RYE LIFEBOAT BELTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20708, 4 May 1929, Page 8

RYE LIFEBOAT BELTS.

SEQUEL TO COURT’S FINDINGS. • INQUIRY BY’A COMMITTEE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) ■' LONDON, Match 27. The Board of Trade has appointed a comriiittee to examine the statements and recommendations on the subject of kapok in the report of the court bn the Rye lifeboat disaster. The committee will also advise ; whether any alterations: should be made in the rules and practice of the Bpard of Trade and. the Royal National. Lifeboat Institution with regard to the use of kapok in life-saving apparatus. The following are the members: Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Henry F, Oliver, G;C.B., K.C.M.G., ,M.V.0.. (chairman); Captain H. B. Pope; Captain H. F. J. Rowley,-C.B.E;, R.N.; Captain Luke Ward, R.D.,, R.N.E.; and Sir Thomas E. Stanton, G.8.E., D.Sc F.R.S. . : , Kapdk was adopted. by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, as* a material for lifebelts in 1901. It is a vegetable product, and the retention of ’its natural oil prevented, it was believed,'the absorption of water. In an interview published- in the Daily Telegraph in ' November, Mr George F. Slice, secretary of the R.N.L.I, mentioned ah il g advantages over other materials that it was lighter, had buoyancy,, would support a great weight in proportion to its v bulk, and' was friable. Kapok was adopted by the Board of Trade for the mercantile marine some years later. / At the Board of Trade inquiry into the disaster some of the,witnesses criticised the belts with, which; the members of the crew Were equipped.' The actual .belts , were afterwards submitted to severe tests, and expert witnesses, as a result, declared that their faith- in them was-unshaken. ' : '

« co l ll k’ * n **s findings, declared: _ Although the Board; of Trade and the Royal National.Lifebbat Institution have out. a very, large number of tests i? f various types? and patterns .of lifebelts, none of the tests reproduced the - conditions which prevailed when the •% Stanford was capsized and when ’ the lifebelts worn 1 ; by the crew appear to have absorbed an" extraordinarily arge amount of water in the .fabric, kapok, and (or) .pockets, - “it, therefore, submits for consideration whether turther and more, exhaustive trials and tests arc not necessary, and whether kapok is the best material'in use in all circumstances and under all conditions ”