40 years ago From THE LIFEBOAT of 1953 In an issue which reports the capsize of a modern fast lifeboat it is interesting to read the remarks of the then Chief Inspector of Lifeboats onthesubjectofself-righting and the design of lifeboats four decades ago: 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 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 lifeboat. That is to say she has the disadvantage 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...

For the first 30 years of the history of the Life-boat Service there were no self-righting lifeboats. In 1851 the first self-righting lifeboat 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 selfrighting lifeboat 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 inshore, 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...

... 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 seaworthy 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 that she is so constructed that it would be impossible to capsize her. All 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..