320 REPORT—1857. 
galley ; and there can be no doubt that if every coast-guard station were 
provided with boats built and fitted on this principle, a very great advantage 
would accrue, in the more safe and effective boats for the use of the coast- 
guard, while the number of efficient life-boats on the coasts of England, 
Ireland and Scotland would be at once doubled. 
FISHERMEN’S LIFE-BOATS. 
These are proposed to be formed by the addition of moveable corks and 
casks to the fittings of the various fishing-boats-in use on different parts of 
the coast, the practicability of which is shown by the model of the boat built 
at Liverpool in 1852, which is a modification of the Life-boats of that port, 
of the Shetland Fishing-boat, and the Yorkshire Cobble. 
In order to carry out this object, and to test the usefulness of the prin- 
ciples and alterations I advocated, I designed a boat in which the properties 
of a life-boat could be applied to the fishing-boats in use on our coast, 
without impairing their utility for the purposes of each locality, or much 
increasing their cost. In March 1852 the boat was building at Liverpool, 
and I took for her type the life-boats of that port, the fishing-boats of the 
Shetlands, and the North-country cobble, so as to obtain a light draft of 
water, and facilities in landing on a beach. 
Her dimensious are—length, 28 feet; breadth, 7 feet; depth, 3 feet 6 in. ; 
sheer of gunwale, 26 inches; external bulk to gunwale, 568 cubic feet ; 
displacement when loaded to two-thirds of her depth, 74 tons. Clinch 
built of larch planks, on eight-angle-iron frames, having bulkheads athwart 
the boat to one-third of the depth. The annexed diagrams show this, and 
also exhibit the form and outside planking, angle-iron bilge, and false keel 
with iron drop or sliding-keel, and also the internal fittings of platform 
over bulkhead, wells, and tanks, the latter one-third the breadth and one- 
fourth the depth amidships. The diagrams also show the disposition of 
extra buoyancy of fishermen’s cork life-buoys in bilge, and the position of 
the air-casks under the thwarts, with self-acting valves to relieve the water 
to the level of flotation, and pumps to discharge the water below. 
The peculiarities of construction are the substitution for numerous small 
timbers of seven or more angle-iron frames, with bulkheads one-third the 
depth, which give strength, and divide the length into water-tight com- 
partments, admitting fore-and-aft partitions. These divide the breadth of 
the boat into side-bilge and bottom compartments, the iatter only being 
water-tight, with two water-ballast tanks of 29 cubic feet amidships, one- 
third the breadth at bottom and one-fourth at top, as shown in diagram. 
When empty they would have an extra buoyancy of 16 cwt. While 
full they would act as water-ballast, or be used as fish-wells by fishing-boats. 
Three smaller open wells collect the water, the centre one containing two 
relieving valves and two pumps, that clear both boat and ballast-tanks of 
water. 
Self-righting power was attained by four air-casks, secured above the 
thwarts in bow and stern, weighing 50 lbs. each, and displacing 30 cubic 
feet or 17 cwt. of water, when the boat is turned over by the sea. The 
annexed sheer plan of stern of boat exhibits the disposition of air-casks 
and iron false keel above and below the water-line, which, when the boat 
is bottom up, displace half the weight of the boat before the gunwale 
is immersed, and counterbalanced by the ballast, cause the boat to right 
herself. 
To test the combination of fishing- and life-boat fittings, the boat was 
placed at the disposal of four fishermen experienced in the estuary off the 
