The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-24 00:00:00

A NEW LIFE BOAT.

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In the last number of the Glasgow Engineers,
Magazine a design for an iron life-boat is given. The
magazine gives diagrams in plan, elevation, and sec-
tion of the boat, which is twenty-four feet long, eight
feet broad, and three to three-and-a-half feet deep.
It weighs about a ton, and has buoyancy of nearly
15,0001b5. It is capable of carrying seventy persons,
without sinking. This is its extreme burden, but it
can seat forty passengers with ease, and a greater
number on emergencies. The estimated cost is 601.
The design, we understand, is by Mr. Thomas Cal-
him, Leith. After explaining the diagrams, the editor
of the magazine says :
" There cannot be much doubt that a boat of this
construction would be decidedly superior to the
wooden boats in cases of accident at sea. Few, in-
deed, of those at present carried by steam-vessels
would be of any positive use were they required to
save the lives of passengers and crew in a rough sea.
Even when circumstances have been favourable, we
have had the melancholy experience of their utter in-
efficiency. No sooner have they been lowered into
the water, than they have been swamped in the un-
avoidable confusion which almost invariably attends
catastrophes at sea, on occasions where the vessel is
to be abandoned. A result of this fatal kind could•
not possibly happen with a boat of the construction
proposed ; for, as already stated, although it should
be completely filled with water, it would be still
capable of sustaining seventy persons, and it might
be made to have even greater buoyancy in proportion
to its length and breadth, and weight of material.
Boats of this description will, indeed, be somewhat
more expensive in respect of first cost than those
commonly carried, but their manifest superiority and
usefulness in cases of emergency ought, undoubtedly,
to outweigh all the little pecuniary differences which
can possibly be set up in objection. It is a
demand of humanity, and one which we hope to see
legally enforced among the first conditions in the code
of regulations which Parliament may be expected to
frame next session upon the report of the Shipwreck
Committee."

The principle upon which the boats are proposed to
be constructed is, that as large a quantity of air
should be enclosed in air-tight compartments as will
suffice to buoy up the boat itself, and as many per-
sons as could go into or cling around it. The sides,
ends, and thwarts, are all appropriated to this pur-
pose ; and, for first-class steamers, the compartments
will measure—
On the two sides 9B feet.
On the two ends l2O feet.
And on the thwarts

273
And as each foot of air has a buoyancy in sea water
of 6141b5., it follows that the enclosed spaces would
have a buoyancy equal to 17,5401 b., from which has
to be deducted the weight of the boat, which is calcu-
lated at a ton, but say 21 cwt. or 2,3521 b., leaving a
free buoyancy of 15,1881 b., or equal to the entire
weight of one hundred persons, averaging 1501 b. each,
and this although the open spaces were full of water ;
but were that the case, with such a burden, the boat
would be quite unmanageable; the number, therefore,
is stated to be seventy, and that is as many as could
possibly be crowded into her.