Ships' Boats. By Ernest W. Blocksidge. (Longman& 25s. net.)—This elaborate
treatise on the design and construction of ships' boats is written by a naval architect who has served on Lloyd's surveying staff. It is necessarily too technical to be discussed here, but we may commend it to the attention of shipowners and shipbuilders and officers of the merchant service. The Board of Trade was moved by the • Titanic' disaster, and by the commissions of inquiry which followed, to make elaborate new regulations for ships' boats, but it is far from certain that these rules have been or are observed in the spirit as well as in the letter. We notice that Mr. Blocksidge is careful to con- sider the arrangements for launching, which are not less im- portant than the construction of the boats. Very many lives
have been lost through neglect to provide proper facilities for lowering boats in case of accident at sea. But the difficulties are enormous. In a great ship boats have to be lowered from a height equal to that of a house of, say, four storeys, and all the time the ship may be rolling at fearful angles.
Previous page
