AT the end of last year we began building the first of a new type of Motor Life-boat.

She will be by far the largest and most powerful Motor Life-boat in the Instituincreased tion's Fleet, and will, in fact, be the largest Motor Life-boat in the world.

This new type has been designed by Mr. J. R. Barnett, of Messrs. G. L.

Watson & Co., the Institution's Con- nonsuiting Naval Architect, in consultation pracwith the Institution's officials, and she will be known as the Barnett Type.

With a length of 60 feet, a beam of 15 feet, and a draught of 4 feet 6 inches, her displacement will be about 40 tons, and she will be fitted with twin screws, driven by two six-cylinder 75 li.p.

motors. These engines also are of a new type specially designed by the technical staff of the Institution for its Motor Life-boat Service as the result of an experience which now extends over! fifteen years, and it is intended to use this type of engine in all Motor Life-! boats. Mr. A. F. Evans, the Institution's Surveyor of Machinery, and the head of the department which has designed the new engine and supervised its construe- tion, describes it in a separate article.

With these two engines, developing 150 h.p. the Barnett Boat will have a speed of nine to ten knots, and her radius of action will be 100 miles, or 150 at cruising speed. She will not be rigged like the other Motor Life-boats, which have a standing jib, standing lug, and usually also a mizzen, but will carry simply a jury rig of one mast with a small triangular fore-lug and jib.

Compare her dimensions with those of the largest of the existing Motor Lifeboats, the one which was completed last autumn, and sent to Lowestoft, and the one now being built for Cromer. Those two boats have a length of 46 feet 6 inches and a beam of 12 feet 9 inches.

They are fitted with one 60 h.p. engine.

Their speed is 8'3 knots and their range of action is fifty miles. These figures partly show the great advance which is being made with the new Boat. I say partly, because the increase of speed from 8'3 to 9 or 10 knots gives no idea of theInstituincreased value of the new design of engine and the greater horse-power.

That value lies in the very great reserve of power which it will give, enabling the j Life-boat to maintain her maximum j speed under conditions of weather which j would materially reduce the speed of any I other Motor Life-boat.

The Barnett Boat will be of the nonsuiting j self-righter type, but she will be pracwith j tically unsinkable. Built almost entirely [ of a double thickness of teak, with light mild-steel bulkheads, she will have nearly 100 buoyant air cases, each of which will be virtually a water-tight compartment, so that she will have practically as many water-tight compartments as a modern battle cruiser. These water-tight j compartments, as I say, will make her j practically unsinkable, but a no less i important feature of the Boat is that each motor will be in a separate water-tight , compartment. It will, in fact, be possible for the wing compartments amidships, that is, the compartments next to the motors, to be flooded without any water reaching the motors themselves.

Mechanical power is to be used on board her wherever possible, and there will be auxiliary machinery consisting of an 8 h.p. petrol engine, with an air compressor and a dynamo. These will be used for working the bilge pump, winch and capstan and for supplying both a searchlight and the general lighting of the Boat.

In addition to the much greater speed, power, range and ease of working, which will be among her advantages over the other types, the Barnett Boat will also have a number of important accessories which they have not. She will be the first British Motor Life-boat to have cabins. Of these there will be two. One, provided with a stove and a lavatory, will be forward of the engine-room, and the other abaft. The two cabins will hold between them about fifty people, while the total number able to be taken on board will be 150, as compared with ninety in the 46 foot 6 inch Boats. Thus, for the first time, it will be possible to give at once to the rescued—who areoften in a state of exhaustion or complete collapse after long exposure—shelter, warmth and warm food.

Amidships there will be stretched a life-saving net, so that when the Boat is alongside a vessel high out of the water the people on board will be able, by jumping, to get into the Life-boat much more quickly and easily than at present is possible.

Like other Motor Life-boats the Barnett Boat will carry a line-throwing gun, and she will have, in addition, the searchlight already referred to, and a screen to protect the helmsman. These interesting features can be clearly seen in the accompanying drawing, made by Mr. Clatworthy of the Graphic, from the Institution's plans and drawings, in order to show the Boat's internal as well as external arrangement. The line-throwing gun is right aft, the search- light is by the mast, and the net is under the triangular sail, with the helmsman's shelter just aft of it.

The first Barnett Boat is being built for New Brighton, on the Mersey, where she will take the place of the Steam Life-boat the Queen. It is a station for which she is especially suited, because of the great volume of traffic, the outlying sand- banks to the Mersey, the strong tides and the long distances which frequently have to be travelled. It is hoped in the future to build Life-boats of this type for other stations, especially those where it is possible to keep Boats per- manently at moorings.

This new Boat marks a very great advance in life-saving work. She will be able to go to the succour of vessels far beyond the reach of any existing Motor Life-boat. But for every such advance in its power to save life the Institution has to pay. The New Brighton Life-boat will cost little short of £20,000, that is to say, twice as much as the largest Motor Life- boat that up to the present has been built..