Lifeboat

For the 1944 movie, see Lifeboat (movie).

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A lifeboat is a boat carried on board a ship and designed to allow passengers to escape, or a boat kept on land or in a harbour to rescue people in trouble at sea. Lifeboats are also kept at offshore platforms. As such, it is an elaborate version of a life raft. Lifeboats were historically rigid structures built with highly buoyant materials. More recently however, life rafts are inflatable, equipped with auto-inflation carbon dioxide canisters or mechanical pumps, and split into partitions, so that they are much less subject to the adverse effects of exposure to sea water and sunlight. A quick release and pressure release mechanism is fitted so that the canister or pump automatically inflates the lifeboat, and the lifeboat breaks free of the sinking vessel.

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The first boat specialized as a lifeboat was tested on the River Tyne on January 29, 1790. William Wouldhave and Lionel Lukin both claimed to be the inventor of the first Lifeboat.

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Lifeboat related Images and Photos (experimental)

Lifeboat

The Lifeboat off Tynemouth Bay

The Return of the Lifeboat

The Launching of a Lifeboat