LIFE-BOAT TRANSPORTING-CARRIAGE AS ADOPTED BY THE ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION.

THE carriage consists of a fore and main body. The latter is formed of a keelway A, A, and of side or bilgeways B, B, in rear of the main axle, the boat's weight being entirely on the rollers of the keelway.

Its leading characteristic is that, on the withdrawal of the long forelock pin C, the fore and main bodies can be detached from each other. The advantages of this arrangement are that the weight of the boat when she is launched from the rear end forms an inclined plane by elevating the keelway, yet without lifting the fore body off the ground, whilst to replace her on the carriage she can be hauled bow foremost up the fore end or longer incline. The bilgeways B, B, are needed at the rear end, that the boat may be launched in an upright position with her crew on board; but they are not required at the fore end of the carriage. The boat is hauled off the carriage and launched into the sea by a rope at each end of the boat rove through the sheeve D, having one end hooked to a self-detaching hook at the boat's stern, and the other manned by a few persons on the shore, who thus haul the boat and her crew off the carriage and launch them afloat at once, with their oars in their hands, by which means head-way may be obtained before the breakers have time to beat the boat broadside on to the beach.