Report of the Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade.

By GEORGE F. SHEE, M.A., Secretary of the Institution.

THE Court of Inquiry held by the Board of Trade into the wreck of the Rye Harbour Life-boat on 15th Novem- ber, 1928, when the whole crew of seven- teen men were drowned, reported that the Kapok Life-belts of the Crew ful- filled the purpose for which they were designed. At the same time it recom- mended that experiments should be made to determine if Kapok were, in fact, the best material to be used both for the belts issued by the Institution for the special conditions of the Life-boat Service and also for the belts approved by the Board of Trade for the general use of the Mercantile Marine.

The Board of Trade thereupon set up a Departmental Committee to inquire into the whole question.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir H. F. Oliver, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., was chairman, and Captain Howard F. J. Rowley, C.B.E., R.N., Chief Inspector of Life-boats, was appointed a member of the Committee.

The Report has now been published.

It has fully confirmed the Institution in its belief that Kapok is the best material, and that its present design of Life-belts, which was only adopted after the most careful experiment, and on which large sums have been spent, is, in fact, the best for the requirements of the Service. The following are the recommendations of the Committee with regard to the Institution's Life-belts : RECOMMENDATION AS TO SELECTION OF KAPOK FOR BUOYANT MATERIAL.

The Committee recommends that the buoyant material used for Life-belts in the Royal National Life-boat Institu- tion and Mercantile Marine Services should be the best Java Kapok. As investigations have revealed certain variations in the extent to which reputed Java Kapok is affected by immersion in water, attention is directed to the importance of maintaining strict supervision over the selection of the Kapok and the manufacture of the Life- belts.

COMPARISON OF KAPOK WITH CORK.

RESPECTIVE BUOYANCY VALUES.

From the point of view of buoyancy, Kapok when used in Life-belts has considerable advantages over cork.

The supporting force of Kapok is three and a half times that of cork.

NO ALTERATIONS RECOMMENDED IX LIFE-BELT COVER.

From the evidence afforded by the high performance of the No. 5 pattern R.N.L.I. Life-belts during its exposure to heavy seas for twenty-four hours, at the East Goodwins, the Committee is satisfied that the covering material used for this belt is admirably adapted for use in R.N.L.I. Kapok Life-belts, and do not recommend any change in its composition.

NO ALTERATION RECOMMENDED IN PRESENT DESIGNS OF LIFE-BELTS.

The Royal National Life-boat Insti- tution requires Life-belts which are for the use of able-bodied men of good physique, who are engaged in strenuous work while wearing them. Consequently, they must be of very strong, hard- wearing material to stand the usage they get in the Life-boats, and they must be so designed that they give the wearers as much freedom for their work as possible.

The R.N.L.I. Life-belts are not sub- ject to deterioration from considerable climatic changes, being only used in the British Islands. They are stored under good conditions in the Life-boat Houses and are seen and put on at each exercise.

They have not the disadvantage of being laid away for long periods.

As the Committee is satisfied that the approved designs of R.N.L.I. Life- belts do not exert undue pressure on the wearers, no alterations in the present designs are recommended.

NO ALTERATIONS RECOMMENDED IN EXISTING LIFE-BELT REGULATIONS.

The Committee does not recommend any alterations in existing R.N.L.I.

Life-belt regulations. The Committee is informed that in the case of the Royal National Life-boat Institution the Life- belts are carefully inspected half- yearly by the District Inspectors and that any found to be heavy, hard or worn are returned to store, condemned and replaced.

SUGGESTION AS TO TREATMENT OF LIFE- BELTS AFTER IMMERSION IN SALT WATER.

The Committee suggests that belts which have been immersed in the sea, or sprayed with salt water on Life- boat service, should be sponged with fresh water and then thoroughly dried in the air. Should the original dry weight not be recovered within 10 per cent, the pockets should be opened up and the Kapok carefully teased out.

It will be seen that in every parti- cular, as regards material, cover, design and regulations, the Court of Inquiry has expressed its approval of the Life- belts (No. 5) adopted by the Institu- tion in 1906, and modified in 1918, after the No. 3 belt, which had been made to meet the special requirements of the Board of Trade, had been issued to all Stations in 1917, but had been received with a chorus of complaints by the Crews, and had, consequently, been withdrawn wherever these complaints were maintained.

