By LiEUT.-CoMMANDER P. E. VAUX, D.S.C., R.N., Chief Inspector of Life-boats.

THEEE motor life-boats have capsized in the space of fifteen months. In each capsize lives were lost.

The St. Ives life-boat capsized on 31st January, 1938. She had rescued 23 men from a steamer which had stranded in a heavy surf. She was caught broadside on by a breaking sea at that moment of great danger when she had drawn clear of the wreck and was fully exposed to the seas, before her coxswain had had time to bring her head on to them. She righted herself at once and all her crew got aboard her again. Of the 23 rescued men, 18 were rescued for the second time, but five were drowned.

Two Capsizes this Year.

Then, on 23rd January of this year, the St. Ives life-boat (another boat of the same type as the first) capsized.

This time it was in deep water. She sheered as she came down the side of a big sea, and the next sea turned her over. She righted herself at once, her engine was undamaged, but her pro- peller was fouled. Because of that her crew could not get her under control again. She capsized three times and righted herself each time, but at each capsize some of her crew were lost. In the end she was washed ashore with only one man alive of the eight who had been on board.

The third capsize was on 22nd April of this year. The Cullercoats life-boat was completing an exercise launch in a moderate gale, with a heavy sea. The coxswain had brought her close in- shore to test her. She was caught broadside on by an, exceptional sea— two or three seas meeting and suddenly piling up into one—and the coxswain had no time to luff up to meet it. Of the ten men on board, six lost their lives.

The two St. Ives boats were self- righting; the Cullercoats was a Liver- pool boat, which does not self-right; but all three were of the light, shallow draft type, weighing, with crew and gear on board, about seven tons, and with a draft aft of 28 inches, built for launching off a carriage on the open beach.

It is inevitable that these three capsizes, coming within little more than a year, should cause fears about this light type of life-boat; but to see these three disasters in proportion, we must take them with the record of the type.

Including the three life-boats which capsized, there have been on the coast forty-three of these light boats, twenty- two of them self-righters and twenty- one Liverpool boats. They have been launched on service 439 times, and they have rescued 357 lives. That is an impressive record.

The boats which capsized were of a type proved in every sort of weather on hundreds of services. At the same time, it is true that if we could alter the coasts of the British Isles, so that at every life-boat station we could have deep water close inshore and could launch the life-boat down a slipway at all states of the tide, we should have only the heavy types, boats like the Watson cabin type, weighing twenty tons, with a draft of 50 inches. Since, however, we cannot alter our coasts the shallow draft type, which is light enough to be launched off a carriage or skids into the sea, irrespective of the state of the tide, is essential. Without it large parts of the coast would be unprotected.

The Problem of Weight and Draft.

Weight and draft are the great problems. The most difficult task which the Institution has had since, motor power was first used early in the century has been to design a type of life-boat which, even with the weight of an engine on board, would still be light enough to handle on our flat beaches and still of sufficiently shallow draft to enable her to be launched.off those beaches, and which would, at the same time, still be strong enough to stand the knocks which a life-boat must get. The Institution was experimenting for nine years with that problem. Until those experimentswere completed it was impossible to use motor power at a large number of stations.

The light type is essential. We cannot do without it, but can we improve it? Certainly we can. There is no finality in boat design, and our consulting naval architect and our technical officers are working hard on the problem of improving the stability and general characteristics of the various types of life-boat. They are never satisfied. No one can claim to have reached perfection. The sea does not alter. Man has not conquered nature. To save life it is necessary to risk life.

A Balance of Qualities.

The life-boat is a wonderful thing, but like any other type of craft it is a compromise.

Every type has some special quality.

The Thames barge, for example, is designed to take the maximum cargo; to work in shallow water; to stay up- right if aground. Hence, she has lee- boards and is hard chined. The sailing trawler has a low free-board for the easy working of her fishing gear. The racing yacht has a big keel to enable her to carry plenty of sail.

It is the same with all the different types of craft. Each is designed for some special purpose. And of all craft the life-boat is the most difficult to design, for her business is to go deliberately, and in the worst of weather, to positions which the seaman, with the best aids of navigation, spends his life afloat in endeavouring to avoid like the plague.

The life-boat must be strong enough to bump on an outlying shoal. ' She must be able to work in broken water on a lee shore. She may actually have to land on the deck of a ship- wrecked vessel, when there is no other way of taking off the crew. Her requirements, therefore, are legion, and for every quality added something has to be sacrificed, a price has to be paid.

The best we can achieve is that balance of qualities best suited to all the circumstances in which the life-boat will have to work and the weather which she is most likely to have to face.

Bearing in mind those facts, there are two important matters of policy to be considered for the improvement of the light shallow draft type. The first is the choice between single screw and twin screw. The second is the choice between the self- righting type and the type which will not right herself, but which is less likely to capsize.

" On the face of it, it would seem that two engines and twin screws must be twice as good as one; but this is not so. In return for the greater security which two engines and twin screws give, other things have to be sacrificed. The single engine, single screw boat is not only lighter by nearly half a ton, but the weight is more central and lower. The single screw being in the centre line of the boat, and therefore lower, gets a better grip of the water when the boat is rolling heavily. The single screw makes steering and manoeuvring easier. The single screw needs only one tunnel.

With two tunnels the boat has broader quarters and offers a little more surface to following seas so that she is a little more liable to broach to.

Twin Screw Instead of Single Screw.

