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 and of side or bilgeways attached to the keelway, and resting on the main axle, the boat's weight being entirely on the rollers of the keelway. Its leading characteristic is that, on the withdrawal of a forelock pin, the fore and main bodies can be detached from each other. The advantages of this arrangement are, that whilst the weight of the boat'when she is launched from the rear end forms an inclined plane by elevating the keelway, to replace her on the carriage she can be hauled bow foremost up the fore end or longer incline. The bilgeways 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 ropes rove through sheeves at the : rear end of the carriage, each 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 1 them afloat at once, with their oars in their ' hands ; by these means headway may be I obtained before the breakers have time to 1 beat the boat broadside on to the beach.