The First to Build a Lifeboat.

Western Star, Issue 2218, 1 July 1898, Page 4

The First to Build a Lifeboat.

About the year 1781 there lived In Long\cre a coachbuilder, Lionel Lukin b> name. This honest man, knowing veiy little of the sea (be was born and bad spent his youth at Dunmow, In Lssex). but hearing much of the great mimbei of lives lost upon it "by the oversetting and sinking of both sailing and rowing boats,” and being something of an inventor, gave up his spare time to the design of a boat which should be, as lie called it, “unimmorgible.’ The Prince of Wales, afterwards Neorge IV., not only encouraged bis experiments, but otteieu to pay the expense of them. So Lukin purchased a Norway yawl, and along the outer frame lie added a projecting gunwale of cork, 9m. amidships, and tapering off at bow and stern. Inside the boat be rigged a watertight compartment reaching Irom the gunwale to tHe floor. The little vessel was found to float like a cork ; so Lukin ha I las te,, it with an iron keel to give i( stability. Finallv lie lilted up two extra air oliamlJerH_one in the bows, and the other in the stern. The boat was now tued again, and found to be indeed “ nnimmergible.” . Lukin took out a patent for bis invention on the 2nd November, 1785, and the specification will be jound m the tliiiu volume of “ Repertory of Arts.” He now bad to press it upon the attention of the Admiralty and the Trinity House —with the usual experience, of course. The red-tape gentlemen would have nothing to do with it. They had never heard of a scientific attempt to save life at sea, and that was enough for them. A committee has been defined as that which has neither a body to Kick nor a soul to save. In spite of the Prince of Wales s interest, only one lifeboat on Lukin’s plan was used, and this by a private gentleman. the Rev. Dr. Shairp, of Bamborough, who sent an ordinary fishingcoble to he altered on Lukin’s plan. During the first year of its new career this boat was the means of saving several lives. Lukin retired from business in 1821, and went to live at Hythe, in Kent, where, ten rears after, he died. The inscription on his tomb in Hythe churchyard savs that he was the first to build a lifeboat.—From " The Story of the Sea.”