As pointed out in the March (1929) issue of The Lifeboat, the Rye Harbour Crew was one of several which at the time expressed their preference for the No. 3 (Board of Trade pattern) belt, and, therefore, retained this pattern ; and it cannot too often be emphasised that that pattern, while condemned by many Crews as uncomfortable and restricting freedom of movement, actu- ally gave a somewhat higher margin of buoyancy than the later No. 5 belt and, in the words of the original Report of the Board of Trade Inquiry into this disaster, " fulfilled the purposes for which they (the belts) were designed," i.e., " the purpose of keeping the head of an unconscious person from falling forward in the water, in addition to the purposes for wyhich the earlier patterns were designed." The Institution's Regulations already lay down that belts which have been immersed in salt water shall be dipped in fresh water, and the periodical examination of belts by the Inspectors of Life-boats ensures that any belts which may have become over-weight are returned to the storeyard for treat- Nment as the Committee suggest.

The public may rest assured that, as heretofore, no measure will be omitted which, in the opinion of the Committee of Management, and in the light of the exhaustive investigations which have preceded and accompanied the Kapok Enquiry, seems called for in order to ensure the utmost safety to the Crews.

The fact that Captain H. F. J. Rowley, C.B.E., R.N., the Chief Inspector of Life-boats, was appointed to represent the Institution on the Departmental Committee on Kapok, and is a signatory of the Report, is sufficient guarantee that the best technical advice will be at the disposal of the Committee in this, as in all other matters affecting the Life-boat Service.

The History of the Life-belt.

Thus, the Kapok Enquiry has supple- mented the verdict of the Board of Trade Enquiry into the disaster, to the effect that the Rye Life-boat " had proved herself a good sea boat on all occasions," and " had the full confidence of the Crew," and its expression of appreciation of the efforts of the Institu- tion to supply to the Stations boats and equipment of the highest efficiency in consultation with the Coxswains and Crews, and with the co-operation of the Board of Trade.

We think it will be of some interest to our readers to learn something of the history of the Institution's action in the matter of Life-belts in the past, and of the steps taken, since 1854, to improve its equipment in this highly important direction.

It is not a little remarkable that in this country the initiative in the matter of providing a Life-belt which would prevent persons shipwrecked from being drowned should have come from the Institution, and that the first satis- factory belt actually produced and generally adopted in 1854 was the result of the careful examination of, and experiment with, every form of belt, carried out by Captain (later Admiral) John Ross Ward, R.N., Inspector of Life-boats, as early as 1851. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a better instance of the beneficent working of a voluntary Institution, whose whole aim and object has been, from the first, to benefit humanity by the provision and maintenance of an adequate Life-boat Service. For it might well have been thought that in a maritime nation, whose wealth, commerce and Empire have been based on and developed through sea power, either the Government or those who were most closely associated, by personal interest and profit, with ship- ping and the service of the sea, would have given their earnest attention to the question of providing security against the many dangers to life which that service involves. Not so, however.

Both in the provision of the Life-boat Service itself and in nearly all the developments which have taken place in its improvement and in the machinery for Live-saving at sea, the initiative and, to a large extent, the actual means of safety have come from volun- tary sources, a fact worth bearing in mind in connexion with the sugges- tions which are sometimes made to the effect that the Life-boat Service ought to be provided and maintained by the State.

Captain Ward's Experiments.

The earliest steps taken by the Institution in connexion with the provi- sion of Life-belts are described in The Lifeboat, of December, 1852. They refer to the tests carried out with great care by the then Captain Ward, R.N., who had then just been appointed Inspector of Life-boats on the re- organisation of the Institution's service, which followed on the acceptance of the Presidency by Algernon, Duke of Northumberland, in 1851. It will be remembered that just before this time a terrible disaster took place at the mouth of the Tyne, when twenty out of twenty- four of the finest pilots of that port perished through the capsizing of the Life-boat. The tragedy aroused the widest sympathy throughout the nation, and had the effect of re-awakening the interest in the work of the Institution.

That interest had almost vanished under the stress of public anxiety and wide- spread distress that followed the Napoleonic Wars.

The first step taken by the new President—there had been none since the death of the Earl of Liverpool, in 1828—was to improve the existing type of Life-boat. With this object, he offered a prize of 100 guineas, which resulted in 280 models being submitted, the prize being awarded to Mr. James Beeching's design, subsequently modi- fied by Mr. Peake, of Woolwich Dock- yard, and one of the first tasks carried out by the new Inspector was to test a number of new Life-boats, which had been built as a result of the models submitted.

But the revival of the Institution's technical activities was not confined to Life-boats, and the article in the December, 1852, issue of The Lifeboat describes Captain Ward's experiments and tests with various kinds of Life- belts.

The Object of the Life-belt.

