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The methods of work in the life-saving service have long been familiar, partly because at each of the recurring expositions of late years, the service has been represented by a model station and a crew which went daily through all the operations of shooting a line over a stranded ship, bringing a sailor ashore in the breeches-buoy or the life-car, and drilling in the non-sinkable, self-righting surf-boat.
Besides the apparatus already described, each station is provided with a kind of boat-car which has a capacity for six or seven persons, and is built so that its passengers are entirely enclosed, the hatch by which they enter being clamped down from the inside. When there are a great many people to be saved, this car is used in place of the breeches-buoy.
It was all right to swim the Hellespont on moonlight nights when the sea was smooth, but if he'd had any brains in his head he'd have rigged up a breeches-buoy for use in stormy weather and gone across in safety and style."
This was agreed to, although Perry protested that as the charts showed a life-saving station every five miles or so all down the shore it was a shame not to take a chance. "I've always wanted to be taken off a sinking ship in a breeches-buoy," he said. "Would you mind being wrecked in the daytime?" asked Neil. "I'd love to see you in a breeches-buoy, Perry, and I couldn't if it was dark."
The second mate roused the watch, who had apparently taken refuge in the forecastle from the storm; the sloop was hauled up under the bark's stern; a second line was thrown to Bowsher, and one by one we were hoisted, in a sort of improvised breeches-buoy, to the Onward's quarterdeck.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers: William Leroy Emmet, engineer with the General Electric Company. He designed and perfected the development of the Curtis Turbine and was the first serious promoter of electric propulsion for ships. Spencer Miller, inventor of ship-coaling apparatus and the breeches-buoy device used in rescues from shipwrecks.
Then we send over the breeches-buoy," pointing to a complete suit of india-rubber very similar in appearance to that used by Paul Boyton. "One man can be sent safely to shore in that. But we use the life-car most frequently." "A boat?" "You may call it a covered boat if you will. That life-car, sir, was invented by Captain Douglass Ottinger, and this is the first one ever used.
The wrecking of a passenger vessel was a much more serious matter than the destruction of a freighter, where there would only be the crew to bring ashore. The Huronic carried two hundred passengers and as it was impossible for any boat to get alongside of her to take them off, they all had to be taken ashore in the breeches-buoy or the life car.
Hinpoha exclaimed in dismay when the small cannon was brought out and aimed at the ship. "They're going to shoot the passengers!" she cried, clutching the Captain by the arm. "No, they aren't," the Captain assured her hastily. "They're going to shoot the line out to the ship. That's the way they rig up the breeches-buoy. Now you watch. I'm going to see if I can help.
One after the other the crew were taken ashore in this way, the life-savers hauling the breeches-buoy forward and back, working like madmen to complete their work before the wreck should break up. None too soon the last man was landed, for he had hardly been dragged ashore when the sturdy mast, being able to stand the buffeting of the waves no longer, toppled over and floated ashore.
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