Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-03-03
FOR THE LIFEBOAT.

FUR LII E LIT LDUA1
 AN ENGINE NEEDED TO DRIVE IT
 THROUGH THE SURF.
 Perhaps Some Yankee Inventor May Suc.
 ceed Where British Ingenuity Has
 Failed-Dangers of Succoring the ship
 wrecked-Exhausted Men at the Oars.
 It is not little discouraging to those inter- ested in maritime affairs, and particularly to those interested in devices and schemes for saving the lives of the shipwrecked, to read that the efforts of committee appointed on Oct. l, 1887, by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution of Great Britain, to obtain plan for propelling lifeboatby some other means than oars in the hands of its crew, had en- tirely failed. In December, 1886, while en- deavoring to save the crew of vessel wrecked on the coast of Lancashire, a lifeboat and her crew were overwhelmed by the waves and lost The disaster was of the sort to rouse the attention of the entire British nation, and the Royal Lifeboat institute at once set about improving the lifeboats in service along the British coasts.
 Among other steps taken was the appoint ment of a committee, consisting of Sir Fred erick Bramwell, F. R. S. |; Sir Digby-Murray, Bart, and Mr. John Thornycroft, all men having special knowledge in the matter be- fore them, to solicit drawings and models from inventors and manufacturers of life boats of some new craft to be propelled by some power other than manual labor at the oars; such, for instance, as steam or eiec- tricity. The committee were empowered to o4o o,,I ell lo1c fo, %l. these proposed devices, should any be offered, while the successful inventor would, of course, have received a number of orders for boats from the institution as soon as the award was made. Entries closed on Oct. 1, at which time so many had been presented at the rooms of the committee that it has taken all the time of the committee for nearly four months to complete their examination of the devices. Sir Frederick Bramwell who writes the report, says that no design worthy of silver medal, or even of special mention, was found. The British inventor having failed, perhaps some Yankee may now succeed.
 LAUNCHING THE LIFEBoAT
 The need of some such device for propelling Hfeboats becomes apparent when the condi- tions under which the lives of the ship wrecked are saved are considered. The wrecked ship drives ashore in a furious gale, taking ground perhaps half mile from the beach whence the lfeboat must be launched, and always, too, if along the American coast south of Montauk Point, on bar a good many hundred feet from shore The patrol man brings word to the crew, and, if it be night, the men must jump from their warm hunks and hasten out into the wind and sleet or snow that chill them through and through. The labor of dragging heavy boat over the sand is not enough to warm them before they must wade out into the icy surf that drenches every thread they wear, and then, as the boat floats, leap in and grasp with benumbed !. fingers the heavy fifteen foot oars and pull for their own lives, as well as the lives of the sailors on the stranded ship. The next wave, if it does not hurl them back on to the sand, half buries them ill it's freezing cold depths, and then leaves them with coats and wraps weighed down with ice.
 Unmindful of the discomforts and terrors around and before them, the life savers struggle on, and eventually reach the lee side of the wreck to find their labor only just begun, and their danger, especially from floating and falling spars, greatly increased. A line must be made fast to the ship, over which the solid water sweeps with tremen- dous force, and then the sailors, who are lashed in the rigging and are helpless must be lowered into the lifeboats. It is a work requiring the nerve and strength of man in his prime, undiminished by previous exer- tion, but it is performed by men who have been, perhaps for an hour or more, straining every nerve to it's utmost tension in the effort to reach the ship
 LANDING THROUGH THE SURF
 One hour, may be two or three, must pass before the sailors are all in t!.c boat. Human powers, even in tho best trained men, have O. limit beyond which thy cannot be strained and stand the test Encountered by the load in their boat, exhausted by their labors in securing the load the life savers at last cast off the line that holds them to the wreck, and with weakened grasp take up the heavy oars to face the gravest danger to which a mariner is ever exposed, the danger of landing through a heavy surf Small wonder if even the thought of th.s danger fails to flag into ade- quate action the worn out muscles of the men, and they drift toward shore rather than row with the wind and waves, and fail at the critical moment to pull toward the open sea, and are caught by a booming roller and thrown headlong into the black depths at it's base, and finally are cast dead on the sand, from which they had launched their boat to save the lives of others.
 The propelling power of the lifeboat is gone when it is most needed. It ought not to be either a difficult or an expensive thing to provide such boat with some other sort of driving power. The boat is not hard to propel It is about 26 feet long, 7 wide and 315 deep. It is decked over on the plane of the water line, and the hold beneath is divided into compartments, which are usually filled with cork and paraffine wax or some such light substance, so that if the compartment be broken open it will not fill with water. It requires crew of six oarsmen and coxswain. If an adequate propelling scheme were pro- vided, one of these men might be dispensed with. After the boat was launched and his weight saved, if the propelling device weighed 500 pounds, it would therefore net but a little over 300 pounds additional weight for the boat, but something ought to be made in these days of tempered steel and aluminium that would weigh less. If some of the men who are taking out patents for car couplers, railroad switches, and washing machines at the rate of dozen a week, with no reason able hope of ever getting the price of the patents out of their devices, were to turn their attention to lifeboats something worthy the attention at least.of the Royal National Life boat institution, perhaps even of silver medal, might be produced. When it is con. l sidarad that s1ch bOatS wOuld readily sell for