41 G Description of a Life-Boat 



rowing or .sailing in the trough of a high sea, with good way 

 through the vv^ater, if a high curUng-headed sea is observed to 

 approach the beam, witli a prospect of heaving on board, the 

 power of the oar will at once throw the vessel's bow to the sea 

 raid disarm its vengeance, which the less quick power of the 

 I'udder would have been incapable of effecting. 



In most life-boats the oars are fixed to be rowed through 

 rope-rings or grummets, over a single iron thole like the steer- 

 age oar of the present boat, whereby, if quitted by its rower, 

 it is secured to its place. This plan of rowing by a single 

 thole, is much practised by the ijpaniards, Portuguese, and 

 others. As few English seamen, however, are accustomed to 

 the mode, and as the life-boat in question was not to have a 

 fixed crew practised to the art, but to depend on such chance 

 crew of volunteer seamen as might be on the spot when the 

 boat was required, it v\'as thought preferable to continue the 

 double English thole, which om* seamen are accustomed to, 

 and which allows them to leather their oar with readiness, an 

 art of material moment when progress is to be made against 

 a strong wind and head-sea. These tholes are fitted to the 

 life-boat after the manner practised in the southern whale 

 fishery. Their lov*'er ends are prepared with a hole ; and each 

 pair being set in their holes in the gunnel, they are united by 

 having the ends of a piece of small line spliced into the holes, 

 with a spare thole on its bight, as shown by fig. 8. This line 

 should be about 18 inches long, or sufficiently long to allow 

 of the tholes being taken out, and hung within-board, when 

 the boat is alongside any vessel, whereby they are prevented 

 from being lost or broken ; and if any are broken while row- 

 ing, spare tholes are at hand to supply their places. 



It was an object of consideration, not to take from the value 

 of this small life-boat by fitting her out with stores of unne- 

 cessary weight and magnitude, as the more she was encumbered 

 and loaded, tlie less would she be equal to the duties of a life- 

 boat. In consequence, whale-line was adjudged to be the kind 

 of rope best suited to all the puiposes of the boat, for cable 

 as well as warp-line. An ex]>erienced commander in the 

 southern whale-fishery informed the author, that having har- 

 pooned a whale on the coast of Guinea, after a while it sunk 

 dead to the bottom in 1 3 fathoms water ; and his boat remained 

 hanging to the prize by the line from the harpoon in the 

 ■whale, with three other boats attached to the stern of his boat, 

 till the whale should float by its change of specific gravity. 

 Durino- this period a heavy gale came on to blow towards the 

 .shore; but the strength of tl^^s single line was enough to hold 

 all the tour boats to their object, till tiie gale abated. This 



surely 



