By Commander T. G. Michelmore, R.D., R.N.R.

Chief Inspector of Life-boats WHENEVER a life-boat of the type which cannot right herself is capsized the same questions are asked. "Why cannot all life-boats right themselves? Is it not time now that the Life-boat Institution had a fleet of nothing but self-righters?" Each time those questions are asked, and have to be answered. They were asked at once when the Fraserburgh life-boat capsized on the 10th of February, 1953. Here are the answers.

Every type of ship is designed for some special purpose. She has some quality essential for that purpose.

For that reason she is a compromise.

In order to give her the special quality needed something has to be sacrificed, the price has to be paid. That is the great problem of all ship designing.

What is true of all ships is specially true of the life-boat.

The Two Kinds of Life-boat There are two main types of life- boat, the self-righting life-boat, and the life-boat which cannot self-right, but which is much more stable. The self-righting life-boat, if she capsizes, will turn right way up in a few seconds. To enable her to do this she is given higher end boxes at bow and stern than the other type of life-boat.

That is to say, she has the disadvan- tage of exposing a greater surface to wind and seas. She has to be narrower, and for that reason she is more likely to capsize. That is the price which has to be paid for the self- righting quality.

The other type, being broader and having low end boxes, is easier to handle, She is more stable. She is less likely to capsize. But once she has capsized she remains bottom up.

In her again, as in the self-righting life-boat, the price has to be paid for the qualities which are given to her.

From Non-Self-Tighter to Self-righter— and Back Again For the first thirty years in the history of the Life-boat Service there were no self-righting life-boats. In 1851 the first self-righting life-boat was built and it was believed then that the problem of the life-boat had been solved. For the next forty years nearly all the life-boats were self- righters, except that at some stations on the east coast the men refused them.

They preferred a more stable boat.

They trusted to their own seamanship to keep her from capsizing.

In 1886, the disaster at Southport, when a self-righting life-boat capsized and did not right herself, led to the re-examination of the whole question.

It was then decided that the self- righting principle should be retained in the lighter boats working close in shore, and that for the larger types, which would have to go well out to sea, it would be better to sacrifice the self-righting principle and have more stable boats. That is the principle on which, ever since, the fleet of the Institution has been built. The Watson type designed then was the beginning of the modern life-boat fleet.

The experiences of the sixty-five years since that first Watson boat was built fully justify the decision which the Institution then took. In those years there have been something like 170 boats of this type in the fleet.

They have taken part in hundreds of services. Thev have rescued thou- sands of lives. And the Fraserburgh life-boat is only the second of the type to capsize in all those years. The first was the life-boat at The Mumbles which was lost in April, 1947.

The Figures of Capsizes Here are the figures of capsizes since 1852 when the first of the self-righting life-boats came on service. During that century 92 self-righting life-boats capsized and only 13 life-boats of the types which cannot self-right.

Today there are, in the fleet of 154 motor life-boats, 75 of the Watson boats, 18 Barnett boats, which are a development of the Watson type, and 54 others of different types which cannot self-right. There are only seven self-righting life-boats.

The self-righting principle is used only in the light types of life-boat, but while there are only seven self-righters there are 43 light life-boats, of the same length and weight, which cannot self-right. These are the Liverpool boats. At all stations where a light life-boat is placed, the crew have their own choice between the two types.

There are only seven self-righters because the life-boatmen themselves nearly always prefer the more stable boats.

In August, 1952, the self-righting life-boat at Bridlington capsized. She righted herself at once, but her crew have asked that they might now have a boat of the more stable type which cannot self-right. This has been given to them.

The Risk is Always There At the same time the Institution is steadily improving the self-righting type. It is getting rid of those points in its design which make it a less sea- worthy boat than the type which cannot self-right. We have, little by little, been able to increase the beam of the boat by a foot. We have, little by little, been able to reduce the height of the end-boxes. We have done this and still been able to keep the power to self-right. There is no finality in the design of life-boats.

We are always working on the problem of improving the stability of the boats.

But the risk of capsizing is always there. It cannot be said of any boat nor, in fact, of any ship, not even the Queen Elizabeth, that she is so con- structed that it would be impossible to capsize her. All that we can do, and it is being done, is to get such a balance of qualities in our boats as will make that risk as small as possible.

A Great Coxswain's Opinion The problem cannot be summed up better than by quoting what Coxswain Henry Blogg of Cromer said some years ago. No man in the whole history of the Life-boat Service has so splendid a record. He has won the George Cross and the British Empire Medal. He has won the Institution's Gold Medal for outstand- ing gallantry three times. He has won the Silver Medal four times.

No man has ever had greater exper- ience of life saving. He said: "I have been a seaman all my life and forty-five years of it have been spent as a life-boatman. From that experience it is impossible to guarantee any boat against disaster. It does not matter what type of boat it is, you cannot ensure against accidents. All depends upon the force of the storm and the judgement of the crew."* *A full account of the capsize at Fraserburgh appears on page 469, and of the Bridlington capsize below..