A MODEL CENTRE-WHEEL LIFE-BOAT.
•r -t • . 1 Sydney Morning Herald.J Mr G. A. Green, of Sydney, has constructed a model, which is now on view at Greville’s rooms. The proposed boat is to be 60 feet long by 10 feet 6 inches beam and 7 feet deep, the designer has adopted an oval tubular form of the midship section, with easy tapering ends, the top and bottom being alike with this exception, that there is a tunnel from end to end in the lower half, one third its width, 8 feet 6 3-7th inches, its depth § feet, leaving one-third of the bottom in midship centre. By this form the buoyancy of each side of the botttom being placed so much from the centre of gravity of the whole, and the water passing through the tunnel when the boat has onward motion, although not being dead weight, gives a large amount of lateral bearing when the vessel sidewise meets a violent shock by a sea, and so gives greater buoyant stability than any other form, with the transverse displacement, on the same easy lines so essential to speed. The mode of propulsion is by a wheel, 6 feet in diameter, with feathering floats placed in midships, and worked by cranks, 6 on each side of the boat, \vith ample room for two men to work at each, which it is calculated will give a speed of over 9 miles per hour. The lower half at each side of the tunnel is s übdivided into air tight compartments the whole length of the boat leaving a passage 18 inches wide |ud 2 feet Q indies deep; this passage
is again subdivided by thwart ship compartments at every 3 feet 6 inches from the centre, anil it is in these compartmente that the crew sit to work the cranks to"the wheels. There is a rudder at each end, so that the boat never need be brought broadside to the sea, the only position in which a capsize could be effected. Altogether the centre-wheel life-boat is a most ingenious invention, and well worthy the attention of nautical men and others interested in preservation of life from shipwreck.
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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 820, 8 September 1870, Page 4
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363A MODEL CENTRE-WHEEL LIFE-BOAT. Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 820, 8 September 1870, Page 4
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