It was in 1904 that the Institution made its first experiments with a motor lifeboat. Watson lived just long enough to advise the Institution in making them, but he did not live to see their success, It is interesting to look back and see how the problem of using motor power for the exceptional conditions Of lifeboat, work presented itself to the experithenters in those early days of the petrol engine. The engine had to be water-tight, but not air-tight. N had to be ap automatic as possible, and very simple to control, even by men who were not skilled mechanics and who would have. to handle it in the darkness of stormy nights, It had to be able to work smoothly ahd to lubricate itself with the boat standing on end.
Its weight should not interfere with the power of the lifeboat to self-right itself if it wanted to. Also, if the boat should heel over to capsizing: point, the engine should cut off automatically or else, when the boat righted herself, the ' engine would carry her away, leaving her crew in the water. Above all it should not interfere with the rowing or sailing qualities of the lifeboat, for, were the engine to fail, she would depend on her sails and oars.
That is an accumulation of problems that might well seem insoluble; but they were solved. Several lifeboats were converted to motor power, and four years later, in 1908, the first lifeboats to be built with petrol engines were completed. They went to Stromness and Stronsay in the Orkneys. Their records speak for themselves. The Stromness lifeboat served there for 20 years, and rescued nearly 100 lives. The Stronsay boat, first at Stronsay, then at Peterhead, and finally at Broughty Ferry, served for 26 years and rescued 168 lives, The problem of designing motor lifeboat must be launched off the beach. The great problem of recent years has been the designing of motor lifeboats sufficiently light to be launched in this way.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.