128 NOTES ON LIFE-SAVING APPLIANCES. 



reasonable modification as oak, the material named, is very hard to find in 

 30-foot lengths, free from knots and straight-grained, and in fact any other 

 permissible wood of such length is rare and of course very expensive. The 

 cost could be neglected, where human life is concerned, if any advantage 

 were obtained, but the spliced gunwale is in every way as reliable as the 

 whole-piece one. 



The use of a steel keel seems to me, while more expensive, a very great 

 gain over the use of a wooden one. It makes a stiff boat and this is of vast 

 importance, as, under the present conditions of height of deck, lifeboats 

 will have to be loaded before being swung overboard and, in rescue work, 

 lifted from the water loaded, and strength to resist the strain of the load is 

 better obtained by the use of steel. Steel keels have been used abroad long 

 ago, and perhaps to some extent here, though I have noticed but few. 



There does not seem to be any great debate as to the relative values of 

 wooden or steel boats ; both are allowed, yet the metal construction appears 

 to be rather the favorite as it is lasting and always tight, while in my own 

 experience the wooden boat is never so. I think the metal boat has the 

 advantage of the celebrated one-horse shay in that it goes to pieces all at 

 once and to an extent which demands immediate attention. 



Life-rafts have been allowed for years as part of the ocean equipment 

 for life-saving and no doubt in inland waters they would, under certain 

 conditions, be of value, yet to my mind the only advantage, if it may be 

 called one, in their use on the high seas would be that instead of perishing 

 alone in your own individual lifebelt you would perish in the company of 

 others on a raft. I cannot imagine any but the most hardy withstanding 

 a night in winter on a life-raft, even in calm weather. 



It was to be expected that after the Titanic disaster many suggestions 

 would be offered for saving life at sea. One old idea, very much enlarged, 

 is the old hen-coop system, that is, instead of a hen-coop floating off, as 

 sea tales so often depict, the suggestion is to have an entire deckhouse float 

 off. I have seen pictures of this system and one set of blue-prints of details, 

 but even if the fact did not exist, that if a few beckets were not cast off or 

 someone forgot to pull the releasing lever it would prove disastrous, perfect 

 faith in automatic contrivances has not reached a point in the general 

 make-up of mankind which would lead us to believe that an excited crowd 

 would serenely await a ship dropping away under them, while seated on a 

 detachable deckhouse. 



It is clear from the investigations that lifeboats are the most important 

 life-saving appliances. Very little if any stress has been laid on lifebelts, 

 and it is therefore fair to suppose that these articles are satisfactory, to a 