For those reasons the Institution has, up to the present, built these light boats with a single screw, but every boat has carried a centre-board and a full set of sails so that, in the event of any failure of engine or screw, she could be got under sail. In theory that is sound; in practice there may be great difficulties. It was so in the case of the St. Ives life-boat last January. Four men were lost at the first capsize. When the life-boat righted herself, with her propeller fouled, the four still on board found it beyond their power to step the mast.

If we strike a balance of qualities, it is probably better to make these sacrifices I have mentioned in order to have a second engine, if one should fail, and a second screw, if one should be fouled.

For the future these light motor life- boats for launching off the beach will be built with two engines and twin screws.

Of the three motor life-boats which capsized two were self-righting and one was a non-self-righter. If all three had been self-righting it would have been asked at once why we did not abandon the self-righting type, justas after the capsize ten years ago of the Rye Harbour pulling and sailing life-boat, which was a non-self-righter, it was asked why were not all life-boats self-righting. But the arguments for and against the two types remain just the same.

The self-righting life-boat has the big advantage that she rights herself if she capsizes. But to get this quality she differs from the non-self-righting type in having more freeboard and higher endboxes at bow and stern.

That is to say she has the disadvantage of exposing a greater surface to wind and seas. Also her beam is less than that of the non-self-righting type, and the result is that she is not quite so stable. The non-self-righting type, being lower in the water, having a broader beam and having low endboxes, is easier to handle and is a stiffer boat.

But once she has capsized she remains bottom up.

For the first thirty years of the Institution's history there were no self-righting life-boats. For the next forty years they were nearly all self- righters. Then, in 1886, the disaster at Southport, when the self-righting life-boat capsized and did not self- right, led to the whole question being re-examined.* Since then the policy of the Institution has been to abandon the self-righting principle in the case of the larger types of life-boat, but to use it, though not exclusively, in the case of the smaller types. To-day, of the 162 life,-boats in our fleet, 125 are non-self-righting and 37 are self- righting.

The Record of Capsizes.

Since 1852 the Institution has kept complete records of capsizes. During those eighty-seven years, up to and including the two capsizes this year, there have been 90 capsizes of self- righting life-boats with a loss of 156 lives. There have been 10 capsizes of non-self-righting life-boats with a loss of 72 lives. No argument can be based on the fact that there have been nine times as many capsizes of self-righters as of non-self-righters, for the reason that during the greater part of that * The St. Annes life-boat, also a self-righter, capsized in the same service but what happened to her was never known for all her crew were drowned.

time there have been many more self- righters than non-self-righters in the fleet.

What is. interesting is the number of lives lost in relation to the number of capsizes. On four occasions self- righting life-boats capsized, but did not right themselves, and they lost 53 lives. In using the figures to compare the two types of boat it is fair to leave out those four cases in which the self- righters 'were not self-righteis. We get, then, these figures. In 86 capsizes of self-righters 103 lives were lost. That is little more than one life lost in each capsize. In 10 capsizes of non-self- righters, 72 lives were lost. That is over seven lives in each capsize.

Moreover, of those 86 capsizes of self- righters, 50 were without any loss of life.

Steady Improvement.

The choice between the two is largely a matter of personal preference. At the same time the Institution is steadily improving the self-righting type and getting rid of those points in its design which make it inferior to the non-self- righting. The first of the modern light self-righting motor lifeboats, after the building and testing of two experimental boats, was completed in 1929. She was 35 feet 6 inches by 8 feet 10 inches. As new boats of the type have been built we have increased the beam, first to 9 feet 3 inches, and then to 9 feet 6 inches. It will now be 9 feet 10 inches, only 5 inches less than the beam of the non-self-righter.

The free board of the deck has been reduced to the same as in the non-self-righting type. The height of the endboxes has been reduced by a foot. They still remain 3 inches higher at the bow and 7 inches at the stern than the non-self-righters.

To compensate for this loss of buoyancy above it will be necessary to have increased weight below in order to provide greater leverage to turn the boat over again when she has capsized.

We are proposing to use water-ballast, which is extra weight to the keel, added after the boat is afloat. It has long been used successfully in pulling and sailing life-boats. A self-righting boat with these improvements was laid down last year.In this way we hope in the end to have a light life-boat which will self- right if capsized but will not be more liable to capsize than the non-self- righter.

The Risk Always There.

But the risk of capsizing is always there. None of our heavy types has capsized, but that is not to say that they could not be capsized. It cannot be said of any boat, nor indeed of any vessel, that in no circumstances could she be capsized. The risk is always there; and it is necessarily greater in the types of life-boat which must not only be light but of shallow draft, in order to be launched off a carriage.

All that we can do—and it is being done—is to get such a balance of qualities in these boats as will make that risk as small as possible.

I do not think that I can sum up the problem better than by quoting what • Coxswain Henry Blogg, of Cromer— than whom no man has a greater experience or a finer record of life- saving—said after the Cullercoats disaster: "I have been a seaman all my life, and forty-five years of it have been spent as a life-boatman. From that experience I say it is impossible to guarantee any boat against disaster.

I have been lucky—never been in a disaster to a boat myself. One of our Cromer life-boats is the non-self- righting Liverpool type, the same type as the Cullercoats one that capsized.

The St. Ives boat was a self-righter.

That capsized, too. So what can you say? It does not matter what the type of boat is, you cannot insure against accidents. All depends on the force of the storm and the judgment of the crew.".