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

33 from the land ; a shoal on which more fatal occurrences of shipwreck have taken place, than any perhaps in the world, and which it would be impossible for such boats to reach in a violent storm, with the wind blowing dead upon the shore, either by the power of oars, or under canvas. I have ever been most fully persuaded, that nothing would tend more to the interests of navigation than giving the properties of preservation to local boats, and thus entirely supersede the necessity of expensive life- boats : in proof of which, at the meetings of the Norfolk Association, I opposed their furnishing the boats just adverted to, from their great expense, their inadaptation to the service required of them, and also from well knowing the fact of a strong’ prejudice prevailing amongst boatmen against life-boats, particularly if not of a similar construc- tion with those they use, knowing they consider such construction only effective in tempestuous weather. My earnest recommendation was, to give the effectual properties of preservation, in a simple manner, to local boats ; by which means danger would be greatly dimi- nished, and the coast supplied with effective boats at a comparatively small expense, and their funds reserved to reward the exertions of their crews. Having attentively examined the construction of boats on all the coasts visited by me, I never yet have seen any that so nearly possess the properties required, or are calculated to be rendered effective life- boats in a prompt and simple way, as two classes of boats used at Yarmouth; the one called the beach ferry-boat, the other the beach yawl. The ferry-boat is used to weigh lost anchors, and other hazard- ous service in stormy weather, and unites the property of great buoy- ancy to the least liability of danger from upsetting. To render this boatan effective life-boat, it is only required, by giving to the inside an air-tight deck (about one foot from the floor) firmly fixed, to confine small air tight casks (like those used by the herring D