By Captain STENISBERG, Secretary of the Svenska Sillskapet For Kaidning Af Skeppsbrutne.

[This article, on the Swedish organiza- tion or rescuing life from shipwreck, which Captain Isberg has very kindly written for THE LIFEBOAT in English, should be read with particular interest for two reasons. Sweden is the only country which has both a State and a voluntary Life-boat organization. They are separate, but working together in complete harmony, the Chairman of the voluntary Society being a member of the Government depart- ment which controls the State Life-boats.

Moreover, the State organization is the older of the two, the voluntary Society having been formed nineteen years ago because it was felt that the State organiza- tion was not as complete as it should be.

The second reason which gives a special interest to the article is the fact that the formation of part of the Swedish coast makes it useless to establish there per- manent Life-boat Stations such as we haie in this ctuntry, and this part of the coast is protected by cruising Life-boats.— EDITOR, The Lifeboat.] THE same wave of humanity that caused the foundation of the English Life-boat Institution also brought the L'fe-boat idea to Sweden. Even in 1810 the Par- liament made a suggestion to the King that Life-boats of English construction should be procured and stationed in places where ships were frequently wrecked, but as the Parliament had not supplied any funds for the purpose, and, moreover, the Government thought that it would meet with difficulties in pro- curing the necessary crews from the very thinly-populated coasts, the proposal was refused. Although the idea was still prominent, there was nothing done for many years, during which period many lives were lost in shipwrecks, in spite of the courage and perseverance of the dwellers on the coast.

In 1852 the Royal Naval Society in Carlskrona became interested in the matter, and at a meeting of this Society Commander Gr. M. Hollander pointed out the necessity of erecting Life-boat I Stations, and also proposed that such should be erected at certain places on the south coast, the Sound, Halland, Bohuslan, and the Islands of Gotland and Oland. As a result of this proposal the Society wrote to the Minister of the Navy acquainting him with this neces- sity, and at the same time delivering drawings and models of Life-boats.

However, it was first in the Parliament of 1853-54 that a member of the House, Consul C. Booth, of Helsingborg, brought a Bill before the House that 100,000 Riksdaler Banco should be voted for the erection of as many Life-boat Stations as this fund would allow. The amount of money was granted, but before any- thing was done it was thought advisable to send Lieut. C. Kleman, of the Royal Navy, to Denmark to study the organiza- tion of the Danish Life-boat service.

Lieut. Kleman went to Denmark in July, 1854, and visited several Life-boat Stations, together with Mr. C. B.

Claudie, inspector of the Danish Life- saving Service, who not only most willingly gave him the information required, but also demonstrated the use of the Life-boats and other life-saving apparatus. On his way home, Lieut. Kleman surveyed the coast between Ystad and Crimrishamn, and the result was that he proposed that two Life-boat Stations should be erected, one at Sand- hammaren and one at Brantevik. Subse- quently, these two stations were built in 1855. Since that time the Pilotage Board, under whose supervision the Life-saving Service comes, has erected twenty-one Life-boat Stations, the last one being completed in 1907, but six of these have been closed as unnecessary.

It was, however, only the Pilotage Board which thought these six Stations superfluous. The seafaring men and the people along the coast were quite aware that still many more Life-boats were needed. After the terrible September storm in 1903, when the west coast of Sweden was strewn with wrecks, the fishermen of the little village of Stafsinge, rendered utterly incapable of offering assistance, were forced to witness a tremendous loss of life. To avoid this happening again, they formed a union! for the purpose of acquiring a proper Life-boat, and this union proved the seed from which the voluntary Swedish Life-saving Service has sprung.

Influenced by the terrible disasters of the preceding autumn, the Swedish General Shipping Society decided, at its Spring meeting in 1904, to form a committee for the purpose of increasing public interest in life-saving. This Committee started its work at once and found an open field for its exploits. Shipmanowners, underwriters, firms and private persons, showed their great interest with the scheme by giving large contributions to a Life-boat Fund, in consequence of which the Committee were able, already in 1906, to deliver a modern Life-boat, with carriage and a rocket apparatus, to the village of Stafsinge, for which the Stafsinge Society built a Boat-house.

