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Safety at Sea GOOD deal has transpired since A the reading of my paper before this Society in November, 1912. Principally the International Convention on Safety of Life at Sea has performed excellent work and made_ thoroughly practical suggestions and _ rules. In addition, the boat question, and _ sub- sidiary matters connected with it, have been attacked in a whole-hearted man- ner that promises well for a workable solution. The problems of an inner skin on the one hand, and of longi- - tudinal subdivision with access through the dividing bulkheads on the other, have been advanced by practical appli- cation on the largest scale. Fire-proof bulkheads above the "margin line" have been made the subject of an article in the International Convention; and the Aquitania stands as at least one instance of their practical application (see Mr. Peskett's recent Institution of Naval Architects' paper). I shall therefore re- strict my present communication to the discussion of .a few. matters which do not seem to me to have received quite sufficient attention. My earlier paper re- fers to several of them, and part of my present work will be to review my Position in relation to what has since transpired. The Inner Skin Take first the matter of an inner skin, which has obviously so much to recom- mend it. In discussing the advantages of this structural addition I suggested that: "A detail, worthy of some con- sideration, would be whether the connec- tion between the inner skin and the web-frames should not be rather slight, the inner skin being stiffened by inde- . pendent frames; injury to the outer skin and the web-frames would then not necessarily involve any part of the inner skin, which might, even with such seri- ous damage as the Titanic's, escape 1n- tact." The drawings which have ap- Peared in recent periodicals, representing the arrangement for the inner skin of the Britannic, do not show that the end T had in view has commended itself to her designers;- stringers of a very sub-- stantial character appear to connect inner and outer plating in a way which would make interaction certain under given conditions. I think the matter is eerie _, *Paper read at Japanese Institution of Naval Architects, Progress in That Direction as Indicated by a Japanese Professor By Prok EP, well worthy of further consideration in future designs. Another matter in my earlier paper has not at present been taken up either by the International Convention or, as far as I have seen, in the design of any modern merchant ship. This matter is the possibility, or rather the prac- ticability, of transvere bulkheads without water-tight doors. Dealing with a very limited class, I pointed out that: "In Atlantic ships, as exemplified by the Titanic or Mauretania, there seems no difficulty in arranging that each stoke- hold has its own bunkers; in such case the necessity for corporeal communica- tion along the level of the stokehold floor does not seem absolutely urgent." The practical difficulties that would arise from such an arrangement I know are very great; I endeavored to deal with them, The class' of ship, again, in which this would be even possible is a very small one, as counted by units. Measured by other standards it is, per- haps, the most important in the world; exceptional treatment would, therefore, appear to be not unreasonable. Results obtained in this very limited class might lead to the extension of the principle to other classes, but that does not call for immediate discussion. The value of water-tight: decks has received attention during the past year from many students of the general sub- ject. Mr. Hillhouse read a paper last June at the summer meetings of the Institution of Naval Architects, and in it used the words "Water-tight decks form an exceedingly valuable form of sub- division." In the discussion on_ this paper Sir Archibald Denny appears to have accepted the statement, but laid stress on some of the difficulties. My own contention a year and a half ago was as follows: "In collisions with other steamers the area of damage is not at all restricted to the underwater portion of the ship; the impact which might be expected to tear open the ship's side would also tear away a large portion of any deck near the water-line; the stringer-plate certainly would be carried away for practically the same length as the damage of the outside skin;; for that length, therefore, the transverse bulkheads would be called upon to play the same part whether the water-tight deck were fitted or not." That contention, I think, still holds ae Purvis, Tokyo Imperial University good. Mr. Peskett, in his recent Insti- tution of Naval Architect's paper deal- ing with the Aquitania, takes account of certain portions of deck as serviceable for the exclusion of water; but this he does to a very limited extent, and in view of other features of construction to which he attaches importance. Even then I do not think he meets the ob- jection which I have stated above; the onus of proof would still lie with him. The International Convention, in Article 30, calls for further study in ms and other matters. International Regulators Turning now to another of the Inter- national Convention's Reguleltions, a question is raised which is not, I think, solved in a manner entirely satisfactory. Article XV, paragraph 8 (a) provides as follows: "When the number of water- tight doors in the main transverse bulk- head at or about the stokehold level in the machinery space exceeds five, ex- cluding the water-tight doors at the en- trance of tunnels, all water-tight doors situated below the load water-line shall be capable of being simultaneously closed." (The context shows that they are to be closed by power). My objec- tion to the provisions of this article is the large number--five doors. There are many steamers in this and other parts of the world with the boiler-room bunkers far too small for their needs; a large cross-bunker forward of boilers, either permanent or reserve (sometimes both permanent and reserve bunkers), is absolutely necessary; to pass the coal to the boiler-room there is a door or doors which can be shut water-tight. In some steamers there is a passage or tunnel from the boiler-room bulkhead to a light bulkhead separating cross- bunker from reserve; one water-tight door is considered sufficient, and it is placed at the boiler-room end; the bunker and reserve bunker openings are closed by light plates only. Where there is no such passage, and the door in boiler-room bulkhead opens at once into the reserve bunker, little is done, in some ships, to keep the coal clear of the door and the door slides. While visiting one or two steamers on recent occasions J have asked the engineers in charge the question how long, in case of emer- gency, it would take to close the door --working, say, from the grating above