Battles with the Sea

by R. M. Ballantyne

The self-emptying principle is quite equal to the self-righting in importance.

In every case of putting off to a wreck in a gale, a lifeboat ships a great deal of water. In most cases she fills more than once. Frequently she is overwhelmed by tons of water by every sea. A boat full of water cannot advance, therefore baling becomes necessary; but baling, besides being very exhausting work, is so slow that it would be useless labour in most cases. Besides, when men have to bale they cannot give that undivided attention to the oars which is needful. To overcome this difficulty the self-emptying plan was devised.

As, I doubt not, the reader is now sufficiently interested to ask the questions, How are self-righting and self-emptying accomplished? I will try to throw some light on these subjects.

First, as to self-righting. You are aware, no doubt, that the buoyancy of our lifeboat is due chiefly to large air-cases at the ends, and all round the sides from stem to stern. The accompanying drawing and diagrams will aid us in the description. On the opposite page you have a portrait of, let us say, a thirty-three feet, ten-oared lifeboat, of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, on its transporting carriage, ready for launching, and, on page 95, two diagrams representing respectively a section and a deck view of the same (Figures 1, 2, and 3).

The breadth of this boat is eight feet; its stowage-room sufficient for thirty passengers, besides its crew of twelve men—forty-two in all. It is double-banked; that is, each of its five banks, benches, or thwarts, accommodates two rowers sitting side by side. The lines festooned round the side dip into the water, so that anyone swimming alongside may easily grasp them, and in the middle part of the boat—just where the large wheels come in the engraving—two of the lines are longer than the others, so that a man might use them as stirrups, and thus be enabled to clamber into the boat even without assistance. The rudder descends considerably below the keel—to give it more power—and has to be raised when the boat is being launched.

The shaded parts of the diagrams show the position and form of the air-cases which prevent a lifeboat from sinking. The white oblong space in Figure 2 is the free space available for crew and passengers. In Figure 3 is seen the depth to which the air-chambers descend, and the height to which the bow and stern-chambers rise.

It is to these large air-chambers in bow and stern, coupled with great sheer—or rise fore and aft—of gunwale, and a very heavy keel, that the boat owes its self-righting power. The two air-chambers are rounded on the top. Now, it is obvious that if you were to take a model of such a boat, turn it upside down on a table, and try to make it rest on its two rounded air-chambers, you would encounter as much difficulty as did the friends of Columbus when they sought to make an egg stand on its end. The boat would infallibly fall to one side or the other. In the water the tendency is precisely the same, and that tendency is increased by the heavy iron keel, which drags the boat violently round to its right position.

The self-righting principle was discovered—at all events for the first time exhibited—at the end of last century, by the Reverend James Bremner, of Orkney. He first suggested in the year 1792 that an ordinary boat might be made self-righting by placing two watertight casks in the head and sternsheets of it, and fastening three hundredweight of iron to the keel. Afterwards he tried the experiment at Leith, and with such success that in 1810 the Society of Arts voted him a silver medal and twenty guineas. But nothing further was done until half a century later, when twenty out of twenty-four pilots lost their lives by the upsetting of the non-self-righting Shields lifeboat.

Then (1850) the late Duke of Northumberland offered a prize of 100 guineas for the best lifeboat that could be produced. No fewer than 280 models and drawings were sent in, and the plans, specifications, and descriptions of these formed five folio manuscript volumes! The various models were in the shape of pontoons, catamarans or rafts, north-country cobles, and ordinary boats, slightly modified. The committee appointed to decide on their respective merits had a difficult task to perform. After six months’ careful, patient investigation and experiment, they awarded the prize to Mr James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth. Beeching’s boat, although the best, was not, however, deemed perfect.

The committee therefore set Mr James Peake, one of their number, and assistant master-shipwright at Woolwich Dockyard, to incorporate as many as possible of the good qualities of all the other models with Beeching’s boat. From time to time various important improvements have been made, and the result is the present magnificent boat of the Institution, by means of which hundreds of lives are saved every year.