The first Station was soon followed by a second one, which was the result of a volungolden wedding gift from twelve Swedish Lifeladies to King Oscar and Queen Sophie, and in 1907 the foundation of a third Station was laid. At that time the Committee, perceiving that the work iI was so extensive, thought a special society should be formed to continue the work. It, therefore, drew up a list of rules for such a society and also issued general invitations to a meeting in Stockholm in June, 1907. At this meeting the Swedish Life-boat Society was founded, but as an assistance to the new [ Society the Committee—whose Chair- Shipman is Civil Engineer A. Isakson— decided to continue its work.

The organization of the Society is very simple. The Board of Directors has its headquarters in Goteborg and consists| of twenty-five members, of whom twelve must be residents of Goteborg and the remainder residents of various other towns, by which means the Society can have representatives in different parts of the country. The Chairman is the Captain in the Pilotage Board, Commander Otto Stenberg. The Board of Directors has a paid Secretary, Inspector of Life-boats and Office Clerk, other j propaganda work being done by voluntary service. The larger part of the Lifeladies boat crews receive no salary, only the crew in the cruising Life-boats and the boats being remunerated for their sermasters and engineers in the Motor Life-vices, the latter, however, receiving only a very small amount. During drill and life-saving expeditions, however, the voluntary men are paid compensation for the loss of their usual day's work.

With the exception of this last year (1923), the Society has worked with such good results that it has been able to erect about one Station every year. The total cost of the erection of the sixteen Stations belonging to the Society is over 570,000 kroner (at pre-war rate of exchange, over £32,000). In addition to the actual Life-boat Society there exists a Society of women-workers, called " Life-buoys," because by means of money derived from bazaars and social gatherings they help the Society financially. To show the importance of these " Life-buoys," it may be mentioned that they have contributed about 97,000 kronor to the Society (£5,500).

The first Life-boats were constructed according to Danish drawings and models, the dimensions of which are 9-4 metres in length, 2'5 metres in breadth, and a moulded depth of 0'9 metres.

They are clinker-built, with stems, keels and sterns of oak, and timber and decks of ash. Through a system of aircases the boats are made insubmersible and a cork-fender runs outside, below the gunwale. The aircase, which is placed abaft the centre-board, can be filled with sea-water to be used as ballast when the boat is sailing. The oars, 5 metres long, are made of ash and are enginebalanced by a lead ring fastened just outside the handle. The boats, fitted out with, all necessary equipment such as sea-anchors, oil-spreaders, heavingcanes, etc., are mounted on transport waggons, constructed by the Society's inspector, Captain A. Viksten, and are manned by a crew of eleven. There are five boats built according to this description, four of which are stationed on the coast of Halland, and the fifth at Hoburg, the southern point of Gotland.

At Gfotska Sandon there is a sixth rowing-boat, but as only the lighthousekeepers —six men—are living on this little island this boat is of much lighter construction, and has an outside motor as an auxiliary to the rowing, but it has not proved very reliable sensitiveness to spray. owing to its strong representations were made, as soon as a reliable crude-oil motor could be obtained, that Motor Life-boats should be built, and in order to avoid costly experiments the Society made an application to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in London for the loan of its drawings and specifications. This Institution of long standing gave all the desired information and assistance most willingly and obligingly. As a result, it was decided that the English Watson type was not quite suitable to the Swedish coast, and therefore the Swedish boat-constructors were invited to build a boat with the Watson type as model, but modified to suit Swedish requirements.

Various suggestions were duly handed in, but none was accepted by the Judging Committee, which consisted of A. H. Lindfors, Professor in the Art of Ship-building, Wilhelm Lager, Civil Engineer, and S. Isberg, Secretary of the Society. However, the designs of one of the competitors, Jack Hutching Kay, was so well thought out that he was awarded the prize, and was commissioned to alter, according to the Society's directions, certain details of the Watson boat. The hull remained unaltered, but space was found for an engine-room, and also for a cabin to provide a shelter for shipwrecked crews, as the cold climate of Sweden demands. Although quite a lot of aircases had to be omitted, it was practically proved that the Boats were insubmersible. Even when the enginebalanced the alteration being consequence of the room and berth-room and 25 per cent, of the aircase compartments were filled with water the boat only sank to the corkfender and was still controllable.

