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154 A Test of Lundin Life Boats By -C..G.. Davis The development of the life boat has progressed through many stages up to the present day. Inventors, for the most part landsmen, who get their inspirations from crossing the Atlan- THE MARINE REVIEW a blunt-ended, almost flat-bottomed, life boat, so shaped that were she to be turned end over end--a condi- tion impossible owing to her exces- sive stability--she would always turn right side up. A practical test of this was made on Friday, March 13, 1914, at the April, 1914 hull, drives the boat six knots an hour. Her motor is belted to a dyna- mo and enables her Marconi wireless outfit, installed in a Balsa wood "silence calm" in the forward star- board end of her metal cabin, to senq messages a distance of 50 miles in the day time, 75 miles at night and tic on a liner or purely from imag- inary sea conditions, have flooded the patent office with plans of life boats and boat launching devices] ranging all the way from the prac- 'tical to the ridiculous. Nearly all of them have taken the sharp pointed double ended whale boat or dory model as the basis for their boat's shape. These] boats were ideal when the totalf ship's complement consisted of about 30 men, for enough of these boats could be conveniently stowed to carry all hands without overloading them. In those days, the days of the old sailing ships, a wrecked ship's crew might go for weeks and not be sighted by a passing ship and it was necessary to so model 'these boats that they could be either rowed or sailed to some land. But today the conditions are far different and the men who best realize this are the men who use the sea. . Even our trolley cars have had to be -remodeled with side door or pay-as- you-enter platforms to carry the crowds that use them. Trans-Atlantic liners have produced similar conditions on the sea and the thousands of souls that are now carried in one big liner call for a radical departure in the small boat, or life boat equipment of the ship. at ie a> cuirieus "fact that "a. prac- tical sailor--a ship captain with years of experience in all types of ships, should be the first man to depart from old sea traditions, discard the distort- ed sharp-ended life boats and design THE 24-FT. LUNDIN HOUSED LIFEBOAT THE 30-FT. LUNDIN HOUSED POWER LIFEBOAT dock of the Welin Marine Equipment Co,, Long Island City, builders ot these boats, before Gen. Geo. Uhler, supervising inspector general of the steamboat inspection service, and eight members of the board of supervising inspectors from the great lakes, west coast and gulf districts. The test occupied two days, Friday being given up to a practical test of the entire Lundin life boat system. The first test was that of a 30-ft. x 10- ft. Lundin decked life boat, equipped with a 24-H. P. four-cylinder Stand- ard motor enclosed in a metal com- partment, the top of which forms a seat. This motor with a propeller working in a tunnel in the boat's bot- tom, which does not extend below the COMPLETE LUNDIN SYSTEM ,to receive the messages at a much |greater distance. This boat was loaded with 50 {men whose weight only increased the boat's stability. Seventeen jmore men stood on the wide wooden guard above her Balsa wood side fenders and her free- board on the lee side thus loaded, as measured by David A. Heyser, clerk of the board, was 2 in. After this test the boat proceed- fed down the East river and ar- rived at the Marine Basin, Ben- sonhurst, to be in readiness to proceed to sea for the test on |the following day, in two hours. | The second test was that of da 24-ft. by 8-ft. Lundin housed-in ifeboat. After being lowered in- o the water, lines were passed Jaround her, attached to an elec- tric crane and the boat "par- buckled" upside down. She right- ed herself instantly and upon opening her doors and port lights not a drop' of water was found inside; 40 men then got into her and she was rowed up and down the East river with its swift tide running. The third test was that of the reg- ular Lundin decked life boats now _carried by many of the steamships. Two of them are kept stowed, nested one on top of the other, on the edge of the company's dock under a pair of Welin quadrant davits with all equip- ment of the regular Lundin system, such as tilting chocks and gripe re- lease gear, Mill's releasing gear, non- toppling blocks and falls of the Lun- din davit rope, rope so treated that it remain soft and pliable as it cannot IN OPERATION