The want of a ready means of lowering boats from vessels in distressed
circumstances, has been exemplified with the most tragical results in
such cases as those of the _Orion_, _Birkenhead_, and _Amazon_. Mr W.
S. Lacon, late of the H.E.I.C.'s service, has invented a plan for
making them quickly available, which seems likely to be successful. It
was tried on the 5th August by the Regatta Committee at Folkestone,
with the approval of a great number of persons professionally
qualified to pronounce on the subject. The wind was blowing strongly
from the southwest, with a heavy surge running. This proved fortunate,
for the better testing of the efficacy of the system. In the first
trial, a boat was lowered from the steamer by one man, with several
persons on board, and alighted on the water, abaft of the larboard
paddle-box, with the utmost safety and apparent comfort, the tackle
being released momentarily by the weight of the boat's descent, the
vessel at the time steaming at the rate of 12-1/2 knots per hour. It
was afterwards hoisted up again by two men. At the second trial, the
boat was lowered and cleared from the ship by one man, with Mr Lacon
and three men on board, the vessel at the time maintaining full speed.
The same experiments were performed several times during the day, in a
similarly successful manner. The apparatus employed by Mr Lacon is
very compact and simple, being fixed under the deck-seats, so as to be
not in the least incommodious. In treating of this patent invention,
the _Liverpool Mercury_ says, Mr Lacon has succeeded in 'solving a
problem which has hitherto baffled the ingenuity of scientific and
practical men, and attaining the "_desideratum_ of lowering boats
evenly, and of rapidly disengaging the tackles," by a self-acting
contrivance. Mr Lacon takes as his principle the well-known axiom in
mechanics, that what is gained in power is lost in time; and although
he approves of the method at present in use, as being the best for
hoisting up boats: he (seeing that the hoisting need never be a
hurried operation) substitutes two single ropes or chains, which,
being secured to two broad slings passing round the body of the boat,
are then brought inboard on davits, and carried to two concave barrels
connected together by means of a shaft. The ends of the ropes or
chains are secured to the barrels in such a manner that they will
support any amount of weight until such time as the boat has reached
the water, when they will disconnect and fall away from their
attachment by their own weight, by which means he prevents the
possibility of a ship, in its onward progress through a rough sea,
dragging forward a lowered boat sideways, and capsizing or swamping
it. By means, then, of a friction-strap and pulley round the shaft,
one man is enabled to regulate the descent of the boat, which will go
down by its own weight; and by means of the parallel action of the two
barrels, he lowers both ends uniformly, and insures the boat falling
in a proper position on the water.'