually—indeed, always but on two occasions—he sat in the well while he tended the caboose.
[50] I have read numerous books, pamphlets, and discussions on this subject, some of which are wonderfully clear in explaining what is perfectly easy to understand, while they are exceedingly ingenious in overlooking the only difficulty, which is, how a man on one vessel is to know whither another vessel is steering to. (March 1880.)