STABILITY OF LIFEBOATS. 141 



the Oltmann boat in particular — they are more or less of the same type, all of them — have 

 only what the law requires, one cubic foot per person. The space underneath the deck in a 

 deck lifeboat has to be about four cubic feet for each person to provide proper buoyancy and, 

 therefore, if this kind of a boat, which is supposed to be superior to the old-style collapsible 

 boat, should be punctured in launching or should leak, it immediately loses about seventy- 

 five per cent of its buoyancy. There is no way of getting at the inside of this boat to stop 

 the leak and, therefore, it seems to me that with this kind of a boat, which corhplies with the 

 English rules for decked lifeboats, we are almost worse off than with the old collapsible 

 boat with cork filling. The other type of boat referred to in Professor Everett's paper, the 

 decked steel lifeboat, is arranged differently, with watertight bulkheads, so that a puncture in 

 this case would mean a loss of about twelve per cent of the buoyancy. 



Mr. a. a. Sawman' : — I would like the privilege of addressing the meeting. 



The Chairman : — ^We will hear you. 



Mr. a. a. Sawman :— I thank you for the honor of receiving me, although I am not a 

 member of the Society. I represent the Englehardt collapsible lifeboat. I cannot make 

 speeches, but I have been honored by your permission to appear before you, and would ask 

 if you will not give me an opportunity to disprove some of the statements which have been 

 made about the boat. I only learned about the paper two days ago, and have had it in my 

 hands only a few minutes. The tests conducted by the U. S. Navy, the Revenue Cutter 

 Service and Steamboat Inspection Service show very different results from the test reported 

 on this Englehardt boat. We were not invited to the test, and do not consider it profes- 

 sional, and think it is unfair, to hold a test under such conditions. We have furnished a 

 great number of these boats here in New York, and if the boat is no good we are the first 

 who want to know about it. I will ask the Society, as a favor, to appoint a committee — it 

 may not be your practice to do so — a committee of three or four, to take out one of the 

 Englehardt boats on one of the steamers coming in or going out of New York. We will 

 have the boat tested, and find whether or not it is a competent boat. We have furnished two 

 hundred of these boats in the last two years to the steamships running into New York. We 

 will test this boat in any way you like. We will be represented, and I think we can prove 

 that the figures given and the argument are not correct, condemning, so to speak, a boat 

 which has held its own for over twelve years, has had a great deal of opposition to it, and 

 still has held its own in every way. I ask you gentlemen to afford us the opportunity to 

 disprove the paper, which opportunity we have not had, as I did not know of it until a couple 

 of days ago. I thank you for your courtesy. 



The Chairman : — This matter has been before the Council. Mr. Sawman made the 

 same request through me to the Society, and I told him that the Society, as a body, did not 

 make tests for anybody or for any purpose. It seemed to me, if he were not satisfied with 

 the tests reported in the paper, the simplest way was for him to have some other tests made 

 by a competent person, and to have that person present to the Society the result of the tests. 

 I have not seen the names of any boats referred to in looking over the reports of the tests. 

 Apparently one of the boats is of the kind made by the firm which this gentleman represents, 

 and apparently it did not show up quite as well as the other boats in the tests. I need hardly 