What, it may be asked, is, pre~ cisely, the object aimed at in a Life- belt ? It is, primarily, to enable an adult man, fully clothed, to float (in sea water) with his head and shoulders well out of the water. Now, a body which sinks in water obviously displaces a bulk of water equal to its own bulk.

If, however, the body floats, the bulk of water displaced by it weighs the same as the body itself. Clearly, then, the object to be aimed at in designing a Life-belt and fitting it to the body of a man is to increase the bulk of the man without materially increasing his weight.

Numerous experiments and investiga- tions have established the fact that a fully-clothed adult man weighs in water about 11 Ibs. and, as one of the objects of a Life-belt in the case of the Life-boat Service is to provide sufficient buoyancy to enable the wearer to support another man, one of the shipwrecked passengers who is being rescued, the buoyancy required should be at least 22 Ibs., and the Institution has always taken at least 24 as the standard aimed at.

Cork, Hair, Rushes or Air.

The article referred to gives a tabular statement showing the results of these tests, carried out with Life-belts made respectively of cork, of cork shavings, of hair, and with the buoyancy supplied by air. Three of the belts were made by Messrs. Carte, of Hull; one by Messrs, Silver, two by Messrs. Mac- intosh, one by a Mr. Edmiston, and one by Captain Ward himself. The article, which, although not signed, was probably written by Captain Ward himself, expresses a strong preference for cork, in view of the indestructibility of the material, although he points out that cork belts are generally made too rigid to allow a man the free use of his arms and muscles. He describes a jacket made of old bottle corks strung together with twine passed lengthwise through the centre as " the best adapta- tion of cork we have seen." He also notes that there are woods lighter than cork, such as the baobob (Adamsonia digitata) and the balsa tree of Peru ; but that neither of these woods is easily obtainable. He refers to the use of dried rushes for belts, but condemns them as, although very light at first, they cannot be depended upon, and absorb moisture unless enclosed in a waterproof covering. The objection to the air belt is the obvious one that a puncture would be fatal to it. Captain Ward, therefore, came to the conclusion that the cork belt was the best, although the cost was considerable, his own type costing 18s. 6d.

In view of the exhaustive discussion which took place at the Rye Harbour Enquiry, and also at the Kapok Enquiry, as to the weight of an adult man, fully clothed, in water, from which it appears that about 11 Ib. is the correct weight, it is very interesting to note that in these earlier days most of those who were suggesting a particular type of belt took a very high standard of weight, though the buoyancy provided by some of the makers would have proved quite inadequate. Thus, Messrs. Silver put the weight to be supported in the water as 20 Ib., Messrs. Macintosh as 21 Ib., and Captain Ward himself as 28 Ib.

In other words, Captain Ward's Belt would not only support the man wearing it, but would have supported another man whom he might be holding in the water in the endeavour to rescue him; and although in this article the standard aimed at is described as the buoyancy required for a man overboard with his clothes on, it seems probable that the aim was really to secure sufficient buoyancy to enable a life-boatman to support another man (a shipwrecked mariner) in the water.

Cork Adopted.

It is clear that Captain Ward was convinced, as a result of the experi- ments referred to, that a cork Life-belt, made as flexible as possible by being arranged in small vertical and hori- zontal sections, strongly sewn on to a stout linen or canvas belt, was by far the best adapted for the use of Life- boatmen, and, indeed, for the benefit of passengers and crews carried on ships.

The belt was accordingly carefully developed, and we find that at the Uni- versal Exhibition in Paris in 1855 one of the exhibits sent by the Institution was the " cork Life-belt as now supplied t ' the Crews of the Life-boats of the Institu- tion and others. Inventor, Captain J. R.

Ward, R.N., Inspector of Life-boats"; and The Lifeboat of October, 1856, con- tains an important article headed " Life- belts and Swimming," which informs the public, and especially the supporters of the Institution, of the steps that have been taken to supply a cork Life-belt to the crews. The article, which is very probably from Captain Ward's hand, again adverts to the different materials of which a Life-belt might be made, and rejects horse hair and dried rushes as being untrustworthy, although very light and giving a high buoyancy when they are new. The advantages of inflated belts are also dealt with again, but they are rejected as utterly unsuit- able for Life-boatmen, although perhaps not ill adapted for '' tourists and tra- vellers," to whom portability is an object of importance, as these belts can obviously be stowed away in a small space and, if properly looked after, should maintain their efficiency for a considerable period, always excepting the not unlikely contingency of their being punctured ! Captain Ward summarises his views as follows : " The advantages of cork as a material for Life-belts are its durability and its non-liability to in- jury from puncture, fracture, or damp, so that it will bear the rough usage of ordinary boat work. By being divided into many narrow pieces, it can also be made more flexible and yielding to the body of the wearer than an inflated belt. It also affords considerable pro- tection to the body against injury from a blow and is a preservative of its heat in cold weather. The only disadvantage of a cork belt is that from its greater weight it requires to be of a larger size than an inflated belt and . . . cannot be stowed away in a small compass when not in use." The article proceeds : " These belts of a new construction, designed by the Inspector of Life-boats, Commander J. R. Ward, R.N., have much greater buoyancy than any kind of cork belt previously introduced." They support a weight from 20 Ib. to 24 Ib., which is double the weight required to support a fully-clothed man with his head and shoulders well above the surface of the water.

