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Updated: May 7, 2025
On the 4th January, 1857, the Point of Ayr lifeboat, when under sail in a gale, upset at a distance from the land. The accident was seen from the shore, but no aid could be rendered, and the whole boat's crew thirteen in number were drowned. This boat was considered a good lifeboat, and doubtless it was so in many respects, but it was not a self-righting one.
A wreck had been seen about three miles off Dungeness, and the lifeboat at that place a small self-righting and self-emptying one belonging to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution put off, with eight stout men of the coast-guard for a crew. On reaching the wreck, soon after midnight, it was found that the crew had deserted her; the lifeboat therefore returned towards the shore.
Now, this was deemed a good lifeboat, but it was not a self-righting one; and two of her crew were seen clinging to the keel for twenty minutes, by which time they became exhausted and were washed off. Take another case of a non-self-righting boat.
This was not a self-righting boat, and it did not belong to the Lifeboat Institution, most of whose boats are now built on the self-righting principle. Moreover, the unfortunate men had not put on lifebelts. It may be added that the men who work the boats of the Institution are not allowed to go off without their cork lifebelts on. Take another case.
Immediately she righted herself, cleared herself of water, and was brought up by her anchor which had fallen out when she was overturned. The crew meanwhile having on lifebelts, floated and swam to the boat, caught hold of the life-lines festooned round her sides, clambered into her, cut the cable, and returned to the shore in safety! What more need be said in favour of the self-righting boats?
After the occurrence of that melancholy event, the late Duke of Northumberland who for many years was one of the warmest supporters and patrons of the Lifeboat Institution offered a prize of 100 pounds for the best self-righting lifeboat. It was gained by Mr Beeching, whose boat was afterwards considerably altered and improved by Mr Peak.
He first suggested in the year 1792 that an ordinary boat might be made self-righting by placing two watertight casks in the head and sternsheets of it, and fastening three hundredweight of iron to the keel. Afterwards he tried the experiment at Leith, and with such success that in 1810 the Society of Arts voted him a silver medal and twenty guineas.
I have now shown that the great qualities of our lifeboat are buoyancy, or a tendency not to sink; self-righting power, or inability to remain upside down; self-emptying power, or a capacity to discharge any water that may get into it; and stability, or a tendency not to upset. The last quality I shall refer to, though by no means the least, is strength.
And this is indeed the case; for when the force that sinks a lifeboat is removed, she rises that instant to the surface like a cork. In order to prove the value of the self-righting quality, and the superiority of those lifeboats which possess it over those which are destitute of it, we will briefly cite three cases the last of which will also prove the value of the self-emptying quality.
The means by which the self-righting is accomplished are two large air-cases, one in the bow, the other in the stern, and a heavy iron keel. These air-cases are rounded on the top and raised so high that a boat, bottom up, resting on them, would be raised almost quite out of the water.
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