SAFETY OF LIFE FROM FIRE AT SEA. 



By W. O. Teague, Esq., Visitor. 



[Read at the twenty-second general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held in 



New York, December 10 and 11, 1914.] 



Safety first! These words of warning are rapidly becoming familiar, par- 

 ticularly to the traveling public of the United States of America, due to the wide 

 publicity being given them by Chambers of Commerce and other public-spirited 

 organizations. Printed signs bearing the warning are being prominently displayed 

 on railway trains, street cars and other means of conveyance on land, but I have 

 not seen or heard of such signs appearing to any appreciable extent on ocean 

 steamers and vessels carrying passengers on the rivers, sounds and lakes of this 

 country. It would seem, therefore, that the safety campaign has not as yet been 

 extended to this field, which involves great possibilities of serious injury and loss of 

 life to travelers on water. There is no one means which to-day ofifers such great 

 opportunity for increasing safety from fire at sea at small cost as the general intro- 

 duction of automatic sprinklers on shipboard, these to have an open connection to 

 a source of water supply so as to be always instantly available. 



The greatest sources of danger are shipwrecks and fires. Improvements in the 

 construction of vessels, life-saving and signaling apparatus, particularly wireless 

 telegraphy, and the adoption of stringent rules and regulations governing naviga- 

 tion have gradually reduced the losses from shipwrecks, but there has been little 

 progress made in safeguarding life from fires. 



The awful cry of "Fire" is always terrible and startling, but more so on ship- 

 board; where every circumstance of danger and horror is intensified. Most ves- 

 sels are still largely constructed of wood, and although the advent of steel for 

 the hull, and in some cases decks and bulkheads, has reduced the amount of inflam- 

 mable construction, the fixtures and contents are still composed of combustible ma- 

 terials ; and when fire starts, particularly at sea, it often consumes the vessel or causes 

 it to sink. The passengers meanwhile have little choice between death by fire or 

 drowning. 



