140 STABILITY OF LIFEBOATS. 



This arrangement automatically improves the stability, and provides more seating accommo- 

 dation at the same time. 



Professor Herbert C. Sadler, Member of Council: — I will draw attention to the 

 point which I think is the most important one in this paper, and that is the importance of 

 stability in lifeboats. That same fact has been brought out in connection with the report of 

 the British Commission. It has always seemed to me if we are going to put a lifeboat on a 

 ship it ought to be stable , at least under the conditions under which it is supposed to operate. 

 This is brought out in the paper. If you will refer to the stability curves, particularly in con- 

 nection with the decked lifeboat versus the standard metal or wood, the decked lifeboat is a 

 foot wider and a foot shallower than the ordinary boat. The decked lifeboat has a much 

 better stability curve. 



I would like also to draw attention to one fact in connection with the steel versus the 

 wooden boat. In my experience a good many of these fittings about a vessel do not get 

 the attention, perhaps, that they ought to get, and metallic lifeboats are usually built of 

 very thin metal. In salt water they are very liable to corrode unless especial care is taken of 

 them. The wooden boat, although it may be slightly leaky, will probably stand up better 

 under the general conditions of service, and a slight leak probably would not be very se- 

 rious; but in the case of a boat built of light material and liable to corrode rapidly, we 

 may have trouble with it. It has been argued that the metallic boat is fireproof. I think if a 

 fire got up to a metallic lifeboat that it would not be of much greater use than the 

 wooden one. 



The conditions under which lifeboats are likely to operate to-day are very different from 

 what they were some years ago. With the installation of wireless telegraphy, there is no ne- 

 cessity, except in some special cases, for lifeboats to take long trips. In fact, it is far better 

 for the lifeboats to remain where they are, if the passengers have to take to them, and wait 

 to be picked up; therefore we do not need to have anything very much in the shape of a good 

 sea boat. It seems to me we want something that is very stable and will float and hold a lot 

 of people. There is no necessity for much in the way of movement. There is one feature 

 in the latest report of the British Commission which is very interesting, and that is a propo- 

 sition to install a very large boat which is capable of holding, say, two hundred people or 

 more. The boat is a decked boat, with the people inside, and I think that is quite worthy of 

 consideration. 



The Chairman : — Is there any other gentleman who desires to speak ? 



Mr. E. SivarDj Member: — ^What I desire to say is not in discussion of this paper but 

 an addition to it which I would like to give. The experiments recently made in England 

 have given results regarding the collapsible wooden lifeboat somewhat similar to the results 

 at which Professor Everett has arrived. They have, therefore, on the other side evolved a 

 somewhat different kind of a collapsible wooden lifeboat. I have just returned from Ger- 

 many and I have there seen a number of boats of this new type. The change in the design 

 is principally the substitution of copper tanks for the cork filling. That, of course, would 

 be an improvement if the whole space underneath the deck were filled with copper tanks. The 

 Board of Trade rules require one cubic foot tank capacity per person, and these German boats. 



