FOR PASSENGERS’ SAFETY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 887, 3 February 1930, Page 11

FOR PASSENGERS’ SAFETY

RANGITANE FITTED WITH PATENT BOATS LEVERS REPLACE OARS The Rangitane’s lifeboats are fitted with propellers and handworked levers and are able to attain a speed of six knots. This is one of the most interesting features of the New Zealand Shipping Company’s latest motor-liner to reach Auckland. Her sister ships, the Rangitiki and the Rangitata, are also fitted with these new lifeboats. Not everyone is able to row a boat and it was found, when ships were wrecked, that some of the passengers were unable to give assistance. Consequently the rowing had to be done by the few who could row or the sailors, if any, who were in the boats. A man named Fleming evolved the idea of propelling a lifeboat with a small propeller, similar to that fitted to a motor-launch, rotated by the action of small levers worked by the passengers. Everyone can pull a lever backward and forward, and consequently everyone in the new lifeboat can take his or her turn in helping to drive it along. The Rangitane’s lifeboats each have 12 levers. Six passengers sit on one side facing one way and six on the other facing in the opposite direction. They all work their levers together, but the apparatus is so fitted that an even speed is maintained because the power from one side takes effect immediately after the other. Reversible gear in the bow of the boat allows it to be propelled ill any direction. Here again there is a distinct advantage over the boat propelled only by oars. Each lifeboat will carry 83 passengers and crew, and in addition to the mechanical propulsion is fitted with ,six oars for use in emergency. The old-fashioned lifeboat carried only 50 passengers and crew and was fitted wit'll 12 to 14 oars. The Rangitane’s lifeboats are controlled electrically and can be lowered into the water with the greatest possible speed. Should the electrical control be cut off, however, the boats can be lowered into the water by the sailors in three minutes. In an emergency the lifeboats on the Rangitane are lowered to the second deck. Here specially-arranged wire ropes pull them against the deckrails. These rails are in portable sections and open out at intervals to allow the passengers to enter the lifeboats over tiny gangways. There is no scrambling over the rails as in the less modern ships. The Fleming patent lifeboat is considered to be the most efficient of its kind yet invented. It is expected that ail liners in the future will be fitted with the new type of lifeboat.