AN UNSINKABLE LIFEBOAT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 279, 22 November 1913, Page 11

AN UNSINKABLE LIFEBOAT.

JNcW ZEALANT)ER"S INVENTION AT J LnXRPOOL. (From Ojr Special Corre<poDtleirt.' : LONDON, October 17. Inventors of craft or apparatus of : any kind designed for saving life at sea, ' ought not to find it difficult at this J juncture to inter-.", the skip-owning j community in the children of their ! brains. A boat that refuses to l,r- ---! swamped, no matter how the seas are I rapine: that when loaded with human I , freight can bo dropped 30 feet into the i spa, .-.hot in endways or sideways with- ; out damage to itself or its intents. I and will carry loewt of humanity to i each, loot of its length. ought surely at I this particular time to attract the" respectral attention of those engaged in the i shipping trade. Mr H. Fisher, of New I Zealand, claims to have invented a craft i that answers to the description given ! above, and last Friday a model of hie invention capable of carrying a score of people was put through its facing? in the Huskisson Dock. Liverpool. Mr Fisher's : craft, a? most New Zealanders are prob- ; ably aware, is a queer-looking cylindrical i affair resembling in shape a stumpy tor- '■ pedo, arid not much less formidable "in its i appearance. Inside this outer shell there is suspended a second cylinder fitted ; and ready to be provisioned for the pas- , sengers- When the interior is full and ■ the doors have been closed, mam- more I people can find a refupe outside. Steel ia 1 the material used in the construction. i and as an additional saJf-gnard not only ! have the two cylinder? been made videI pendent, but the- conical ends form water- ', tight compartment.'. Light i? admitted 1 through small thick plate-frlass windows lat each end. patent ventilators supply I the sir needs of passengers, and it is i arranged that as soon as the boats enter i the sea. water is admitted on the underJ neath side of the shell, a procedure which ; ballast? it and maintains its upright posi- '■ tion. The Fisher contrivance dispenses i with oar? altogether, and for its motion | it. depends on a kind of crank in the in- I , te.rior, in the operation, of. which even] I women m a easily participate. ; The "TJaily News" correspondent who ' I way present at the trial writes thereon: ; "With twenty people stowed away in its I cylinder-like frame, the 'Fisher non-cap-I sizable ship's lifeboat' was lowered into i the stilly waters of the Huskisson Dock. I Liverpool. Though the wind blew bit- ; terly along the dork wa.il. the "ship- ■ wrecked paspfrngers' , were warm and snng i inside- the weather-proof craft. This, of j course, is one of its great advantages, for ;it makes death from exposure impossible j for those within its steel waTlsl When the batches were pulled over just enough i air was admitted by the patent ventflaI tor?, and light was admitted "through the ; Email windows at the end. i "Though it carried over four tons of i passengers 3-nd baJlast the boat, floated . buoyantly on the water, and the inner I shell, which constitutes the "passenger I car." swung to the gravity point when I : the passengers crowded to one side to ' i look through the hatchway. The boar.' I went for a short cruise around the dock ; while the passengers inside worked the \ hand propeller. Once something went j wrong with this apparatus, but when the j spanner, upon which an adventurous i young lady had been sitting, was at i length recovered, things were quickly put I right and the boat wa? steered back to J the quay wall."" J From other accounts it appears that ] considerable difficulty "was experienced in I launching the craft which had eventually ,to be lowered into the water with the i aid of a erase, while its manoeuvres i were still further delayed until an adj justment had been made, to the crank I which forms the means of propulsion. I Notwithstanding these preliminary mis- ' fortune-, it was conceded by the com--1 pany that the contrivance was an in- ! senious one. and that it embodies ideas of i construction -which are altogether i original. I Commenting on the trial, the "'"Liveri pool Post" says: —"The demonstration on ; I the placid water of the dock did not, perhaps, provide a very vigorous test of the capabilities of the invention, particularly in regard to the claims that, it is both Bon-sinkable and non-capsizable. Experts were inclined to criticise, the main prinI ciples of its <" (instruction, -which, are of a I type whrcb ha-pe -never been adopted in n craft of this kind hitherto, but (he in \ "nto." himself was abJo to satisfy them ■> th theoretical reasons and. also -with 1 .->> records of -sbat bad aeteally been j I acwHnpQsbed, to saicL raflgr extreme;