LOWERING BOATS AT SEA.

West Coast Times, Issue 2175, 19 September 1872, Page 2

LOWERING BOATS AT SEA.

Vice- Admiral J. C. Caffln writes to The Times .-—"lam induced to ask you to insert the following simple arrangements which I suggested to the Lords of the Admiralty, and for which I received their lordship's acknowledgments and thanks :— As the question affects the lives of seamen in the mercantile marine, as well as those of the Imperial navies of all nations, I submit it for insertion in your widely-circulated paper. It is too technical for the general reader; but any one •who has witnessed a boat lowered at sea,. or read the fearful account which appeared in your columns of the 19th March of the lowering of the second boat of the Ariadne, •will readily see the importance of lowering a boat so that it may touch the water on an even keel. As the boats' falls are at present lead this is accomplished with great difficulty, the falls being eased away independently of each other, and the men lowering not being able to Bee the boats for the bulwarks ; this difficulty, moreover, is enormously increased at night, and in the excitement occasioned by the cry of "a man overboard," and in too many cases the result is that the boat's bow or stern is lowered into the water while the other end is high up in the air, and the lamentable consequences such as happened to the cutter of the Ariadne follow. I speak feelingly, for to this day I am a sufferer from the effects of being overboard owing to a similar accident, which occurred to one of the quarter-boats of her Majesty's ship Flamer, in the straits of Gibralter, in the year 1833. Instead, therefore, of having the boats' falls treated as separate ropes, and lowered independently of each other, tlfey should be brought in as a single rope, and lowered by one or more men acting in conjunction, by which means the boat must go down on an even square keel, with the water. To do this, after the boat has been hoisted, and the falls stoppered outside, the boats' falls ehould be led through blocks or sheaves on the davits to sister-sheaves in the ship's side, half-way between the two davits. The falls should then be married and belayed to a oleat, and ooiled down ready for lowering. In hoisting boats in the navy we marry the falls bo as to bring the boat up square, and why not follow the same principle in lowering? The above practical suggestion is altogether distinct from any boat-disengaging apparatus, the importance of which cannot be overrated, although there are objections raised to those at present in use.