Approval of the Crews.

It is unnecessary to describe the belt in greater detail, as it can be seen in the illustration. But it is interesting to note that the article from which we have quoted states that 800 of the belts had been supplied to the Life-boat crews during the previous three years, and that " they have given universal satisfaction to those who have used them." Moreover, the desire to benefit seafarers generally, and not merely Life-boat Crews, appears in this article and indeed again and again in the early issues of the Journal, and Captain Ward—for we cannot but think that he was the writer—says " we consider that it would be a great boon to the merchant seamen of our country if every merchant vessel were compelled by Act of Parliament to have on board as many of these belts as formed the number of her crew, so that in the event of their having to desert their vessel from wreck . . . each man might be supplied with an apparatus which, as it would make it impossible for him to sink, would doubtless be often the means of saving his life." The writer adds : "As the inventor of these belts has declined to make any profit by them," they are made very cheaply, and he suggests that it would be worth the consideration of any shipowner to supply them for his crew, since the satis- faction to him would be great if they were ever instrumental in saving the lives of those employed by him, while '' if they should never have occasion to be used he would be amply recompensed by the additional regard and respect which his seamen would entertain towards him on perceiving this instance of his humanity and kind feeling towards them." The cork belt thus designed and per- fected by Admiral Ward was the belt in general use on the coast from 1854 till 1904, and it was used not only by the Life-boat crews, but by the Mer- cantile Marine when the Regulations of the Board of Trade imposed upon the shipping community the precautions for the safety of passengers and crews so earnestly recommended in the 1856 Lifeboat. It was also used in the ships of the Royal Navy.

The Discovery of Kapok.

But about the year 1900 the attention of the Institution and the Board of Trade was drawn to Kapok as a material for use in Life-belts and Life-buoys which offered great advantages over cork as regards weight, buoyancy, the ease with which it could be adjusted to any shape and fitted to the body, and the protection which it affords against cold. W Kapok is a vegetable fibre found chiefly in the East Indies, the best quality coming from Java. It look8 very like cotton, but its follicles, which are really tubes closed at the ends—like hair and rushes—have a natural oil which makes them entirely non-- absorbent of water, while the air con- tained in these tubes and between the follicles themselves gives a very high buoyancy. To quote a paragraph from the Report of the Kapok Committee, " per pound (weight) of life jacket, the supporting force of Kapok is 3| times that of cork." When one remembers the objections which were always recognised as attach- ing to the use of cork—especially its [ hardness and the difficulty of wearing a cork Life-belt with any degree of com- fort—it will readily be understood that ' the advent of Kapok at once engaged the attention of the Institution's technical staff, and in 1904 Kapok belts were issued to two Stations for trial. The result proved very satisfactory, and in 1906 the belts were adopted and gradu- ally distributed to all the Stations. In 1908 the Board of Trade, which had been examining the material from the more general point of view of life-belts and buoys for the Mercantile Marine, began to sanction their use for that purpose.

From that time onward the Institu- tion has used these belts, which have proved very satisfactory, and far superior to cork.

Problem of the Unconscious Man.

In 1916, however, after the disaster to the Salcombe Life-boat, it was found that the Institution's pattern would not support an unconscious man in such a way that he floated with his face upwards and clear of the water ; whereas the Board of Trade belt had aimed at securing, and had achieved, this result.

As the Institution has always worked in the closest co-operation with the Board, especially in the experiments which both bodies have made with Kapok, and as, indeed, the belt then in use by our crews had been approved by the Board, the Institution at once pro- ceeded to carry out further exhaustive experiments and, finally, designed a belt which, in the opinion of both bodies, fulfilled the necessary conditions.

In March, 1917, a number of the new belts were issued to the crew. But it is one thing to produce the " ideal " belt and another thing to induce the Life- boat crews to wear it! The new belt was received with a storm of protest from " Land's End to John o'Groats " —to quote the late Captain Stopford Douglas, E.N., Deputy Chief Inspector.

