The New Motor Life-boat for Calais.

LIKE the Institution, La Societe Centrale de Sauvetage des Naufrages publishes in its second half-yearly Report for 1929 a preliminary survey of the activities and progress during that year, and we think it will interest our readers to have a brief summary thereof. For, although the French Life-boat Service was not established until 1865, it has, from the first, shown a vigour in action and an eagerness in progress that are eminently characteristic of a brave people which has made such notable contributions to the march of science, especially in mathematics, physics and applied mechanics.

The Society's latest and most powerful Motor Life-boat, bearing the glorious name of Marechal Foch, is to be placed at Calais. She is a 42 feet 6 inch by 11 feet 4 inch twin-screw twin-engine boat with a speed of 8£ knots. A full description of this important boat, with a summary of the'principles which the Society aims at in its programme of con- struction, appears in the Report under review ; but we-'C&n only note here the decision in future to provide Motor Life- boats of this and larger sizes with twin- engines, and, if possible, twin-screws, the single engine with single screw being confined, as in the case of the Institu- tion, to the smaller boats, which are provided with full sail power in addition, as it is not held to be safe to rely upon one engine only. The Marfohal Foch is due to reach her Station about the end of June. She will be carried on davits placed on a carriage resting on a trolley, which will move on rails by electric power. Twin-screw boats have been, or are being, placed also at Camaret, near Brest, at St. Carro and Dieppe.

The French Society has, for a long time, been faced with a special problem in dealing with the frequent wrecks, mainly of fishing vessels, which occur in the enormous area of shallows which cover the delta at the Bouches du Rhone. Vessels in distress in these waters call for the promptest action by Life-boats with a very small draught.

The Society is, therefore, building a light flat-bottomed boat, weighing a little under 4 tons, with a Castelnau motor, the propeller being so constructed that it can be raised when in the shallows, a device which the American Life- saving Service has long since adopted for some of the light Motor Life-boats launching off a beach. This boat will be placed at St. Louis du Rhone.

The Reibel Rocket Apparatus, a full account of which was given in the Report on the Second International Life- boat Conference, held in Paris in June, 1928, has greatly improved the means of rescue by this method, which is essenti- ally intended for use from the shore or from the decks of ships. This means of rescue is provided by the Society, who train the personnel. This personnel, however, consists of the Customs officers, who operate the apparatus on the whole of the French coast; and there is the same close co-operation between these officials and the French Life-boat Society as there is between the Board of Trade, which provides and has charge of the Rocket Apparatus on our coasts, and this Institution.

At the present moment the French Society has 108 Life-boats, of which 28 are Motor Boats. In addition, there are 422 Life-saving posts, of which 72 are provided with Mortars or Rocket Ap- paratus. The Society has assisted 1,898 boats and vessels, and has rescued by Boats, Rocket Apparatus and other means, over 28,000 lives since its foundation..