Shipwrecked Sailors

Observation Post, Volume 1, Issue 3, 5 June 1942, Page 3

Shipwrecked Sailors

HAVE NEW DEVICE TO REPAIR MACHINE-GUNNED LIFEBOATS Ship’s crews and passengers cast away upon the high seas need no- longer be kept constantly at work baling out with anything from empty tins to hats to keep their splintered and bulletriddled boats from being swamped. A | new. plugging compound which com- i pletely fills any hole or crack, however , irregular, is now available for every , lifeboat in Britain’s Merchant Service. The compound, a fibrous material, has only to be kneaded for a minute or ! two to plug up the leak and make the ; boat seaworthy. It has a binding I effect, settling and' hardening in water.

ORDERS IS ORDERS. A very punctilious officer who .was a long way from the resources of civilianA ion sent one day for the sergeant and asked him how long it was since the men hud changed shirts. i “A month,” was the reply. “But the regulations say that the 'lien must change their shirts once a week, at least.” “They haven’t any shirts to change into, sir.” .“Then, damme, let them change shirts with each other.”

First experiments with the material were carried out by knocking a hole in a large barrel filled with salt water. The leakage was stopped at once. A “Saving Life at Sea” display now touring many big English towns includes eight model lifeboats and a glass tank filled with water in which the public tests the new compound by making holes in the models and plugging them up. Britain’s Ministry of War Transport and the Admiralty have both approved | of the device as a temporary repair | compound for use in the temperate .zone. Tests are at present being car- , ried out by the Royal Engineers as the compound may be most useful for bridgI ing establishments and pontoons. DoI minion, Colonial and Allied GovernI ments are also interested in it; no country, other than Britain, makes anything like it.