A strange motor-boat, painted xed and blue, bulky in the beam, with a single mast and peculiar contraptions on her deck, came gurgling out of Cowes Harbour recently and later forged through Spithead at eleven knots, She was the William and Kate Johnston, the largest and most complete lifeboat in the world and the £20,000 pride of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
She is really and truly a wonder ship, fitted with every device man's ingenuity can conceive for fighting storm and saving life. Her length is 60ft., her beam 15ft. She is driven by twin propellers in protective funnels, and her engines are two cylinder 90 horse-power motors, The. engines are encased in separate water-tight compartments, but in their rigorous tests they were run with these compartments full of water for three hours and kept going full-speed all this time.
Forward and aft of the engines are cabins, each capable of holding. 25 people. One has a stove, and for the first time the rescued will have shelter, warmth, und food immediately they get aboard. The lifeboat can hold.150 persons in cabins and on deck.
The most. noticeable "gadget" on deck is a life-saving net of stout rope erected amidships into which people on ships high out of the water can jump for their lives with a reasonable chance of success.
There are also on deck a line-throwing gun with a range of 100 yards, a powerful searchlight, and a screen to protect the helmsman and the engineer at the motor controls—all "new developments.
In addition the boat has nearly 100 buoyant air cases; she cannot.capsize, and is practically unsinkable.
The William and Kate Johnston left Cowes for Worthing, the first stage of a 2,370 mile test-tour round Great Britain before starting serious duty in the Mersey at ight on.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.