A Lecture, Or Essay On the most efficacious means of Preserving The Lives Of Shipwrecked Sailors And The Shipwreck

o GQ PREVENTION OF SHIPWRECK. Having concluded my observations on the preservation of ship- wrecked mariners when driven on a lee shore, I shall now proceed to offer practical suggestions on the subject of prevention of shipwreck by affording assistance to vessels in distress at a distance from the land. I look back on no part of my various designs and efforts for stopping the waste of human life, or preservation of property from shipwreck, with more satisfaction ; nor do I consider any of greater importance to the maritime world, according to the opinions of men best able, from their habits of life and experience, to judge of their utility, who ha-ve declared their opinion, 1 that enabling boats to go from a flat beach, in violent gales of wind, to the assistance of vessels in distress, would greatly tend to diminish the immense losses the shipping interest have hitherto suffered.’ I should observe, that if an anchor is laid out, with a stout rope attached to it, from the shore, for the purpose of hauling off a boat, the rope is imbedded in the sand ; this I have repeatedly seen tried, and the result was found to be invariably useless, from the cause just named. Mooring’ anchors have been recurred to in different ways, being sometimes placed at about eighty yards distance from each other parallel with the shore, as far as the range of a mortar will allow, and connected together with a strong rope or chain, suspended by a powerful buoy, to prevent it being chafed on the bottom, should it be rocky or imbedded in the sand, when such is the nature of the ground. On a grappling shot being thrown over the centre, and the slack of the projected rope gathered in, the grapplings catch, and afford a power for the people to haul off the boat. This plan was well adapted to some situations, particularly to steep shores ; but some more powerful agency became necessary for very flat beaches, as its utility depended upon the range of a shot, which, when attached to a stout heavy rope, of strength sufficient to haul off a boat, I found could not be projected a sufficient distance by mortars that are portable, and such as are distributed to the different stations. Another objection to this plan, practice pointed out as an insuperable difficulty to such application, in a violent storm, when of course a high and raging surf