IMPROVE- MENTS IN LIFE BOATS, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER VESSELS."
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Flux at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 7th August 1878.
WILLIAM FLUX, of Hale, near Farnham, in the County of Surrey. " IMPROVE-
MENTS IN LIFE BOATS, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER
VESSELS."
The objects of this Invention, which relates to improvements in the construction
of life boats, also applicable to sailing yachts, passenger vessels, and generally to
all boats or vessels propelled by the agency of oars, sails, or steam engines, are, to
render such boats or vessels sufficiently buoyant to meet all requirements in what-
ever situation they may be placed, and thus to render them non-capsizable and of a
certainty self righting, and so completely safe for their intended uses; to render
them less liable to pitching and rolling, or to be in any way affected by the motion
of the waves or sea, and thus to obviate the ill effects to which many are subject
by such motion; to reduce the submergence thereof to as little an extent as is
possible; to sustain the superposed weight and thus to reduce the resistance offered
to the passage of the boat or vessel through the water, whereby less power is
required to effect its propulsion, and its speed with a given power can be materially
increased. There are other subsidiary advantages arising from the improved con-
struction of the boats or vessels which will at once present themselves to those
acquainted with the objects sought to be attained.
In carrying my Invention into practice I provide or form the boat or vessel with
two comparatively deep keels, which are of the whole length of the vessel, and when
viewed endways form as it were the outer sides or walls of the structure. These
keels are made in water-tight compartments and are thus extremely buoyant, and
but a comparatively small part thereof is submerged even when the boat or vessel is
fully laden. These water-tight keels are united by a bridge or structure, which so
far as its ends are concerned is also formed in water-tight compartiments, and the
under surface of which from stem to stern is formed of a segmental shape to allow
of the passage between the keels of ordinary sized waves without touching the
bottom, and to allow of a sufficient depth centrally of the length for the hold of the

page_text: boat or vessel. The upper surface of this structure may in certain kinds of boats or
vessels be used and fitted for all intents and purposes as a deck.
The hold of the boat or vessel may be formed of any convenient length, but as to
width it is confined between the inner walls of the keels, so that all around it is
provided with water-tight compartments, and by these means the principal objects 5
sought to be attained are fully accomplished. The hold may of course be fitted
in any convenient manner, and the boat or vessel may be fitted with masts and
sails, or with screw or paddle propelling machinery, or it may be propelled by the
agency of oars, or otherwise, in all such and similar cases the fitting of the hold and
the mode of propulsion depending upon the kind of boat or vessel constructed 1
according to this Invention."