A COMBINED SAIL AND MARINE DRAG FOR BOATS
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Edward Newton at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with bis Petition, on the
10th July 1873.-A communication from abroad by Thomas
Madison Fleetwood, of Savanah, in the State of Georgia, United
States of America.
I, HENRY EDWARD NEWTON, of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery
Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "A COMBINED SAIL AND MARINE DRAG
FOR BOATS," to be as follows:-
-
This Invention consists in a novel construction of drag or drag sheet
which not only has an improved hold upon the water to keep the boats
or other vessels head to the sea, or act as a floating anchor to a life raft,
as the case may be, but which is readily convertible into a sail when its
use as a drag is unnecessary, and may otherwise be used to advantage in
saving life and property. This combined sail and drag (before and after
the same has been hooked up to make the drag) consists of a spar
suitable and fitted to be used as a mast to the boat or raft. The mast is
made of a more uniform size than ordinarily, and has a sail made extra
strong and nearly square attached at its one side or edge to the spar, and

page_text: a rod of galvanized iron or other metal several inches longer than the
sail passed through a seam or tuck in the opposite side or edge of the
latter to facilitate the removal of the rod when required to convert the
drag into a sail. This rod should be of just sufficient weight to sink
the spar below the surface of the water. To each side is attached by
sister hooks a line or small galvanized chain to cringles (about half way
between the spar and rod), and connected to the lower part by holes
or links in each end of the rod, drawing up about one half of the sail
or space between the cringle and rod, so as to form a catch or bag
which is free to work both ways.
The drag is attached to the boat or raft by a main line of eight or
ten fathoms (more or less), and always kept rigged and fastened to the
boat or raft, so as to be available at any minute. This drag is readily
convertible into a sail in numerous different ways, the boat hook being
utilized and made with a view to its use for a yard or sprit, or the yard
or sprit may be lashed in with the mast, which is deemed preferable for
life rafts, or an oar may be used for the same purpose. Where sail is
required the yard, sprit, and oars being lost the drag is still available
by doubling or suitably rigging it as a leg of mutton sail. Such
combined sail and drag may also be used as a tent or shelter, and on
many occasions as an aid in landing on a beach in heavy sea, especially
if the wind be blowing on shore.
Used as a drag the device will take better care of a boat or raft than
any skilled crew possibly could do in a heavy sea or blow without it
keeping the boat's or raft's head to the sea and regulating its drag
power by altering its angle to the surface whenever the resistance is
increased or diminished acting as an efficient drag as well as a break-
water, thereby subduing the action of the sea before it reaches the boat
or raft. By its use a crew will be relieved of excessive exertions, and
more room will be available in a boat for the preservation of lives than
where space is required to work oars. Being attached to the boat or
raft it cannot be lost though the boat or raft may capsize, or under any
circumstances, and would be available as a sail when oars and everything
else may be lost.