LIFE-BOAT, a specific type of boat de signed especially for saving the lives of persons on ships wrecked near a shore. It must be con structed with strength sufficient to resist violent shocks from the waves, the rocky beach or collision with the wreck; be buoyant enough to avoid foundering, and to float though loaded with men and filled with water; have facility in turning, and when capsized be able to right itself. Such boats are now maintained at most of the life-saving stations in America and Europe, ready to put to sea at once if their services are required, and provided with the means of being conveyed to the beach and launched with all possible rapidity. The first distinctive lifeboat was designed by Lionel Lukin, an English coach-builder, in 1785. He called his boat an "immergible) and gave it the desired non-capsizable qualities by affixing to the frame a thick projecting gunwale of cork. He also provided watertight air-chambers at the bow and stern, and along each side, and ballasted it with a heavy iron keel. Following him, William Wouldhave and Henry Greathead simultaneously invented a boat on the curved keel principle— in general shape very like a sixth part cut lengthwise from a longish musk melon. This provided a self-righting model, but that idea alone did not prove altogether successful in practice, and many cubic feet of cork were built into the two boats. Great head's model was accepted officially and several of his boats were put in use and saved many lives. Till 1851 Greathead's invention was al most the sole one in use, though numerous others had been either introduced or proposed; but in that year no fewer than 50 models of improved lifeboats were sent to the London Exhibition in competition for a prize offered by the Duke of Northumberland for improved construction. The prize was won by James Beeching, a practical English boat-builder, with a boat that was self-righting when capsized and self-bailing when water entered. The model utilized the principle of water-ballasting. James Peake of Woolwich Dockyard, by com bining the excellencies of the competing boats, and adding others suggested by his own ex perience, designed a boat which, gradually im proved from time to time, became the recog nized model, and has been adopted as the stand ard for lifeboats in all countries. This life boat possesses great lateral stability or resist ance to upsetting; speed against a heavy sea; facility for launching and taking the shore; immediate self-discharge of any water break ing into it; strength; stowage-room for a large number of passengers. The great breadth of
beam (eight feet) in proportion to her length (33 feet) is to diminish the liability to capsize in a heavy sea. The relieving-tubes, by which any water that breaks into the boat is immedi ately self-discharged, are most ingeniously con trived. The self-righting characteristic, at first considered of prime importance, was soon found to militate against other qualities more desirable, and while the self-righting principle is applied to the small surf boats, the lifeboat is now made very difficult to capsize, and the crew are specially drilled in the process of righting the boat if by any rare accident it should be overturned. Such are the precautions for the safety of the crew in these English boats that loss of life in the conduct of the boat is of rare occurrence. Some are made with two centreboards for greater stability. The lifeboat transporting carriage or truck is an important auxiliary to the boat. The life boat is kept on this carriage in the boat-house ready for immediate transportation to the spot most favorable for launching to the wreck. In this way a greater extent of coast can secure the benefits of the lifeboat than could otherwise be the case. Even when the launch is from the immediate vicinity of the boat-house the use of the carriage saves much time, which in a case of shipwreck may prove of vital importance. Besides, a boat can be readily launched from a carriage through a high surf, when without a carriage she could not be got off the beach. The machine is admirably contrived, and the boat may be launched from it in an upright position with her crew on board. To render it more manageable and of the greatestpossible utility the fore and main bodies can be detached from each other by the withdrawal of a fore lock pin. The British Life-Saving Institution now maintains a fleet of about 300 lifeboats at stations along the English coast, and expends about $600,000 a year in their maintenance. In the 94 years up to 1917 they had saved more than 50,000 lives. Since 1890 the institution has been introducing steel lifeboats, 50 feet in length and of 20 beam, with steam engine and propellers operated on a turbine principle. A little later the motor-boat type was introduced and is now preferred to the steam-propelled lifeboats. Practically all European countries maintain coast life-saving stations equipped with lifeboats and other apparatus, but in India, Australia, New Zealand and Japan these services are maintained by voluntary associa tions.