Instead of the petrol-motors used in English boats the Swedish Society use crude-oil motors, chiefly made in danger of fire. The crude-oil motors take, no doubt, a long time to get started, but experience has proved that the motors are always ready to start when the boat has reached the water, which usually takes about ten minutes from the time the crew arrives. The motors in the modified Watson Boats are of 30 to 40 b.h.p., giving a speed of 7 to 8 knots. Besides the motor the Boats have a complete outfit of sails.

This type, of which the Society has six, has been tried in severe storms and has fulfilled its purpose wonderfully.

Thanks to their seaworthiness and their i reliable motors these Life-boats have! been able to aid ships stranded far away from the Stations. The Life-boat j Drottniiig Victoria made, for example, i a| voyage in stoim and darkness which took twelve hours, to save the crew of a German steamer. This fact is very significant in a country so thinly popu- lated as Sweden, where it is often diffi-icult to get together an adequate Life- iboat crew. In fact, the Society has in : some cases been compelled to abandon the thought of erecting Life-boat Sta- tions in places where they are necessary because it was impossible to find suffi- cient able men.

The coast of Bohuslan, between Goteborg and the Norwegian border, differs from the other coasts of the country. It consists only of rocks, and outside these are numerous islands which are often very precipitous and surrounded by deep water. A ship, during a storm apparaand high sea, striking such a rock or island, will immediately either sink or behave! i smashed to pieces by the sea, allowing no time in which to save the crew. On account of this, the Society has altered the organization of the Life-saving Service on this part of the coast. Instead of stationary Life-boats there are big cruising ones, which patrol outside the coast in stormy or foggy weather, to warn ships which are heading towards danger and to offer what assistance they can. By this means many ships and lives have been saved.

The Cruising Boats are quite different from the Watson type, but quite as good. They are 18'1 metres long and 5'25 metres broad, and they draw 2-25 metres of water. They are rendered practically unsinkable through a system of traverse and fore-and-aft bulkheads.

The motor for this type of Boat is of 60-70 b.h.p., which gives a speed of about nine knots, but usually they are sailing—and splendid sailing vessels they are. For the crew's comfort there are berths, and a little cabin for the master, in | which also is placed the wireless apparaand |tus, a useful means for saving ships. The i ordinary crew on these boats, of whichthe Society possesses two, consists of four hands, including the captain. The cruising Life-boats are stationed at Vinga, outside Gtoteborg, and at Karin- gon, some twenty miles north.

The Society has about 6,000 members, who pay a subscription of at least 5 kronor per annum. Another source of income is derived from the voluntary contributions, which every ship pays when loading or discharging in a Swedish port, which amounts to about 18,000 kronor per annum (£1,000). The interest on the capital is about 2,000 kronor, and the " Life-buoys " contribute on an average about 10,000 kronor (£550).

Besides the above-mentioned contribu- tions, the Society every year receives some casual contributions, so that the yearly income generally amounts to about 100,000 kronor (£5,600). From this income the Society was able to save about 20,000 kronor before the World's War, but nowadays it is hardly enough to cover the expenses.

The Swedish Life-boat Stations— State's and Society's—have together saved about 2,500 lives. Of these the Society's Stations have saved about 350. Besides this direct life-saving, the Society's Life-boats have stood by twenty-four ships in distress with crews ! totalling about 350 men. Twenty-four ships, with crews totalling about 100, have been saved through towing, and I eleven stranded ships, with crews total- jling about 50, have been got afloat.

j The cruising Life-boats also have assisted ! a large number of fishermen in different i ways, given the direction of places to ships in foggy weather, and carried sick persons to hospitals, etc.

To reward Swedish subjects, who, at the hazard of their lives have saved ship- wrecked crews, or foreigners who have saved the lives of Swedish sailors, the i Society has instituted a Life-saving I Medal. Finally, to persons, who have, ! in a high degree, shown their interest | in the Society's work, silver cups are given engraved with suitable inscrip- tions.

i The Society is under the patronage of I H.M. Queen Victoria, to whom every | service is reported. Her Majesty invariably shows her appreciation of the work by a letter of recognition to the crew, and at Christmas time she also presents gifts to the men of the various Life-boats' Stations.