It was condemned as being so cumber- some that men could not use their arms freely, and because, if properly adjusted, i.e., tightly enough, it interfered with the breathing; while, as a minor drawback, the " collar" at the back prevented the flap of the sou'wester from covering the neck, and acted as a cistern, which poured the water down the men's backs ! The Attitude of the Crews.

The Chief Inspector, Captain Thomas Holmes, R.N., endeavoured, once more, in consultation with the Board, to modify the belt with a view to removing tiese objections, and in March, 1918, the belt was issued with these further modifications. But, in spite of every effort, the majority of the crews absolutely refused to wear the belts, and some said quite plainly that they would rather be drowned. In these circumstances the Committee of Management decided in July, 1920, to ask the Board of Trade to recognise the fundamental difference between the conditions in which Life-boatmen carry out their indispensable national task and those which obtain in the case of men, women and children who are passengers, or, in the case of men, members of the crew of a merchant vessel. In the former case, the men go through the strenuous exertion of pulling heavy oars, hoisting and lowering sails, etc., and it is essential that they should have complete freedom for their limbs, as well as for the chest and throat. In the case of passengers, it is merely a case of providing such a belt as shall, without any assistance from the wearer, enable the person to float in the position afford- ing the utmost chance oj survival.

Tie Board of Trade readily agreed to recognise the difference, on the clear understanding that the crews were dis- tinctly informed of the additional buoyancy afforded by the Board of Trade belt, especially in the case of an unconscious man, and that they be given the choice as between the Board of Trade belt and that provided by the Institution. The choice was accord- ingly given to all the crews, and an over- whelming majority expressed their pre- ference for the Institution's belt, although a certain number elected to retain the Board of Trade pattern. The Institution was, however, not content to leave matters there, and the technical officers once more tackled the question of producing a belt which, while giving the indispensable freedom of action required by Life-boatmen, would go some way towards meeting the Board of Trade requirements. This was the No. 5 belt, which is the belt now in use all round the coast. The Rye Harbour crew was one of those who expressed a preference for the Board of Trade pattern, and it was this pattern which was worn by the crew of that boat when she was overwhelmed by disaster on the 15th November last ; and. as will be remembered, much criticism, possibly ill-advised, but per- haps excusable in view of the tragic circumstances and the uncertainty that prevailed, was directed against these belts, as being not only inadequate for the purpose for which they were designed but actually contributing to the death of some of the crew.

Tests of the Rye Harbour Belts.

The exhaustive experiments made by the Board of Trade and the Institu- tion, both independently and also in co-operation, proved that not only were the belts efficient for their purpose, but that, even after the tremendous pound- ing which they received in the terrible surf which beat on the shore on the day of the wreck, and which largely destroyed the natural buoyancy of the Kapok fibre, the belts still provided sufficient buoyancy to support the wearer. As was recognised by the chief witnesses at the Rye Harbour enquiry, the bodies, when they came into sight of the watchers, were supported with heads above water, though the unfor- tunate men had probably been beaten to death by the surf before they were swept ashore. No belt ever designed would have saved men subject to these conditions. It is, however, worthy of note that, while the belt which the men were wearing gave the additional chance of survival which was aimed at by the.

Board of Trade, the qualities which pro- duced this result made any attempt to swim extremely difficult, whereas the Institution's pattern does afford not only the required buoyancy, but ease of movement and power to swim with the ordinary breast stroke.

Viewing the whole of the facts as elicited in the Rye Harbour enquiry and the Departmental Committee on Kapok, it cannot but be gratifying to the supporters of the Institution to see that, as in the 'fifties and, indeed, from the earliest period of the Institution's activities, the technical advice at the disposal of the Committee of Manage- ment has always been of the highest character, and that, just as Captain (later Admiral) Ward, R.N., rendered signal service in the invention and im- provement of the cork Life-belt, and in the testing, development and design of the Institution's Life-boats, so the present Chief Inspector, Captain H. F. J.

Rowley, and his predecessors, Captain Thomas Holmes, R.N., and the late Captain H. Vincent Nepean, R.N., have given the most admirable service in developing, partly in co-operation with the Board of Trade and with the National Physical Laboratory, the present Kapok Life-belt, which has proved to be the best for its purpose, both in material, design, workmanship and use ; while the immense progress achieved since the adoption of the Motor Life-boat is a further proof of the high standard of technical knowledge and devoted service which the Institution has always had at its command in its Chief Inspectors and Consulting Naval Architects..