MOTOR LIFEBOAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20420, 23 November 1929, Page 14

MOTOR LIFEBOAT.

LARGEST IN THE WORLD. AIRCRAFT SALVAGE WORK. (Received November 22. G. 5 p.m.) British Wireless. RUGBY, Nov. 21. The largest motor lifeboat in the world is to be launched on the Thames to-day.. It is 64ft. long and contains two cabins. The boat is propelled by two 375 h.p. Thorneycroft engines. It is capable of a speed of more than 20 miles an hour in rough seas. Tho lifeboat has been built specially for speedy salvage of aeroplanes which mav come down in the Channel, and will be stationed at Dover.

The motor lifeboat referred to in the cablegraip was built for the Royai National Lifeboat Association at Cowes. The money was provided out of a gift of £14,500, which the Peninsular and Oriental group of shipping companies made, through Lord Inchcape, to the institution in response to the Princo of Wales' appeal last year to all the great chipping lines. She is to be named Princess Marv.

-'"The new lifeboat has 15 main and 100 iriinor water-tight compartments, and displaces 45 tons of water. Her excess buoyancy will be equal to nearly one and a-half times that weight, so that even if severely damaged, she will remain afloat and manageable. She is driven by two 80h.p. engines, which will continue to work even if entirely submerged, provided the air inlets are above water.

. The boat has two cabins! with accommodation for between 50 and 60 people, and in a calm sea could take 300 people on deck. Under the worst conditions of weather she could in safety carry 150 people in addition to her crew. She carries 500 gallons of petrol, which, at a cruising speed of eight, knots, enable her to travel 500 miles. She has oil-sprays in her bows for spraying oil on heavy seas, carries a line-throwing gun with a range of 80 yards, is lit by electricity, and has an electric searchlight, an electricallydriven windlass, and a life-saving net into which the shipwrecked can jump as the lifeboat lies alongside their vessel.